"The Martian" by Andy Wier (2011)

"You may be wondering how I'll store them.  I can't just pile them up; most of them would go bad before I got around to eating them.  So instead, I'll do something that wouldn't work at all on Earth; throw them outside."

Andy Weir started out as a computer programmer.  He's written a lot on the web, but his paper output consists almost entirely of The Martian, his first novel.  Despite his love of space travel he has a strongly developed fear of flying.

I'm assuming that most people are familiar with The Martian's plot.  The 2015 movie was a huge hit, thanks in so small part to Matt Damon's appearance as the story's protagonist, Mark Whatney.  Like most people, I saw the movie long before hearing of the book, and its "marooned on Mars" plot was obvious from the previews.

The book is competently written, and penned by an author who has a clear love of space travel.  The movie version is faithful to the book, though of course some of the more scientific aspects of the book had to be left out of the film.  Matt Damon's Mark Whatney is a lot manlier than Andy Weir's version, but the differences between the two versions are negligible.

Should you bother to read the book?  My opinion?  Probably not.  It doesn't offer much that can't be found in the movie, though of course those interested in the workings of solar cells, water reclamation devices, and jet propulsion will find more to like in the pages of The Martian.

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