{"id":2080,"date":"2015-11-16T02:50:48","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T02:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=2080"},"modified":"2015-11-20T02:54:11","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T02:54:11","slug":"the-martian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=2080","title":{"rendered":"The Martian"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Martian<\/em> by Andy Weir<\/h2>\n

The club met on November 16th, 2015, to discuss \u201cThe Martian,\u201d by Andy Weir. Nine members\u00a0attended, all had started the book and 8 finished it. Six had read the book electronically. The book was\u00a0originally self-published in 2011 and became a hit on Amazon\u2019s Kindle, leading to a hardcover edition\u00a0published in 2014.<\/p>\n

Two members had seen the movie starring Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain, which was released in late\u00a0September this year. They agreed that the movie had stunning photography and recommended it to all,\u00a0including those who had read the book.<\/p>\n

All members liked the book although there were several mild criticisms (since this was a purely science-fiction effort) of the technology. For example, the reason Mark Watney was abandoned on Mars was a\u00a0windstorm that threatened to topple the escape vehicle. Readers doubted that a windstorm in the thin\u00a0atmosphere of Mars would be unable to generate enough force to do that. The statement that \u201cMylar\u201d\u00a0was conductive was incorrect, although Mylar is sometimes coated with conductive material. A\u00a0description of breaking glass in a faceplate was quite different from the way tempered glass actually\u00a0fails. But in general the technology was good enough to make the story enjoyable even to those inclined\u00a0to nitpick the technical details.<\/p>\n

Some commented that \u201cthis is a good book to read on a plane,\u201d supported by two who had actually read\u00a0it that way. Members enjoyed the problem-solving aspect, and some liked the psychology playing out in\u00a0the crew of the escaping ship and in the bureaucracy back on earth. They liked the portrayal of the\u00a0gigantic effort in supporting the mission and helping Watney survive long enough for a rescue attempt.<\/p>\n

Several members agreed that the style of reading journal entries became tiresome after a while, and\u00a0that the book was \u201ca long short story\u201d that was repetitive. Some commented on resemblance to\u00a0Defoe\u2019s \u201cRobinson Crusoe\u201d and the 1964 movie \u201cRobinson Crusoe on Mars.\u201d Others mentioned the\u00a01995 movie \u201cApollo 13.\u201d Another criticism was that there was \u201cnot much development.\u201d<\/p>\n

In summary, the group agreed that the book was well worth reading and the two who had seen the\u00a0movie recommended it highly.<\/p>\n

–Tom Sciance<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Martian by Andy Weir The club met on November 16th, 2015, to discuss \u201cThe Martian,\u201d by Andy Weir. Nine members\u00a0attended, all had started the book and 8 finished it. Six had read the book electronically. The book was\u00a0originally self-published in 2011 and became a hit on Amazon\u2019s Kindle, leading to a hardcover edition\u00a0published in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2080"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2082,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2080\/revisions\/2082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}