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Audible has this side selection if you have a subscription active called "Included with Plus Catalog." I haven't pursued this before, but I did and then found "The Martian" by Andy Weir.
If you want this and have an active Audible subscription, it's available until September 3, 2021.
Anyway, no one told me to read and review this, but I thought I would. I heard many good things about this book, and I wanted to see how it was for myself, so I went and picked it up.
Let's start with the critiques. The writing style changes a few times in the story. It goes from a first-person narrative to a third person. Then later, it becomes a past tense a bit. I was confused slightly, but when a person reads this book, it somewhat makes sense. Even at times, there is an omnipotent narrative voice over the first person in pieces.
Now, that out of the way, I will go into what I loved about "The Martian" by Andy Weir. The Audible production of this novel was FANTASTIC! Will Wheaton? Really! That guy was great. I didn't think he did novels. He did so wonderfully at this one. I was so glad he was good at this because it made the complicated space and science terms sound normal and realistic. And I truly enjoyed his cadence as he read. He's not the king of other voices, the book was read in one voice and only one voice, so you had to follow along, but aside from that critique, I did enjoy myself.
Next, I loved the pacing and tension. Something always went wrong for the main character, but it was done beautifully that the tension was continued well. And yes, there were genuine moments of relief. "The Martian" is a master class on how to demonstrate character and dynamic tension simultaneously. This is tricky to do well, and this is done SO well. I enjoyed that. I loved everything about it. And the release of tension came both in dynamic and specific plot points designed to create them and came in the form of the character's interactions with the audience.
I liked that the majority of the book was written in the first person from the POV of the main character. I liked Mark. I wish I knew a guy like him, he sounds great, and though he suffered through some insane trauma, he's my kind of human.
I think this book is terrific, and I think that I like this kind of Sci-fi. I'm giving this a 92/100, and I think you should check it out if you haven't yet. Yeah, I know this came out a while ago, but after the year we have had folks, it's nice to hear a book about something like this, and it helped me get perspective back on what the world could be.
Enjoy!
