{"id":354,"date":"2014-07-05T22:28:21","date_gmt":"2014-07-05T22:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ackgame.com\/onwords\/?p=354"},"modified":"2014-07-05T22:28:29","modified_gmt":"2014-07-05T22:28:29","slug":"review-of-the-martian-by-andy-weir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.ackgame.com\/onwords\/review-of-the-martian-by-andy-weir\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of <em>The Martian<\/em> by Andy Weir"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/18007564-the-martian\" style=\"float: left; padding-right: 20px\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The Martian\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/d.gr-assets.com\/books\/1377707689m\/18007564.jpg\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/18007564-the-martian\">The Martian<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/6540057.Andy_Weir\">Andy Weir<\/a><br \/>\nMy rating: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/show\/987090582\">5 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This is sci-fi as it was meant to be. Not the fantasy goblins in space garbage that passes for sci-fi. This hovers on the edge of plausibility while mixing suspense with a sardonic wit. An astronaut is marooned and left for dead on Mars early in a Mars mission due to a storm, while his crewmates are forced to leave to return to Earth. By fluke serendipity he survives the storm. From there, it&#8217;s Robinson Crusoe on Mars. He&#8217;s lost communication with Earth because the main radio dish was blown away. Through sheer ingenuity, brilliance, and a lot of science, he devises a plan to survive until the next Mars mission, four years later. But that plan fails. That&#8217;s all I&#8217;ll say about the plot.<\/p>\n<p>The research and knowledge that went into the writing of this book is mind-blowing. It&#8217;s a tribute to NASA and all the scientists, engineers, and visionaries of all types around the world who have made our tentative ventures into space a reality. There will be readers who get tired of all the technical explanations. Even I did as it neared the end, as the human drama was so compelling. But I&#8217;m enough of sciencist &#8211; not a scientist and certainly not a Scientologist &#8211; but a believer in and fan of science &#8211; that I just lapped it up. I&#8217;m also just ignorant enough to be unable to see what are no doubt some major holes in the science so I didn&#8217;t get turned off by any such quibbles. Just suspend your disbelief a smidgen and enjoy the ride.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/list\/12975428-russell-atkinson\">View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Martian by Andy Weir My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is sci-fi as it was meant to be. Not the fantasy goblins in space garbage that passes for sci-fi. This hovers on the edge of plausibility while mixing suspense with a sardonic wit. An astronaut is marooned and left for dead on Mars [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Review of The Martian by Andy Weir - OnWords<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.ackgame.com\/onwords\/review-of-the-martian-by-andy-weir\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Review of The Martian by Andy Weir - OnWords\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Martian by Andy Weir My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is sci-fi as it was meant to be. 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