Here's what you need to know about this book: An early plot point depends on the hero's ability to do stoichiometry. If you are curious how this could possibly be, you might enjoy The Martian. If you are wondering what stoichiometry is (or if you are hiding under your desk from the horrible flash-backs to high school science) The Martian is probably not for you.
The Martian is every nerd's secret fantasy. You see, like most people, we like to imagine that we are action heroes. The problem, of course, is that most of us know that there is no parallel universe in which we are even remotely close to being able to climb buildings, dodge bullets, or win fist fights with bad guys. But you know what? We can do stoichiometry. We understand ASCII. We can rig power supplies up to connect to things they weren't meant for. We can actually do a lot of things--just not the kind of things that are usually helpful in life and death situations. Until The Martian. Now, we are the action heroes. It is obscure science knowledge to the rescue all the way, and it is glorious.
A note about the movie. This book didn't translate very well to the big screen. They tried, and they did okay. Half the fun of the book is its sense of humor. The movie nailed that. But the other half is the gory science details of how a person would actually survive on Mars, and...I guess that just doesn't make for very compelling television...Maybe there is a reason most cinematic action heroes climb buildings and dodge bullets instead of solve chemistry problems.
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