The Martian

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

A mission to Mars. A freak accident. One man’s struggle to survive. From the author of Project Hail Mary comes “a hugely entertaining novel that reads like a rocket ship afire” (Chicago Tribune).

“Brilliant . . . a celebration of human ingenuity [and] the purest example of real-science sci-fi for many years . . . utterly compelling.”—The Wall Street Journal

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE

“As gripping as they come . . . You’ll be rooting for Watney the whole way, groaning at every setback and laughing at his pitchblack humor. Utterly nail-biting and memorable.”—Financial Times

ANDY WEIR built a two-decade career as a software engineer until the success of his first published novel, The Martian, allowed him to live out his dream of writing full-time.

He is a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of such subjects as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. He also mixes a mean cocktail.

He lives in California.

“Brilliant . . . a celebration of human ingenuity [and] the purest example of real-science sci-fi for many years. . . . Utterly compelling.”—The Wall Street Journal

“As gripping as they come . . . You’ll be rooting for Watney the whole way, groaning at every setback and laughing at his pitch-black humor. Utterly nail-biting and memorable.”—Financial Times

“Terrific stuff, a crackling good read that devotees of space travel will devour like candy . . . succeeds on several levels and for a variety of reasons, not least of which is its surprising plausibility.”—USA Today

“An impressively geeky debut . . . the technical details keep the story relentlessly precise and the suspense ramped up. And really, how can anyone not root for a regular dude to prove the U-S-A still has the Right Stuff?”--Entertainment Weekly

“Gripping . . . [features] a hero who can solve almost every problem while still being hilarious. It’s hard not to be swept up in [Weir’s] vision and root for every one of these characters. Grade: A.”—The AV Club

“Andy Weir delivers with The Martian . . . a story for readers who enjoy thrillers, science fiction, non-fiction, or flat-out adventure [and] an authentic portrayal of the future of space travel.”—Associated Press

“A gripping tale of survival in space [that] harkens back to the early days of science fiction by masters such as Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.”—San Jose Mercury News

“One of the best thrillers I’ve read in a long time. It feels so real it could almost be nonfiction, and yet it has the narrative drive and power of a rocket launch. This is Apollo 13 times ten.”—Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Impact and Blasphemy

“A book I just couldn’t put down! It has the very rare combination of a good, original story, interestingly real characters and fascinating technical accuracy . . . reads like ‘MacGyver’ meets ‘Mysterious Island.’”—Astronaut Chris Hadfield, Commander of the International Space Station and author of An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth

“An exciting, insightful science-based tale [that] kept me turning the pages to see what ingenious solution our hero would concoct to survive yet another impossible dilemma.”—Terry Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of The Sword of Shannara

“The best book I've read in ages. Clear your schedule before you crack the seal. This story will take your breath away faster than a hull breech. Smart, funny, and white-knuckle intense, The Martian is everything you want from a novel.”—Hugh Howey, New York Times bestselling author of Wool

“The Martian kicked my ass! Weir has crafted a relentlessly entertaining and inventive survival thriller, a MacGyver-trapped-on-Mars tale that feels just as real and harrowing as the true story of Apollo 13.”—Ernest Cline, New York Times bestselling author of Ready Player One

“The Martian” by Andy Weir is a science fiction survival novel about Mark Watney, an astronaut who is accidentally left behind on Mars after a violent dust storm forces his crew to evacuate. Believed dead by the rest of the mission, Watney wakes up alone on the planet with limited supplies, damaged equipment, and no immediate way to contact Earth.

At the beginning of the story, Watney is a botanist and engineer on NASA’s Ares3 mission, which is meant to be a short stay on Mars. A sudden storm changes everything. During the emergency evacuation, a piece of antenna debris pierces Watney’s suit, and his crew loses sight of him while trying to survive the storm themselves. Because he does not answer and there is no sign that he survived, they leave Mars, and Watney is stranded in the Hab with only whatever the mission left behind.

The novel becomes a detailed account of Watney’s struggle to stay alive using science, logic, and stubborn optimism. He records video logs as a way of keeping himself sane and documenting his situation, often using humor to deal with the impossible circumstances. His first challenge is simply making the habitat livable for the long term, since he knows rescue will take a long time. Food is the biggest issue, so he uses his botanical knowledge to grow potatoes in Martian soil, turning the Hab into a small farm. He also finds a way to create water by breaking down leftover hydrazine fuel, showing the kind of practical inventiveness that drives the whole story.

Watney’s survival is not only about food and water but also about isolation. He has no way to communicate with Earth after the antenna system is damaged, so for a long stretch he is completely cut off. That silence makes the novel especially tense, because readers know he is alive while NASA does not. When NASA eventually notices signs that Watney has survived, the story expands beyond Mars and begins following the rescue effort on Earth and aboard the Hermes spacecraft, where the rest of the crew must continue their journey home while learning that their crewmate may still be alive.

From there, the novel alternates between Watney’s daily battle to survive and the larger mission to bring him back. NASA scientists and engineers race to design rescue plans, but every option is difficult, expensive, and dangerous. The stranded astronaut has to keep solving one problem after another, including failures in equipment, food shortages, and the limits of his habitat’s life-support systems. The rescue effort becomes a global event, but the heart of the story stays with Watney’s practical determination and refusal to give up.

One of the reasons the novel is so compelling is that it turns scientific problem-solving into suspense. Watney is constantly calculating, testing, fixing, and improvising, and every solution creates a new risk. His background as both a botanist and engineer matters at every stage, because the book is built around the idea that knowledge, patience, and creativity can become survival tools. Even when situations go wrong, Watney keeps moving forward by focusing on the next immediate task instead of the huge danger ahead.

The tone of the novel is also a major part of its appeal. Although the situation is life-threatening, Watney’s voice is funny, blunt, and optimistic in a way that makes the book feel human rather than coldly technical. He jokes even when he is in serious danger, which keeps the story from becoming too bleak. That humor works because it comes from a character who is exhausted, scared, and lonely but still refuses to be defeated.

By the end, “The Martian” becomes a story about resilience, teamwork, and the power of staying calm under impossible pressure. Watney’s survival depends on his own mind, but also on the efforts of many people on Earth and in space who refuse to let him be forgotten. The novel is ultimately about one person’s fight to endure the Red Planet long enough to come home, and it turns that fight into a gripping and surprisingly hopeful story about human ingenuity.