My Christmas with Andy Weir and the Martian

A book review might seem like a weird topic for a Christmas post but I promise it will tie in with the spirit of the day by the time you get to the end of this essay.

Back in 2011 Andy Weir wrote a debut novel titled The Martian that ended up becoming a major movie starring Matt Damon as a dorky botanist/astronaut that gets accidentally left behind on a mission in the year 2035. Here’s the official movie synopsis: “When astronauts blast off from the planet Mars, they leave behind Mark Watney, presumed dead after a fierce storm. With only a meager amount of supplies, the stranded visitor must utilize his wits and spirit to find a way to survive on the hostile planet. Meanwhile, back on Earth, members of NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring him home, while his crew mates hatch their own plan for a daring rescue mission.”

I don’t usually read science fiction but the book has stuck with me because not only does it have a fresh plot---well, not really, it’s a classic man-against-nature plot only on steroids---but it’s a nail biter that has an interesting back story of how Andy broke into the publishing world. He’d written other books before this one but couldn’t get a publisher interested so he tried another approach with The Martian. He self-published the story one chapter at a time on Amazon for ninety-nine cents each and sold 35,000 copies in three months which drew the attention of the publishing world. Mr. Weir ended up selling the rights to Crown for $100,000 and both the hardcover and the paperback editions made the New York Times Best Seller List. 

You’ve really got to admire people who believe in themselves and their writing (or whatever their chosen goal) to stick to it and be rewarded for their effort. The amount of research this guy did for this book is super impressive and the character he created was like a quirky metaphor for human endurance and the idea that you never give up even when you’re up against overwhelming challenges. Despite the fact that all the space science stuff that was way over my head, I truly enjoyed both the book and the movie and it’s become a wintertime ritual for me to reread the book. I’ve never reviewed it in my blog before now but three years ago I did briefly mention it when I wrote: “I kept thinking if an astronaut can spend over a year all by himself on Mars, with all the problems that came up, I could stand one more day of not having any human contact in a string of solitary days when I was snowed in and marathon reading. Aside from that the book had many funny moments and it blew my mind on how really, really smart astronauts and the people at NASA are.”

I should have named this blog post The Quote Laden Post because I’m going to end it by quoting the last paragraph of the book, spoken by the main character when he got back home to earth, after getting help from every space program around the globe---the whole world pulling together for one do-good cause. Somehow the quote seems fitting to use it as my Christmas greeting this year. In our world so full of division and discourse the author's message is hopeful and upbeat and I believe his conclusion is absolutely true. Andy wrote these words for his main character to say:

 “The cost for my survival must have been hundreds of millions of dollars. All to save one dorky botanist. Why bother? Well, okay. I know the answer to that. Part of it might be what I represent: progress, science, and the interplanetary future we've dreamed of for centuries. But really, they did it because every human being has a basic instinct to help each other out. It might not seem that way sometimes, but it's true. If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do. And because of that, I had billions of people on my side. Pretty cool, eh?"

Merry Christmas, everyone! ©

“Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere.

Duct tape is magic and should be worshiped.”

― Andy Weir, The Martian