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The Martian
self | 09/29/2015 | Textide

Posted on 09/29/2015 1:07:58 PM PDT by Textide

FReepers, I can't recommend this one enough. This book is phenomenal.

Here's an effort at a short summary: In the near future, an astronaut is presumed dead and left behind on Mars during a dust storm. Turns out he pulled through and has to figure out how to survive. NASA has several missions planned over the coming years so he meticulously plans and executes his survival with the hopes that the future missions take place.

What struck me was that he didn't feel sorry for himself. He conducted himself as a man and even had contempt for fate. He wasn't concerned for the environment or the emotions of loneliness. Instead the focus of the book is continuous engineering and problem solving.

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal the other day which stated that the author was glad that Hollywood didn't insert a love story into the movie. It's meant to be about man's triumph over Nature and the application of science to that end. The science is the drama, as the author says.

Matt Damon is a Left Wing Libtard, but I hope the movie coming out this Friday is a success. Ad Astra!


TOPICS: Astronomy; Books/Literature; Humor; Science; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: andyweir; mars; martian; themartian; watson
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To: Textide

Best book I read last year. Or this year. Everyone I’ve talked to loves this book. Hoping the movie doesn’t suck but even if it does, read the book, it rocks.


21 posted on 09/29/2015 1:26:19 PM PDT by JenB
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To: WayneS
No good. The Pirate Bay version will still have Matt Damon in it...

Yeah, but he won't be getting any money for it.

Watch the monkey dance for free!

22 posted on 09/29/2015 1:26:26 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: Textide

I read this also. Also thought very highly of it. An excellent piece of work.


23 posted on 09/29/2015 1:26:34 PM PDT by samtheman (2014: Voters elect Repubs to congress... 2015: Repubs defund NOTHING... 2016: Trump/(Cruz or Palin))
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To: Textide

Read it. Loved it. Passed it on to my son. Every
Now and then he says, “I’d love to find another book
As good as “The Martian.”


24 posted on 09/29/2015 1:27:17 PM PDT by Calpublican (Boehner Down! Lots more to go....)
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To: Textide

I respect the fact that it was initially a self-published book and that it sold enough to become a big-name-publisher title and eventually a Hollywood film. Imagination turned into piles of cash.

It is, in many ways good and bad, a novel that reflects our current state of mind and means of communicating. The intermingling of blog posts, limited narration and omniscient narration is clever at times but also a concession to our collective attention deficit.

Watney’s gallows humor is enjoyable at first and generates sympathy (as intended by the author) but after a while becomes tiresome and/or a bit too unbelievable given the dire circumstances. If Damon adopts his Jason Bourne obsessive demeanor given the isolation then perhaps the smart-aleck Watney will become a bit more likeable on film.

As a critic pointed out elsewhere, some do’s and don’t’s of fiction are trampled or ignored altogether, especially in Mission Control where characters are introduced and, at best, remain utterly static or, at worst, are forgotten altogether. The personalities and backstories of Watney’s crewmates are occasionally mentioned but ultimately left unfinished and unrelated to the story arc.

Robinson Crusoe has been told and retold countless times (e.g. ‘Castaway’) and a high-tech version can’t hurt even if the rather obvious denouement isn’t worth the suspense.


25 posted on 09/29/2015 1:28:35 PM PDT by relictele (Principiis obsta & Finem respice - Resist The Beginnings & Consider The Ends)
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To: WENDLE
I heard today the Mars has no gravity

All matter has gravity.

26 posted on 09/29/2015 1:29:01 PM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism. It is incompatible with real freedom.)
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To: LachlanMinnesota

Well said. My son recommended it to me and it resulted in several nights of short sleep as I stayed up reading. Good story, engaging challenges, reasonably realistic (or more so than many) in that not everything goes right. In fact a lot goes horribly wrong. Good solid themes of perseverance and self reliance. Some humor thrown in, and teamwork as crew mates risk it all for a shot a saving him.


27 posted on 09/29/2015 1:31:47 PM PDT by ThunderSleeps (Stop obarma now! Stop the hussein - insane agenda!)
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To: DiogenesLamp

“They don’t know if Mars has an Iron core, but it probably does. What it doesn’t have is a sufficiently strong magnetic field.”

Mars is basically a dead planet because its core has completely solidified, which is why it has no magnetic field, not to mention there’s no interior heat radiating out to help warm its crust. The slow motoring action of the solid Earth iron core surrounded by the molten mantle is what gives the Earth its powerful magnetic field.


28 posted on 09/29/2015 1:32:04 PM PDT by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: WENDLE

Newton would say Mars has gravity.

It may be less than what we experience, but it can’t be zero.


29 posted on 09/29/2015 1:35:23 PM PDT by lacrew
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To: lacrew

Rock Hudson proved that in “Martian Chronicles.”


30 posted on 09/29/2015 1:37:00 PM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks ("If he were working for the other side, what would he be doing differently ?")
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To: Textide

The Martian by Andy Weir Full audiobook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP1wd5D4g4U


31 posted on 09/29/2015 1:37:40 PM PDT by JoeProBono (SOME IMAGES MAY BE DISTURBING VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED;-{)
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To: Textide

I’m waiting eagerly for the movie!


32 posted on 09/29/2015 1:40:19 PM PDT by I want the USA back (Media: completely irresponsible. Complicit in the destruction of this country)
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To: JoeProBono

Man, 11 hours of listening. Would be good for a cross-country trip.


33 posted on 09/29/2015 1:43:02 PM PDT by Textide (Lord, grant that I may always be right, for thou knowest I am hard to turn. ~ Scotch-Irish prayer)
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To: Textide

The Martian - Andy Weir
Type: pdf

http://m.ebocoo.com/Add_ne.php?ID=1524


34 posted on 09/29/2015 1:43:48 PM PDT by JoeProBono (SOME IMAGES MAY BE DISTURBING VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED;-{)
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To: JoeProBono

eReader bookmark


35 posted on 09/29/2015 1:49:25 PM PDT by Sergio (An object at rest cannot be stopped! - The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight)
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To: WayneS

but the movie has Matt Damon in it

so is the movie about Global Warming or Fracking ?


36 posted on 09/29/2015 1:54:00 PM PDT by butlerweave
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To: DiogenesLamp

Centrifugal force is one aspect of gravity what the thing itself is no one agrees, except that the more mass a body has, the stronger the gravitational pull - Jupiter’s gravity is many time Earth’s.

Orbiting the sun has nothing to do with the strength of a body’s gravity. Mass seems to be the determinate factor.

Mars has weak gravity, and gasses escape it more rapidly than gasses in Earth’s atmosphere, however, Mars does have an atmosphere.

The recent mars/water hype from NASA centers not on the water which the media decided to focus on, but around the presumption that Mars suffered a catastrophic event which blew the atmosphere off. Some obvious evidence for some sort of catastrophe is a comparison of one hemisphere with the other - both are very different - one has many craters, the other only a few. in fact the hemisphere with many craters looks like it was hit by cosmic shotgun pellets. There are also a number of non-mainstream theories on how this might have occurred.

The reason the media neglect to mention the actual message NASA revealed is just that the very idea contradicts the steady state historical model the media favors - also admitting that major historical catastrophes actually happened could cause the same panic in people’s minds that the very thought of Republicans winning the Presidency, House and Senate produces in the media’s collective minds.


37 posted on 09/29/2015 1:54:38 PM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: Textide

Movie trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej3ioOneTy8


38 posted on 09/29/2015 1:58:26 PM PDT by Rio (Proud resident of the State of Jefferson)
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To: Textide

Curious about the flick. But I wish Ridley Scott had not cast ... Matt... Daa... Mon.


39 posted on 09/29/2015 1:59:32 PM PDT by Rummyfan (Let us now try liberty)
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To: WENDLE

Mars gravity is .38 that of Earth.


40 posted on 09/29/2015 1:59:35 PM PDT by PLMerite ("The issue is never the issue. The issue is the Revolution.")
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