The Martian: A Book Review

AN END-TERM REQUIREMENT IN ENGLISH 002

SUBMITTED TO MR. KEVIN ARMAN RAMOS

BOOK OVERVIEW PAGE

Name: John Patrick M. Lenguaje Section: STEM A9

John Patrick Lenguaje | Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

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Title of Book: The Martian Total Pages: 279

Author: Andy Weir Nationality: American

Setting: Place: Acidalia Planatia, Mars

Characters: Protagonist:
Mark Watney - When I initially meet him at the beginning of the
novel, he's your normal, ordinary botanist and nothing uncommon.
Before the novel was finished, anyhow, he's a legend. Although Mark
didn't want to be stranded on Mars, he made the best of the
circumstance he was given, utilizing his identity, insightfulness, and
assurance to fight out of an impossible dilemma.
Antagonist:
Mars – The Martian or Mark Watney needs to survive as he is left
out by his other crewmates and thought he was dead. He needs to fight
the circumstances while waiting for the next Ares 4-man mission after 4
years.
Initial Action: It all starts with Mark Watney in a Log Entry: Sol 6 saying that
he didn’t die on Sol 6. Certainly, the rest of the crew thought he did,
and he can’t blame them. The Ares programs. Mankind reaching out
to Mars to send people to another planet for the very first time and
expand the horizons of humanity. There are two successful man
missioned to mars and it was Ares 1 and 2. Ares 1 crew did their
thing and come back as heroes and Ares 2 did the same thing. They
travel and landed on Mars safely and go back to Earth and got firm
handshake and hot cup of coffee. Then the Ares 3, it was Mark
Watney’s mission where Commander Lewis was in charge. The
mission is designed to handle sandstorm gusts up to 150 kph.
Houston got understandably nervous when they get whacked with
175 kph winds. After an hour of sustained wind, NASA gave the order
to abort their mission. They need to go out in the storm to get from
the HAB to MAV. That is going to be risky but they don’t have any
choice. Everyone did it to MAV except from Mark Watney. Their main
communication dish, acted like a parachute, getting torn from its
foundation and carried with the torrent. Along the way, one of those
long thin antennae slammed into Mark and it tore through his suit
like a bullet through butter. He felt the worst pain of his life. Mark
vaguely remember having the wind knocked him out and his ears
popping painfully as the pressure of his suit escaped. After the storm,
he awoke to the oxygen alarm of his suit
Rising Action: The Martian occurs when Mark Watney gets stranded on Mars
and he is forced to survive with insufficient supplies. The rising
action proceeds when he is desperately running out of food and
NASA noticed that he is still alive. NASA use a lot of money that they
should use on different projects just to send supplies and food to
Mark that he really need. While going in space the shuttle that is
built to send him supplies and food exploded and the plan that was
formed to save the Martian is ruined. So now with no food and
supplies or shuttle coming, Mark must utilize the greater part of his
skills and knowledge to have the capacity to survive. This features
the rising action since it makes tension and made to comprehend
what he will do immediately and, in the event, that he will have the
capacity to survive. Moreover, the moves that Mark makes so as to

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 survive pave the way to the Climax.
Climax: The Climax in The Martian takes place when pathfinder, the
communication device that Mark was using in order to talk to NASA
has one of it’s wires fried and loss it’s capability to transmit
messages over such extreme distances. This occurred when Mark
was working on the rover to prepare it for his final trip on Mars to the
Ares 4 site when he set a drill was so much more powerful than
pathfinder the amount of electricity it transmitted when the wires
touched was enough to cause the wires of Pathfinder to fry. This is
the climax because it forced Mark Watney to finish the modifications
to the rover and go on a 3200-kilometer journey without the help of
NASA. Also, this is the part when Mark is changing his ways in order
to get to his destination.

Resolution: When the rest of the Ares 3 crew members are asked to turn
around to go back and pick up Mark Watney. The crew was sent a
message telling them that Mark was still alive and that he was
surviving on Mars. The crew were the told that they could either
come back home and leave Mark or turn completely around and go
back and get him. In a unanimous vote the crew decided to go back
and get him. This was very dangerous move because it forced them
to spend more than 500 days in space. They were forced to leave
their families and friends and turn around to save their last crew
member. Also, they had to receive a food shuttle automatically which
once again went wrong causing 2 of the crew member to go out of
the spaceship and get the shuttle manually.
Ending: Yes, successfully, it was the Ares 3 crew who got mark safely.
They brought mark back to Earth and Mark became a teacher and
taught kids about space. Also, he told what his experience is was like
up on Mars. Home sweet home. He didn't do it on his own, however.
NASA helped. The China National Space Administration helped. Most
importantly perhaps, the Hermes crew helped, risking their lives to
bring their friend home. Everyone could've saved a ton of time,
stress, and money if they had simply gone about their lives without
paying Mark any mind. Instead, countless people put their lives and
well-being at risk to bring one-man home.
Conflict: Man Vs Nature - After getting stranded on the planet after a failed
space mission, Mark is forced to battle the harsh Martian
environment as he scrambles to figure out how to get back home.

Theme: Sacrifice - The novel is loaded with cases of individuals giving up

something important to them for others, regardless of whether we're
discussing NASA's massive budgetary penances or the remarkably
individual ones of the Hermes crew. There may be some parallel
universe out there where Mark stalls out on Mars and everybody is
excessively busy playing Candy Crush, making it impossible to see,
however we can ensure that is not occurring here. On the off chance
that anything, the novel demonstrates to us that the desire to
surrender our prosperity for others is hard-wired into our DNA.
Isolation - In the novel, we look as this brave botanist is stranded on
Mars, isolated from everybody and all that he holds dear. It's a life
loaded with risk, catastrophe, and panic, yet the thing that stings the
most are his feelings of unhappiness. At times they influence him to
feel somewhat insane. In some cases, they simply influence him to

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 feel sad. At others, they influence him to wish he had a volleyball for
a closest companion. As we watch him adjust and battle back against
these dim feelings, in any case, we take in a great deal about the
capable impacts isolation can have on even the most grounded
minds.
Personal Evaluation
I enjoyed reading this book because:

First of all, it is all about Science. Andy Weir makes everything so believable. I
really could picture Mark figuring out how to grow crops using his own dirt as
fertilizer, and how to create his own water using his engineering and chemistry
knowledge. best of all, he made me feel like understood everything he was saying.
Yes, his plans may not work out in real life, but he didn’t make me feel like it when I
was reading.

Explain how this book made you laugh, smile, cheer, scream, or cry.

At first, the book made me laugh because of the humor of the protagonist Mark
Watney. Personally, I’d find it pretty impossible to be so funny and sarcastic in his
situation, but his ability to be like that is what makes him so lovable. He combines
logic and science with humor and heart to become one of my favorite narrators in
recent history. Then it made me cry when all of the possible ways that he can escape
from Mars and go back to Earth. The part when all of his planted potatoes died.
What came as a surprise in the novel?

It made me surprise when he possibly grows potatoes on Mars. I thought that

is impossible, but when the time a tiny leaf gets up from the soil it made me surprise
and inspired. It only means that nothing is impossible.

What character would you like to be in this book and why?

If I could take part in this novel, I would choose to be Mark Watney. Cause I
really want to experience how was it like living in Mars. Also, I just wanted to test
myself of how I am going to handle this kind of situations. Lastly, I want to inspire
other people, like Mark Watney, he proves that nothing is impossible, everywhere and
every time there is a way or solution to problems.
Recommendatio ☑ Highly Recommended for Reading
n:
☐ Recommended for Reading

☐ Not Recommended for Reading

MY BOOK REVIEW

Quite some time ago, I read Andy Weir’s novel, The Martian, who is an American

novelist whose debut novel The Martian. The Martian follows the lives of Mark Watney an

astronaut on the Ares 3 mission to Mars is left stranded because of a storm. His crew thought

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he was dead after seeing his suit lose pressure and had no choice but to leave him.

Unbelievably, he survives the storm only to realize that he has been left behind. he is forced

to have some enough food and find his way to survive until the next man mission to Mars, the

Ares 4 which is planned after 4 years. The novel is incredibly scientific and filled with

calculations and accurate assumptions about Mars. As a botanist and an engineer, it doesn’t

take long for Mark to become the first farmer on Mars. Using the potatoes, mark prepares

them for planting. By cutting each potato into segments with two eyes each he carries Martian

dirt into the Hab. He then mixes the dirt with his own waste to encourage the growth of

bacteria for his potatoes. As well as food, Mark needs to increase his water, so it’s not long

before he passes hydrazine over a catalyst to help produce water for his survival.

Andy Weir has created a realistic character that has attitude and is wise cracking.

Although no one can relate to being stranded on Mars, his emotions can be related to. He

admits from the beginning he is screwed but doesn’t bow down to defeat for long before

establishing an escape plan. Not forgetting I probably laughed at this book more than I should

have. I’m sure your thinking I’m sadistic in laughing at a man stranded on Mars but Mark

Watney is one hilarious character. Even during the times when it looks impossible he had

some witty comeback or hilarious remark. Without a character like Mark Watney, this book

would have been a scientific look at survival on Mars; instead what we have is a realistic look

at an intelligent human being stranded on Mars. Apart from the few questionable scientific

interpretations, this novel really does capture what it would be like to be the only person on an

inhabitable planet. This novel has come at the right time when NASA plans to reach Mars by

2030 and no doubt this will create some positive press for them and give them that nudge

towards the necessary funding they need, that being $80 to $100 billion over the next 20

years. Not to mention the movie released starring Matt Damon as Mark Watney will play a big

part in hitting an audience of film enthusiasts about a trip to Mars, even if they don’t read the

book.

I would recommend this book to all audiences as it captures not just the mindset of

space travel fanatics but also that of scientists, adult readers and those looking for a unique

and capturing plot. I would love to see a follow up novel and see how Mark Watney adapts to

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being back on Earth and what direction his life takes. I know Andy Weir stumbled into

becoming an author as The Martian was only designed as a project on his website, being

released for free one chapter at a time, but fingers crossed it inspires him to pick up a pen

and keep writing in the hard science fiction genre.

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