Audio Book recommendation of the day ...

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The Martian

by Andy Weir (Author), R. C. Bray (Narrator)


"Remember Man Plus, Frederik Pohl’s award-winning 1976 novel about a cyborg astronaut who’s sent, alone, to Mars?


Imagine, instead, that the astronaut was just a regular guy, part of a team sent to the red planet, and that, through a series of tragic events, he’s left behind, stranded and facing certain death. That’s the premise of this gripping and (given its subject matter) startlingly plausible novel.


The story is told mostly through the log entries of astronaut Mark Watney, chronicling his efforts to survive: making the prefab habitat livable and finding a way to grow food, make water, and get himself off the planet. Interspersed among the log entries are sections told from the point of view of the NASA specialists, back on Earth, who discover that Watney is not dead (as everyone assumed) and scramble together a rescue plan.


There are some inevitable similarities between the book and the 1964 movie Robinson Crusoe on Mars, but where the movie was a broad sci-fi adventure, the novel is a tightly constructed and completely believable story of a man’s ingenuity and strength in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Riveting. --David Pitt "




My comment - Spellbinding and wonderfully entertaining story. The audio book is better than a movie. I was invested in the characters, fascinated by the science, amazed at the complex solutions to life threatening problems. Mostly I was just crazy about the main character, Mark Watney. His resilience, humor, ingenuity, humanness, and courage made him someone I actually cared about.


Warning - This book has swearing, sometimes a lot of swearing. There is also frank talk about human bodily functions. Aside from that it's G rated. Too bad they didn't make a second alternate G rated edition of the book toning down the bad words so that teens could read it, (kind of like they do with some music albums). This reminded me of the science fiction of my youth, and I just loved it. Highly recommended.


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