Space travel and colonizing Mars and the moon are interesting concepts. We believe they will be colonized one day but until the we can do the next best thing and read novels about it. That is what The Martian by Andy Weir is about.
Mark Watney and his crew members embark on a month-long mission on Mars. However, things go wrong in six Mars days (days on Mars are longer) and Mark is impaled by an antenna and blown away from the crew’s vision. The crew believes Mark is dead and have to head back to earth due to a dust and wind storm.
As luck has it, Mark survives the injury and is left stranded on Mars. Now, Mark has to somehow survive on Mars and radio to Earth that he is alive. It is up to Mark to do all that he possibly can until NASA sends help and retrieve Mark before he dies.
The Martian is a great novel and that is why I was surprised nobody would publish Weir’s novel. Weir has a backround in computer science and did a lot of research on the novel which he started writing in 2009. Since nobody wanted to publish his novel, Weir decided to publish his novel online one chapter at a time.
His fans loved the book and at their request, he made it into a novel available on Amazon Kindle. The novel was sold for 0.99 cent and sold 35,000 copies in the first three months. That is truly amazing and proves a lot of publishers do not know what is a good book or not.
After the success of the novel on Amazon, Weir was approached by Podium Publishing and sold them the audiobook rights in early 2013. He sold the print right to Crown for an astounding $100,000 US dollars.
I really enjoyed reading The Martian and would definitely recommend it. It stands out in the crowded science fiction genre. But more than that, it feels real and authentic which I really appreciated.
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