I'm sorry, said it before, but I got through about a third of the way through The Martian – thought it was awful. The formulaic (outline problem > propose solutions > solve problem)n. The prose couldn't have flatter if a hippo had sat on it to contemplate joining Weight Watchers. I didn't you know could make being stranded in Mars sound less exciting than spending a night a Basingstoke Travelodge but by god, this guy has done it. Is it too late to order a pizza? Let's review the leaflet. Hmm, ham and pineapple. I know I will try phoning Dominoes. Oh, a pizza has arrived. The main character seemed to have left his personality back on Earth. The interior lights were out and I wasn't sure anyone was home. Did anyone care about him? Did he care about anyone? He didn't seem to have actual life. Maybe he finds it under a rock later in the book. Perhaps he marries a one of those little robots we've left crawling around down there.
Science was off too. No knock-you-over wind on Mars for starters, and erm, you're not going to grow plants successfully like that. Blah.
FWIW the science is off in most SF. When it's way out hyperspace etc you just sit back and enjoy the ride, when it attempts to be a bit closer to reality people stick pins in it. If Jim Lovell's book Lost Moon bore an SF label people would be picking at it.
I thought the bloke a wee bit too serendipitous but all it all it was a good yarn and had a few good chuckles in it.
Yeah but, there's reams of technical description, and that kind of problem solving is the grist of the book, so it ought to stand up to scrutiny. I can suspend disbelief about hyperdrives and the like because it's a device that nudges a plot where it needs to go, how it works is generally not integral to the plot. Unless it's a book about hyperdrives. Which sounds pretty dull. Unless they're like the one on our mothership which went wrong and turned everyone on subdecks 1829-345G through H inside out. It's still a bit weird down there and they never did get rid of the smell.
Anyway, it's not for me to dictate what others enjoy (I made that mistake when I tried to prove that Dan Brown's
Inferno was actually readable and people that said otherwise were just being intellectual bullies, and as a result ended up mentally soiling myself) but I don't get the hype about this book and the comparison with
Robinson Crusoe is a bit cheeky, since Defoe wrote a classic novel where you cared about Robinson, and there was tension and characters, and entire thing is memorable. Everyone remembers the footprints in the sand.