The Martian – Andy Weir
Well, this is an absolutely outstanding book. I couldn’t put it down, which lead to me going to sleep well past 3 am every night of my work trip to New York, the return flight from which I’m currently on. I’d been recommended Andy Weir’s The Martian by several friends (and even a few coworkers,) and the synopsis piqued my interest. An astronaut is thought dead, and left on Mars to fend for himself. Talk about an elevator pitch, right? Anyway, the thing that impressed me so much about The Martian was its seamless interweaving of character and plot with hard science fiction the like of which I’d never read before. For those of you unfamiliar with the term “hard science fiction,” it’s scifi that spends its time grounding as much as possible in scientific fact, and in explaining the science behind advanced technology. In the case of The Martian, we have a main conflict
