The Martian by Andy Weir. Two thumbs up. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2015, 04:23:58 am
content: /.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2015, 04:28:04 am
content: Agreed. I recently read it. A very good read -especially for engineering sorts. I only noticed a few small technical gaffs - though there are likely others, I think overall it was technically very well done. It will be interesting to see how they pull the movie off.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2015, 05:56:08 am
content: Read it a couple of months ago. Not much to add except that I agree completely - go read it!In one of the interviews I saw online the author mentioned that people from NASA were asking him who his inside source was for some of the details. So it's pretty well researched.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2015, 07:56:29 am
content: I read a while ago and although I enjoyed it found I did not like it as much as some of the old greats like Asimov and Clarke, fact is most modern ScFi is nowhere as good as the works produced in the 50's and 60's or is that just me getting old.

author: kedr_vostok
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2015, 09:20:55 am
content: A must read in my opinion. Can't wait to see what they do with the movie!

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 18, 2015, 09:27:14 am
content: Currently finishing the book.And yes, will listen to the audio book after that.It's awesome.I've heard the audio book pronounces ASCII incorrectly though

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 18, 2015, 09:30:32 am
content: Quote from: mtdoc on August 18, 2015, 04:28:04 amThe big major technical gaffe, which was actually deliberate to enable the story, is that a 200km/h dust storm on mars would be equivalent of a light breeze here, so not capable of wreaking the havoc that the story tells.

author: alexanderbrevig
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2015, 09:58:25 am
content: It's a brilliant book! So excited for the movie, I have high hopesYou should seeif you haven't.

author: GK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2015, 12:45:55 pm
content: The film's directed by Ridley Scott. I haven't seen a single film directed by him that wasn't a boring triumph of style over substance.I just looked up the plot summary on Wikipedia. Matt Damon potato farming on Mars. Sounds crap anyway."The Martian is a story of survival with a deadline."How original!

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2015, 04:55:23 pm
content: Quote from: GK on August 18, 2015, 12:45:55 pmI've read an enormous amount of sci-fi, and none of it is like this. There'smathin it, and it's gripping. Phenomenal book. I'm very much looking forward to the movie.Quote from: EEVblog on August 18, 2015, 09:30:32 amAndy Weir has mentioned that he could have contrived a technical reason for him being abandoned, but since it's a "Man vs Nature" story, he wanted Nature to be the instigator of the conflict. Plus (I would add) people understand storms. Storms are iconic.Pedantry aside, I don't think anybody has particularly blinked at the exaggeration of the dynamic pressure of a Martian storm. Also, a technobabble failure as an Inciting Event in Act 1 comes with it's own ugly can of worms.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2015, 05:08:18 pm
content: I just finished the book a week ago as well. It was a fun story and very addicting. Thankfully it is not a very long book, because I couldn't handle something taking up much more of my time... I just couldn't stop reading it until I finished.It was self-published online before Andy got a major publishing deal and movie deal, so there are copies floating around if you Google "TheMartian.pdf". But I recommend buying it and helping him out financially as it is inexpensive and he should be rewarded for his work.

author: ModemHead
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2015, 05:27:35 pm
content: After opening this thread this morning and then reading a sample, I bought it and downloaded it to my reader. I'm five chapters in now and I have to say this is the most engaging fiction I've read in a long time. The writing style is great. More thumbs up!QuoteWickedly dry sense of humor throughout.

author: RickBrant
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 19, 2015, 12:20:09 am
content: Obligatory "There's an xkcd for that":https://xkcd.com/1536/

author: 6thimage
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2015, 01:40:49 am
content: I've recently read it after it was mentioned on a podcast (hello internet) and I thought it was a great book - completely gripping. There are some minor issues with some of the science, but it still is a massive step up from most sci-fi.After I finished it I watched the film trailer and they completely ruin it. I know films aren't usually as good as the books, but they pretty much give away the entire plot in the trailer. So many people will go in not knowing the story and at the beginning when he is worrying about food, they will already know that he is going to grow stuff, and then when he is all alone, they know he will get back in contact with Earth, and then there will be an issue with the air lock, where he is shot across the surface of Mars. I think the only way they could possibly have made the trailer give more away, is if they had someone doing a voice over where they read the entire plot summary from wikipedia.

author: LabSpokane
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2015, 04:41:31 am
content: I will have to be in the vast, vast minority on this one. I hate The Martian. I hate the writing. And to be honest, even the science appears to be faulty - at least what I read before I gave up with a loud groan & nearly chucking my iPad across the room. I am weak chemistry student and even I saw something amiss in the stoichiometry with the water plan.My suspension of disbelief was suspended starting on page 5 with Mr. Weir's misconception about oxygen and pressure suits.QuoteOxygen toxicity is a product of the partial pressure. Oxygen toxicity can happen at one atmosphere, certainly. But NOT the approximately 1/3 atmosphere used in space suits.Please reference a book written by folks who might know a bit about keeping people alive in pressure suits, NASA:http://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/dress_for_altitude_detail.htmlIt addresses this issue about p. 18.For the very skeptical, give David Clark Company a call. You can even rent a suit to test if you like.Quote300 liters of liquid O2 yields about 385 liters of water. Not 600. (This is high school chemistry, but I ran my calcs past a chemist to be sure.)EnjoyThe Martianas a work of fiction. Science ... well, I'm not so sure about that.

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2015, 06:15:17 am
content: Quote from: GK on August 18, 2015, 12:45:55 pmScott is hit-and-miss.For me, Blade Runner is a big miss, hated it.Matchstick Men I like, Alien isn't bad.I think The Martian could be good... but I think it must be a difficult story to make work for the general audience, hopefully it doesn't get too dumbed to make it more appealing to usual cinema patrons.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2015, 07:42:32 am
content: Quote from: LabSpokane on August 19, 2015, 04:41:31 amModern American EMU spacesuits and Russian Orlan EVA suits run on pure 02. After Apollo 1, they use full air at 1atm inside spacecraft. This necessitates an extended pure-02 pre-breathe period to prevent getting the bends on an EVA. Weir needed his character to get into his suit and go outside quickly (and more impressively without any help to get in--almost impossible today) so he was obviously assuming they ran ordinary air at a full atmosphere (like the inside of the ISS), and had wrinkled out the design shortcoming of contemporary suits. This is a common dilemma in future-based fiction. If you assume contemporary technology, you run the risk writing "futuristic technology" which will be surpassed long before the setting of the story.QuoteWeir (who is a programmer by trade) has conceded he's not good at chemistry (or electronics). His calculations would have worked were he talking about mixing gasses.Any of his mistakes can be "fixed" by tweaking a number here or there. He neglected to account for the large amount of heat generated by reducing hydrazine too. Nonetheless, thechemistryin both cases would have worked fine, there just would have been tweaks in volumes or reaction times, etc. In his orbital dynamics (which is a hobby of his), he went through the trouble to simulate the complex orbital paths of a continuous-thrust motor to find results acceptable to the story.Compare and contrast toGravityorInterstellarorMission to MarsorRed Planetwhich roundly mocked basic physics and common sense. Science-oriented shows like "Breaking Bad" routinely exaggerate physics for dramatic effect. Even the High Water mark for scientific accuracy in Hollywood (2001: A Space Odyssey) does get some stuff obviously wrong. E.g., The moonbus trip to Tycho. Think about what you saw. Totally wrong. Evennon-fiction space movies likeApollo 13gets a bunch of stuff wrong. There's little excuse in the latter case as it's historical. Still a good movie, though.The Martian, while not a documentary, never wanders from plausibility (except by nitpicking, and the artistic choice of the instigating storm). Second, is it fair to assume thecharacterin a log narration would be incapable of making a mistake in his math--which, to his chagrin, he actuallydoesmore than once? Remember. He has no help, and no one to check his numbers, no one to help him do things outside his area of expertise.On the whole, The Martian may be one of the "hardest" sci-fi stories ever written, and the movie may set a new Hollywood high-water mark for scientific accuracy by quite a lot.BTW. People get stuff wrong (even fatally so) in real engineering all the time. Nobody calls their math "unrealistic" when that's exactly what it was.

author: ElektroQuark
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 19, 2015, 09:21:11 am
content: Never heard about that book. After reading the OP I downloaded it, now I can´t stop reading...

author: meeder
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2015, 09:30:38 am
content: I read the book during our vacation, very well written. I really liked it.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2015, 11:48:50 am
content: Elon Musk has a funny remark about The Martian (which he read and liked): "I'm a little worried it might not make people too keen on going to Mars."

author: ElektroQuark
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 19, 2015, 12:00:10 pm
content: Quote from: wilfred onTodayat 11:09:56>Quote from: EdoNork onTodayat 09:21:11Glad to hear that. I hope others who would prefer to read mission logs enjoy them as much.About mission logs:APOLLO 11Lots of reading, the real thing.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2015, 03:33:38 pm
content: Second Trailer just came out today:Aaagh! I can't wait.