Dunno why your post was tagged as [dead], I vouched for it to un-[dead] it. You make some reasonable points. Indeed the book isn't going to win the Man Booker P

Dunno why your post was tagged as [dead], I vouched for it to un-[dead] it. You make some reasonable points. Indeed the book isn't going to win the Man Booker Prize or a Nobel Prize for literature, but it's a fun fast read. At least that was the case for me and that was back when the story was available free on Weir's website and as a 99p download for the Kindle in early 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130115160130/http://www.galactanet.com/writing.html https://web.archive.org/web/20130115160130/http://www.galact... I was very pleased for Andy when he got picked up by a publisher, it's nice to see an amateur author get some recognition for their writing passion, and even more pleased when I found out Ridley Scott was going to make a movie. I've read a lot of SciFi over the years (including many 600-1000 page tomes by popular authors where I wished I could get the time back) and whilst Andy Weir isn't quite in the same league as Iain Banks or Alastair Reynolds (who incidentally have a a few duffers in print), there's space for The Martian, even if the character of Mark Watney is a wee bit two dimensional. Not everyone might like the diary/blog style of the writing, but I think it works fine, and is a good enough way of writing up Watney's challenges and solutions. The Martian is an ok fun read and I don't think reviewers really need to come over all "literary critic" because it is what it is, a "Boy's Own" adventure on Mars solving problems with sticky tape, human poo, potatoes and other odds and ends.