The Martian

And I do like the work of Andy Weir.

I mean, the only other book that I've read by him is The Martian, and I really enjoyed how technical it was and how detailed he got into what it would take to survive alone on Mars, and would it be something that's even plausible.

It was a neat book about...

Science.

Aw, good for them.

And so, uh, we've been reading The Martian.

Okay.

You familiar with, uh, uh-

Yeah.

That was good, too.

Uh, but anyway, so we've been reading The Martian lately, and, uh, really enjoying, uh, reading that with the kids and talking about it.

And it's also a great leadership book, I think.

But it took nine years for us to find a thing we both really loved.

So is he going to get into The Martian and Project Artemis as well?

Oh, I tried.

And I got him the middle grade reader for The Martian.

And he got like, my kid has no tolerance for exposition.

He just like can't.

And the thing about Project Hail Mary is you're dropped right into the middle of the action.

Sure.

What do you think about that? I want to get your opinion.

You know, I think Andy Weir, like the author of The Martian, Project Hail Mary, he said it best on a podcast.

It was something on the lines of like, you know, every work of science fiction you see now has like some roots in Star Trek, except for Star Trek.

I did a TikTok a couple of months back, not even that long ago, and I was talking about Krypton.

And when they do know what's going on, it's like, oh, okay, well, now we need to try not to mess up the timeline.

And all of his decisions make perfect sense for where he is in the situation.

And the Martian captain, all of her decisions make perfect sense.

She's not just crazy, we're just going to blow you up.

Contemporary.

Obviously The Martian.

Yeah, yeah.

He's really sort of done a good job out of

And Blake Crouch, what's his book? Oh, yeah, that's – yeah.

I forget the name.

But it does – even from you reading that list, apart from perhaps The Martian and Project Hail Mary, it sort of feels like the golden age of science fiction has been deemed done and now we're getting a lot of TV remakes and And now the fantasy sort of genre has really captivated the world.

I've got a stat for you.

Yes, a self-published short story.

Right, which he then followed up with four separate novellas, so it was deeply episodic.

How in the world do you adapt a disjointed, serialized structure like that into a cohesive, massive Ridley Scott blockbuster? I feel like the format of the source material is fundamentally at odds with a traditional film script.

Could that structural friction be the real reason this whole thing stalled out?

It's geometry at that point.

Exactly.

A short story followed by four novellas implies a narrative that breathes.

It introduces a concept, a massive underground bunker where society is heavily regulated, explores the daily mechanics of it, shifts perspectives between characters, and slowly, methodically peels back the layers of the mystery over time.

Exactly.

Now, contrast that human-driven conspiracy with the book ranked at number four, The Martian by Andy Weir, published in 2011.

Oh, this is a phenomenal book.

Astronaut Mark Watney is accidentally left for dead on Mars when his crew is forced to evacuate during a massive dust storm.

It perfectly establishes the tone right from page one.

It really does.

What makes The Martian so brilliant is that Weir strictly adheres to orbital mechanics, chemistry, and botany.

Watney has to figure out how to grow potatoes in toxic Martian regolith.

It only responds to logic.

So how does that translate to, say, a guy stranded on a planet? Let's look at his breakthrough 2014 novel, The Martian.

The perfect example.

The protagonist, astronaut Mark Watney, is presumed dead by his crew and stranded entirely alone on Mars.

Instead of, "Have you tried turning the computer off and on again?" It's like, "Have you tried reverse engineering the oxygen scrubber?"

And to really understand why this works narratively, we have to look at the actual science in the book because Weir doesn't just wave his hands and say, "Watney did some science and got water." He shows us the math.

Let's take the water problem in The Martian as a prime example of this software engineering mindset.

Right, because Watney realizes pretty early on that he can grow potatoes in the Martian dirt using his own biological waste as fertilizer.