George Botsev

Well, I read that book. For as little as two days. It is actually a personal record for sticking to non-interactive medium such as a book for such a long a time, and I even refused to watch YouTube videos – like the trend that is – watching “let’s play” videos for Fallout 4 and X-Com 2.

Having done such incredible feat, I cannot fail to convey how bad I feel for watching the movie first.
It is very safe to say, that the movie conveys the story while the book adds a soul to the whole thing. I only wish I never watched the movie, or to watch it post-reading the book. Well, what’s done – is done. Since we cannot reverse and re-order the events in this limited time continuum, let’s not talk any more about the case.

From the start, the book was very enjoyable to read. I always like an honest start, and opening with a sentence like this one:

I’m pretty much fucked.

 

is something that gives me a good and honest start.
The book is strangely written – in a style that tries to represent a personal journal of a survivor on the red planet.
Most of the logs are written like a retrospect of the day of the survivor, however in some of the log entries, different literature means are used – there are some jumps to the past – long before the chronological events of the story, and in some entries there are jumps between the main character, and the view for the other people – that think that he has perished. Because this book is light and not a horror story, there is a lot of humor inside. In some of the logs there are some indications of “humor by repetition”, but the major part of the humor comes from smart-ass comments by the main character.

The author successfully conveys the feelings from his book – while I read it I felt sorry for the main character, I felt happy, I felt sad, worried and every other conceivable feeling.

In my mind sometimes I imagined the main character as a superman – but without any luck. Some of the tasks that he does in his adventure are daunting and can be compared to the labors of Hercules. Looking now in retrospect, I wonder if someone can be that unlucky!

This was a very nice book and very good hours that I spent. I am almost sorry that the book is over now. I hope that Andy Weir writes more books like that. Perhaps he is the next Asimov?

I love one of the thoughts shared by the main character – that we are all people, and when in trouble – we display the best thing inside of us – the one thing that makes us humans – the ability to have compassion towards the suffering, and the desire to help each other.