A pleasant surprise.

Finally got around to reading The Martian. This was a pleasant instance of the book being as good a book as the movie was a movie. Perhaps slightly better, as the the text version allowed more detailed descriptions of what exactly was happening; the movie had to dance a tightrope of expository dialogue versus just hoping the viewers picked up on what Watney was doing. It did it well, but the text is better. Quite a page-turner for as tech-heavy a piece as it is.

Incidentally, this is another one of those things like the movie Gravity, where find myself wondering "Is this really science fiction anymore, or is this just an action movie in an unusual setting?" I mean, the tech in Gravity & The Martian is less farfetched than the "caterpillar drive" in the movie The Hunt for Red October.


(Yes, magnetohydrodynamic propulsion is a thing, at least experimentally, but it's not some undetectable silent propulsion system.)