Mars

"If you're wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts..."

Six days into a 31-day mission on Mars, they get hit by a huge sandstorm. Abort mission. The astronauts sprint for the launch vehicle, one of them gets speared by flying debris, and his colleagues have to leave him for dead and take off.

Hours later, he wakes up in the wreckage of the expedition. Alone on Mars with no way to get off the planet or communicate with Earth. And after his first reaction ("I'm fucked!") he sets about doing what people do: Survive. (Yes, it's basically The Lonely Astronaut done seriously.)

This is about as hard as science fiction gets: No aliens, no quick hops between planets, no sudden discoveries of ancient Martian secrets, no corrupt politicians, no midichlorians... in fact, no antagonists of any kind beyond Mars itself. Weir has put a lot, and I mean a LOT into the details; what would NASA bring to Mars, and how would one man realistically be able to use it to MacGyver his way to surviving and getting home?

Of course, that would make the book a long list of wattage, circuitry, oxygen percentages and chemical reactions, so Our Hero (inevitably) turns out to be the sort of person who reacts to difficulties with humour. For the most part, the story gets told through his journal, which bolsters all the (as far as most readers will be able to tell remarkably realistic) technobabble with curses, jokes, explanations along the lines of "I adapted it using an advanced technical procedure called 'hitting it with a hammer'", repeated frustration that the only music the crew brought to Mars was an endless supply of 70s disco... You get the picture. Mark Watney is a fun narrator, even when he's inches from death, as he literally is throughout the entire novel.

Which is my only real problem with it; for all that the Mars parts of it are basically a found-footage film in writing, the constant gallows humour never really gives the story time to breathe (sorry) and the rare bits where Weir breaks out and starts describing Mark's situation in third person become jarringly dramatic. I know NASA pick their people very carefully - just look at Neil Armstrong, ffs - but seriously, EVERYONE from the Mars astronauts to the geeks at NASA are complete dashing badasses in their fields here. You'd think there'd be some time for at least moments of despair and fear; but the novel is so busy keeping its physics straight, its psychology tends to be about as clichéd as the 70s TV series Mark is forced to watch.

Oh well, it's just a book, and I should really just relax. I've rarely been this entertained by page upon page of technicalities; it's not a perfect SF novel, but it's an admirable one.