The Martian started as a self-published blog, and became a major motion picture
nautil.us
nautil.us
I loved reading The Martian online even in the inherently somewhat annoying written in realtime form; so much I showed up to get a signed copy when it was released.
In general I'm a sucker for hard scifi, but much of the state of the art in that space is often inaccessible to those of my friends that aren't deeply versed in the literature. The Martian is both accessible (at least to an audience which is generally okay with science and technology) and compelling story telling as well.
Note to self: Think about _that_ the next time you're obsessing about how cool your author site needs to be before you publish anything :-)
Publishers fucking suck. Why is he stuck with a publisher when he has a sucessful self-published book already?
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/02/13/publishing-notes-21314...
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/03/why-in-fact-publishing...
The short version is that he thinks publishers do a lot for him, and that he's perfectly happy to keep working with them.
Stranded fellas go from absolute zero to civilized dwelling using nothing but natural island resources and some good old chemical and mechanical engineering. Includes complete walk-throughs for making the gunpowder and nitroglycerin from scratch :)
You can get it for free here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8993
Or a scanned copy with illustrations (also DRM free but you'll need to set up a google play account if you don't have one already) here: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Jules_Verne_The_...
Given that it costs them more than 61 cents to print and distribute the physical version, which I interpret them as gouging on the electronic version, there's also a fuck-me-no-fuck-you urge to buy the physical copy.
As a fellow writer of fiction (The Dread Space Pirate Richard, a sci-fi comedy adventure faerie tale for adults) I was also encouraged to learn that this was another case of an "overnight success" that was years in the making. In an interview with Weir he said that before he started posting his orig blog serialization of The Martian, he already had been writing publically for 10 years and had built up a fanbase of about 1500 subscribers or regular visitors to his blog. So, he had had a big channel of eyeballs ready to go on day one. Even then the serialization didn't explode over night, was a slow grow thing. But a good case can be made that he might never have reached the necessary critical mass of attention for The Martian if he didn't start with that built-in fan channel. Or, it probably would have taken much longer.
Note to self: "I have N years to go. I have N years to go..."
I'm really happy for the author's success, and I don't at all think it's a bad book. But I found it to be basically pure "survival porn". I like MacGyver too, but I don't think I could watch a four hour episode of it, and that's what the book felt like to me.
The characters and writing are solid, but the constant peril and clever solutions just got tedious after a while.
If you "How is he going to get himself out of this?" is enough to keep you going for an entire book, you'll probably love it. But if you need a bit more than that, it may lose your interest.
http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=22814
Here's an article just about No Country for Old Men:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cli/summary/v050/50.4.malewitz....
But I found it riveting. A neighbor gifted me a copy and forced my first book all-nighter in quite awhile.
Part of its variance in reader appeal may have to do with reader empathy, or perhaps susceptibility having one's mind rooted by an author. On first pass, I simply could not read page by sequential page. I had to skip ahead to make sure he made it through the crisis of the moment, then I'd go back to read how he did it. Too stressful to not find the answer by looking in the back of the book.
I think this happened for me because Weir's portrayal of the engineering and science underlying the plot was so realistic and accurate. I could (and in fact, was forced to) imagine myself in Watney's predicament - WTF would I do? And Weir dragged me into the story that way.
I recommend it. If it's not to your taste, pass it on. It's likely we all know someone who would enjoy it.
(Edit for spelling)
Its not as bad as the hype-to-reality gap for Fifty Shades though: that's a book where I couldn't go more than a page or so, every time I've sampled it (partly out of curiousity, partly to study its secrets), without groaning or laughing aloud at how bad it is.
The Martian is much much better than that, but his formula shows its bones quickly.
Importantly, it's distinct from other kind of entertaining books - I still read Da Vinci Code, but while it was entertaining, it's both terrible writing and story. Martian is different - yes, you know what's going to happen, but journey is the point.
Yep. there's little or no character development. Mark Watney is basically the same person at the end as he is at the start. He's an engaging person, and he refuses to dwell on philosophical matters. But if you're interested in character development, there's almost nothing there for you.
Oh and hey good luck with your writing :)