The Martian

The Martian, Andy Weir's first novel, is science fiction. The American writer released it on his blog as a serial, and Crown Publishing Group, having secured the rights, brought it out again in 2014. It follows an American astronaut, Mark Watney, who is left stranded alone on Mars in 2035 and has to improvise in order to survive, and it was adapted into a film in 2015.

NASA's Ares 3 crew land at Acidalia Planitia in 2035 for a stay of about a month. Six sols in, a wind storm threatens to knock over the ascent vehicle and strand them there. As they evacuate, an antenna tears free and strikes Watney, a botanist and engineer, cutting off his suit radio and his life-sign monitor, so the others leave believing he is dead.

He wakes up alone on Mars with a habitat, a rover, a lot of potatoes and no way to tell Earth he is alive. His log entries are the novel, and they are mostly engineering: how to make water, how to grow food long enough for the next mission to arrive, and how to talk to a planet that has already held a funeral for him. Back home, the people who left him have to decide what they are willing to risk to bring him back.

Weir wrote the novel to be as scientifically accurate as he could make it, and he published it in instalments before it was picked up. It is a standalone story, and the rescue plan the later chapters settle on requires Watney to survive one more trip across the surface.