An astronaut is stranded alone on Mars after his crew, believing him dead, evacuates during a catastrophic dust storm. Mark Watney has no way to communicate with Earth, insufficient supplies to survive until the next mission arrives in four years, and no means of growing food on a planet where nothing grows. What he does have is a talent for engineering, a relentless sense of humour, and an unwillingness to die quietly. What follows is a survival story told largely through Watney's mission logs as he improvises his way through one life-threatening crisis after another - growing potatoes in Martian soil fertilised with human waste, cannibalising equipment for parts, and doing a lot of maths. On Earth, NASA discovers he's alive and faces its own crisis: how to mount a rescue across fifty million miles of space before his luck runs out. Originally self-published as a serial on Andy Weir's blog, The Martian became a word-of-mouth phenomenon before its 2014 publication and was adapted into a 2015 film directed by Ridley Scott. A novel about problem-solving, stubbornness, and the human refusal to accept the odds.
As he overcomes one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next, Mark begins to let himself believe he might make it off the planet alive.
