Martian

I will not betray your faith for even a single second.
The best day of his life, a fierce survival story of a man facing death

Mark Watney, a botanist participating in a Mars exploration program, is stranded in an unimaginable place 225,000,000 km away from Earth. He safely arrives on Mars aboard the Ares 3 spacecraft after spending over 1,000 days there. On the sixth day of the planned mission, communication between Watney and his crew is cut off as they are swept up in an unexpected sandstorm. Believing him dead, his colleagues return in fear, while he wakes up alone on a sand dune with only a few potatoes to survive until the next spacecraft arrives. Could there be a worse survival story? Yet, this brilliant scientist plants Earth crops on Mars, creates water, and manages to cultivate crops using oxygen and carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, a NASA video operator finally confirms his survival near a cleanly cleared barracks, using footage where they had expected to see Mark Watney's body.
*The Martian* showcases humanity's ambitious efforts through NASA's Mars exploration plan, and it is a work that countless people have long awaited but no one has been able to write. The power of its story is undeniable, as evidenced by its 74-week stay on the bestseller list. With a unique premise capable of captivating readers worldwide, the protagonist's daily survival story is tense yet perfectly crafted.

A bold and interesting combination.
A fantastic thriller combining story, characters, and scientific accuracy

Humanity’s journey toward the red planet Mars has been a record of centuries of aspiration and challenge. This book is the ultimate combination of actual explorations and footage captured by NASA, and it is also a case where the dramatic contrast between the despair and sense of accomplishment often felt in survival novels is staged within the setting of Mars, leaving a deeply amplified and lingering impression on the reader. Author Andy Weir, often described as a "genius writer," is a highly skilled programmer who worked at a U.S. national research institute at the age of 15 and subsequently participated in various research and development projects. Thanks to this background, *The Martian* is acclaimed as a work that fully showcases the author's unique literary sensibility grounded in diverse scientific knowledge.
Through this book, witnessing the support and technical assistance of the entire Earth to save a person left behind on a distant planet, we are reminded once again of humanity. We root for a man we have never met and laugh and cry at his every word. Although the rescue of Watney—which involves spending hundreds of millions of dollars and even risking the leakage of national secrets—is a scene unlikely to occur in reality, it continuously inspires an optimistic thought that perhaps we could attempt something like this at least once if humanity were to face such a crisis. Offering a unique sense of happiness, there is no doubt that *The Martian* will be remembered as a masterpiece for years to come.