The Martian is a book written by author Andy Weir and published by Crown Publishing group. But before that he published his book on amazon for 99 cents per copy where it then sold 35,000 copies in 3 months on the site alone. Before that however he had the book available on his website on a chapter by chapter basis for free. In my opinion The Martian is a book that should be read by both science fiction enthusiasts and fans of just general fiction since it delivers a thrilling and suspenseful story about astronaut Mark Watney and his time trapped on mars. The Martian is a story about astronaut Mark Watney who is both a botanist and mechanical engineer must survive the hostile environment of mars after his crew left him there. After Mark gets over the realization that he’s alone on mars and no one is coming to get him for a while he tries to find a way to survive on mars. He does this by attempting to grow plants in mars soil but at first has some minor difficulties with his plan. This includes mars not being hospitable planet which is why nothing grows there already, so he has to figure out a way to grow food with the planet's soil fortunately because he is a botanist this isn't too terribly difficult. While he is trying to figure out how to live on mars his crew is on their several month journey back to earth where everyone believes him to be dead. After mark realizes that he has to wait several years before the next manned mission to mars he sets out to find a way to communicate with nasa back on earth. Mark discovers an old mars drone and uses that to communicate with nasa and sets up a plan to extend his food supply until the next manned mission to mars. Eventually after months of planning mark meets up with his crew above mars’ atmosphere and then proceeds to go back to earth. As mentioned in my thesis mark’s journey is full of suspense and thrills mainly because space is not very kind and can be brutal as well as unpredictable. For example mark is left on mars because of a random storm on mars that forces the crew to evacuate. Similar books to the martian include “Ready Player one” which is about a dystopian future where people are trapped in a matrix and virtual reality simulation of life. While it doesn’t take place on mars it is about a character who is forced to use his brain more than his brawn in various situation like mark watney. In conclusion the martian is a thrilling sci-fi adventure that will have readers on the edge of their seat rooting for Mark Watney as he tries to overcome the odds of surviving for several months alone on a planet not suitable to support life.
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Do you like space? The solar system? Mars? How about this have you ever wondered what it’d be like to be stranded on the distant planet of Mars alone for over a year with only a limited amount of supplies and having to create a lot of your own supplies and resources? One man named Mark Watney apart of the Ares 3 mission to mars had to do just that while waiting for a rescue plan to be formed and for that plan to actually be performed in the novel The Martian by Andy Weir. I thought this was a very interesting, entertaining, and well written book by Mr. Weir and I would recommend this book to anyone especially teenagers interested in space and Mars. The main character in this novel Mark Watney is part of the Ares 3 mission to mars. Watney and his team were forced to leave Mars when a major storm was passing and threatening there safety there. On their escape Watney was unfortunately hit by debris and his team was forced to evacuate without him and he was left there alone. Watney woke after the storm and somehow survived and after the shock set in Watney soon started to think instead of panic which would ultimately end up saving his life. What Watney started to do was take an inventory and gather his supplies to start being able to succeed on this harsh planet. Some of the things he starts doing is botany (producing food and vegetables), fire (to get water from condensation), and fertilizer with his own feces. As he stayed there longer and longer he started getting more and more advanced and eventually was able to communicate with others. Watney also experiences hardships as he loses everything many times. Through all of this you see Watney’s perseverance, patience, even his humor joking around with the others on the space station, and finally his will to live. I think this book was a very well written book and I would recommend it to almost anyone. While reading this book I enjoyed every part of it and had real trouble putting it down. It is incredibly difficult to put this book down all the way from when he wakes up after the storm till he’s floating in space trying to be rescued by his Ares 3 team. One of my favorite part of this book is when he finally has everything and everything is going well for him then there is a breach and everything get ruined. This is my favorite part of the book because you can see how fast something could change from being great to absolutely terrible. Another reason why this is my favorite is because after everything goes bad you don’t see Watney give up you see his perseverance and his will to survive kick in and he doesn’t give up on trying to get off of this planet alive. Another other work of Weir’s includes The Egg. The Egg was a short story by Weir and was his most popular short story yet. Andy Weir one many awards for the book The Martian including the Goodreads Choice Awards Best Science Fiction. Andy Weir is a very talented up and coming author as well. The Martian by Andy Weir overall was a completely magnificent book and I would recommend it to almost anyone. The way Weir portrays Watney and the trouble he’s in is amazing. What’s even better is how Weir shows you that Watney and you could overcome anything you could ever want if you just put your mind to it and when you fail just keep trying to eventually get what you want. This book written by Weir was such an entertaining and interesting book for teenagers and adults. If I were to rate this book out of 10 stars I would simply give it a 10 because of how good it is. The book was published by “Bantam Books,” the place of publication was at “Moonrunner Design Ltd. UK (UK: United Kingdom),” and the date of publication was in 2001. The book was overall kind of challenging, but it was also very interesting and I learned a lot from it. I would suggest this book to anyone that had questions to how the universe started, or to anyone who wanted to know more about theories of how the universe had started. The book shows us very big points in how the universe was created and what it’s going to look like in the future; it showed how Einstein laid the foundations of the two fundamental theories of the twentieth century: general relativity and quantum theory. Also how Einstein’s general relativity gives time a shape, and how this can be reconciled with quantum theory. The book also talked about how the universe has had multiple histories in the past. It also talked about predicting the future, and if the future will be more advanced than it is now. The book says that the general theory of relativity is the theory of gravitation, which was founded by Albert Einstein in 1915. Einstein’s general theory of relativity transformed space and time from a passive background in which events take place to active participants in the dynamics of the universe. In my opinion, I think it’s quite interesting and also an amazing theory, because this was such a big discovery, and not to mention it was one of the biggest discoveries in the universe. And if you think about it, what if this was never discovered? What would we see in our universe, or what would we see in our world? Stephen hawking explained very well in his book of how he compared and contrasted the past to the future. The Universe In a Nutshell, a brilliantly written piece by Stephen Hawking and published by Random House Publishing Group in November of 2001. Hawking fulfills the expectations set after composing A Brief History of Time in this explanation of quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of relativity. I find the work as a whole broken down to where the average reader can simply understand the complex ideas and information, and the author’s wit shines through his words which makes reading the 292 pages thoroughly enjoyable. The author breaks up the non-fiction book into 7 chapters, each containing separate ideas. This set up makes it easy for the reading to skip around from Chapter 1, A Brief History of Relativity, to Chapter 4, Predicting the Future, and still being able to follow Hawking’s ideas. Hawking focuses on the theoretical physics involved in understanding the composition of the universe. Chapters one depicts Einstein’s breakthroughs in the theories of general and special relativity. It also explains how Einstein led to the creation of quantum mechanics. Hawking goes into more detail in chapter two of general relativity and the analysis of gravity’s part in special relativity. He also goes into detail on Einstein’s work and the way it shows how space and time are essentially one entity and together they create a theoretical “shape.” The Universe in a Nutshell is the title of chapter three, and rightfully so as Hawking goes into detail on the fundamental tension between general and special relativity, and how these theories combined with Einstein’s quantum mechanics depicts the universes multiple histories, all shaped by a “tiny nut” as Hawking puts it. The information discussed in chapter four in mainly discusses whether or not physics allows the future to be predicted and how such a prediction would be affected by black holes. Physics are also the main focus of chapter five, except now Hawking discusses if the laws of physics permit time travel. He argues that an advanced civilization could theoretically travel backwards in time, but the use of probability would be infinitely miniscule. In chapter seven, Hawking expresses concern for the future of the human population and how the complex advances in technology and genetics will continue to accelerate, he predicts these changes will lead to the future being dramatically different and deeply complex. The final chapter is by far the most complex. Hawing goes into detail on p-brane theory, a proposed theory on quantum gravity. In simple terms, if p-brane theory is accurate, our present universe in all its entirety could quite possible just be a “hologram” of sorts. In conclusion, The Universe In a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking, is a masterfully written composition of simply explained quantum theory and the complex ideas behind general relativity. Hawking has yet again topped the charts in scientific knowledge. |
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