Daily Books - The Martian: A Novel by Andy Weir | Conversation Starters

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Andy Weirs

The Martian

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Copyright 2015 by DailyBooks.All Rights Reserved.

First Published in the United States of America 2015

We hope you enjoy this complementary guide from DailyBooks . We aim to provide quality, thought provoking material to assistinyour discovery and discussions on some of todays favorite books.

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EVERY GOOD BOOK CONTAINS A WORLD FAR DEEPER THAN the surface of its pages. The characters and their world come alive through the words on the pages, yet the characters and its world still live on. Questions herein are designed to bring us beneath the surface of the page and invite us into the world that lives on. These questions can be used to:

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A NDY WEIR'S THE MARTIAN BEGINS WHEN ASTRONAUT MARK WATNEY finds himself stranded on Mars after an accident with an antenna caused his fellow crew to believe he had died, and they left Mars not knowing that he was still alive. The accident caused his bio-monitor computer to break, and he is left with only The Hab, hydrazine, a generator, and potatoes to keep him alive. Watney, described as a competent man, is not the type of person to give up so easily, however. He quickly finds a way to grow potatoes in The Hab using hydrazine to create water. Eventually, NASA realizes that Watney is still alive after seeing pictures of him on Mars. They scramble to find a way to safely returnWatney home. Watney locates a communicator and now has contact with NASA. Meanwhile, the Ares 3 crew is headed back to Earth with no knowledge that Watney is still alive. Watney devises a plan to get to the next Mars mission's landing site. The Ares 3 crew, having been finally notified about Watney's survival, makes the decision to return to Mars to rescue their crew member. The plan is that Watney will travel in the MAV for the Ares 4 mission, and the Ares 3 will meet the ship in space and bring Watney on board. Watneytravels over 2,000 miles on a rover, running into a giant dust storm on the way. He takes direction from NASA on how to reduce weight on the MAV. In doing that, he manages to make a large hole in the rover that he covers with canvas from The Hab. Watney is able to easily take off from Mars, but the canvas flies off in space leaving him moving slower and off course for linking up with the Ares 3. The Ares 3 crew finds a way to match Watney's speed and link up with Watney after all, and he is returned home to Earth. The Martian has been praised by critics for being a realistic world with realistic characters. It has also been applauded for making scientific and mathematical calculations seem interesting.

A NDY WEIR GREW UP IN LIVERMORE, CALIFORNIA. HIS FATHER WORKED as a particle physicist and owned a large collection of Science Fiction novels from the 1950s and 1960s. Weir enjoyed reading those novels, especially those of Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. He showed an interest in computers and science during his teenage years and eventually went on to work for Sandia National Laboratories. The laboratory wanted him to build a data analysis program for a computer. Weir says the experience in working in the laboratory helped him bring his skills to the next level. Weir went on to study computer programming at the University of California in San Diego. However, he ran out of funds to complete his education and had to stop attending. After leaving school, he went on to work at Blizzard Entertainment where he used his skills and knowledge to help program the popular video game, World of Warcraft 2. Eventually, he left Blizzard Entertainment and went on to work at AOL and MobileIron. He wrote The Martian while working at MobileIron. He released it as a web series through his website Galactanet. The novel became quite popular on his website and Weir was asked to release it in Kindle format on Amazon; he set the price at $0.99. To his surprise, the book topped the bestseller lists. Weir found himself getting calls from publishing houses and film studios. The book even caught the attention of famous astronaut, Buzz Aldrin. Weir had been invited to NASA many times to do a tour, but a fear of flying kept him from making the trip. However, in 2015, Weir was finally able to travel to NASA and the Johnson Space Center where he was invited to eat astronaut food and was given many souvenirs. Weir says that this entire journey still feels like one giant scam to him. He never expected his book to gain as much popularity as it has.

The crew in The Martian must make a difficult decision to leave Mark Watney behind on Mars. Do you think this was a good decision? Why or why not?

NASA does not inform the crew that Mark Watney is still alive. Do you think this is a good decision? Why or why not?