The Martian

So tonight I finished Andy Weir's The Martian.  In a nutshell, it's the story of a man who gets left behind on Mars by the rest of his crew during an evacuation when they think he's dead, and how he manages to survive alone on another planet.

Let me say now that I laughed harder at pints in this book than I have in a long time.  Probably since the first time I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

It's got some intense survival portions and follows the normal path of a disaster tale of something go wrong and others go amazingly right.  But the book is told in a very straightforward manner.  There is math in it, but you don't have to know it all or even follow all of it.  The humor comes when the thoughts that all of us would be thinking just come out.  It's all very natural and highly entertaining.

I've got a few other books in my personal queue, but I'm thinking of putting some of his other stuff into rotation.

And that's the beauty of the Internet.  I've found other free fiction out there that is truly amazing.  I think I've linked to this site before, but there's a bunch of stories here.  Sam Hughes' Ed Stories are a ton of fun as well.