Books I've Read This Week

The Martian by Andy Weir is a novel I was quite intrigued to read. The book takes place in a near future in which we've successfully had two manned missions to Mars and it is only our third one which runs into problems. The book kicks off with a sand storm overwhelming the astronauts, forcing them into an emergency evacuation. During the evacuation astronaut Mark Watney is lost and presumed dead. Now stranded alone on Mars, Mark, must figure out a way to survive on Mars for 4 years until the arrival of the next planned Martian mission. Okay this book is technically Robinson Crusoe in space but it is funny and engaging and well worth the read. I'm sure that some people will nit pick that the science is not 100% correct in this book but then they are missing the point. Obviously Andy Weir did his homework and gets a lot of it right but the story is about Mark Watney and how he is able to keep his head even when confronted with such a huge amount of adversity. The book itself keeps you guessing on whether or not Mark will actually make it through 4 years alone on Mars. I really liked and would recommend this book.

Nemo: Heart of Ice by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill is another in the long series of graphic novels in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen universe. In it we have the daughter of Captain Nemo who is now firmly entrenched as the Captain of the Nautilus and wanting to leave her mark on the world in much the same way as her father. Needing to step out of the long shadow of her father she travels to Antarctica to attempt a voyage whom her father was unable to complete. It is there she and her crew run into Lovecraftian horrors.