Interview: Andy Weir Spins a Riveting Tale of Survival and Space Travel in The Martian

By S. Mark Rhodes

The Martian (Crown) by Andy Weir is the story of a regular guy who happens to be an amazingly resourceful astronaut who is stranded on Mars with limited resources and mainly limited time as his resources are finite, and he finds himself facing certain death if he doesn’t figure out a way to survive and get help from NASA back on earth. The novel, a New York Times Bestseller, told mainly through log entries is one of the most riveting science fiction tales in many years and has created some motion picture buzz. Mr. Weir, a former software engineer, has a talent for technological detail and innovative storytelling, and has built a very appealing character in his stranded astronaut Mark Watney. Mr. Weir was nice enough to correspond via email about his work, the technology of the book, and how he created his tale.

IF USA: What was the origin of the plot behind The Martian?

AW: “I was daydreaming about how a manned mission to Mars would work. I wanted to be as realistic as possible in the mission design. I knew the mission would have to account for problems that could happen, so I started thinking up things that could go wrong. I realized that those problem scenarios would make a cool story, so I made a hapless main character and subjected him to all of them.”

IF USA: The Martian was originally a self-published work before Crown republished it. What was the process of generating enough interest in the book to gain the attention of a major publisher?

AW: “I wrote the book in serial format and posted it to my website. I didn’t market the book at all. It got popular through word-of-mouth. I wish I knew what I did right to make that happen, but I honestly have no idea.”

“To be fair, I did have a respectable number of regular readers beforehand. I’d been posting creative works in one form or another to the site for ten years and had accumulated a few thousand people on my mailing list. Also, a few years earlier, I wrote a short story called The Egg that became pretty popular on the Internet. It got me a lot of new readers.”

“Anyway, I think having a core group of readers to be an initial critical mass was probably the key.

IF USA: What do you think the appeal of Mars is in popular culture? Do you think your work connects to this fascination in general?

AW: “Having put people on the moon, we consider Mars to be the next great challenge. As our technology gets better and better, we are sending larger and more sophisticated probes to explore it. This keeps Mars in the public eye.”

IF USA: What were the advantages and/or drawbacks of using a logbook to advance the plot and inform the reader?

AW: “It was the only way I could see to tell the story. If it had been third person, it would have been dry and largely humorless. If it had been directly first person, a lot of the drama would have disappeared because the only way for the narrator to be telling the story is if he survived it. But a log book allows first person narration from the past, meaning any given entry could theoretically be the last.”

“The only drawback was that I had to shift narration style to show what was happening on Earth and aboard Hermes. That shift in style was jarring to the reader. People put up with it, but I wish I hadn’t made them put up with it. I just couldn’t think of any other approach that would work.”

IF USA: It seems there was a great concern about your being as authentic as you could be with the technological/logistical aspects of the details of the story. Were you concerned that this attention to detail might be at odds with telling an imaginative story?

AW: “I really wanted it to be as scientifically accurate as possible. There’s no technology in the novel that doesn’t already exist today (although I beefed up the effectiveness/efficiency of it quite a lot to represent progress over the coming decades).”

“I had a lot of plot ideas that just didn’t stand up to real science, so I had to abandon them. But science also created plot elements that I wouldn’t have otherwise thought of. For instance, I realized that he simply wouldn’t have anywhere near enough water to grow crops in the Hab. So I had to add a whole subplot about how he makes water, and it came out really well. It’s almost like cheating; I did a bunch of math and plot came out.”

IF USA: The protagonist Mark Watney is a particularly resourceful character. What about him makes him sympathetic to your readership?

AW: “I think the main thing is that he’s an “everyman.” Astronauts are a cut above normal people, and certainly Mark is much more talented and capable than most folks. But his personality is very down to earth (no pun intended) and approachable. He seems like a normal Joe caught in a horrible situation. At least that’s what I was going for.”

IF USA: Astronaut Chris Hadfield provides one of the “blurbs” for your work. Have you heard from other astronauts or NASA personnel  about the book?

AW: “Yes, I’ve gotten a number of emails from astronauts and NASA personnel. As you can imagine, I was thrilled!”

IF USA: The cover art is particularly striking and memorable. Did you have any input on this?

AW: “Truth be told, I didn’t like it much when I first saw it. But the publisher was confident it was a good approach and went with it anyway. I’m glad they did, because it has been very well received. It turns out I was in the extreme minority. Almost everyone who sees it loves it. That’s why it’s good to work as a team on these things.”

For more about Andy Weir and The Martian check out, www.andyweirauthor.com