Accessibility of Science Comprehension in the Martian

Mark Lewis

Dr. Scott O'Leary

Honors First Year Experience

February 9th, 2018

Commitment to accuracy is important in fully immersing your reader into the story you are telling. Having a strong groundwork in reality and making what you are saying feasible makes the story all that more engrossing and fascinating. The Martian was full of technical jargon that at first went completely over my head and I was loving every bit of it. The technical speak harkened me back to books I had read when I was younger like the Jurassic Park series by Michael Crichton.  Personally, he could have told me complete nonsense and I still would have gone along with every word that was said. I am quite enamored with the science fiction and fantasy genre as a whole, and having a story so seemingly grounded in science and reality is immensely interesting.

That being said, at times the technical speak did seem to drag along a bit. The near exhausting commitment to accuracy at times brought me out of the story so that I could chill and contemplate on what I just read. I believe the author failed to realize that most of the people who read this book are not accredited scientists who get off on technical speak that strokes their intelligence. I can understand having strong accuracy but getting into the nitty gritty details can take away from the suspenseful story the author is trying to portray. Personally, I hardly ever felt that Mark was going to die because it always seemed like he knew what he was doing (Granted my own bias from seeing the movie first may also play a role in my lack of suspense at times). The story did itself seem extremely feasible though, and even though the technical speak did at times take away from the story, the realism of the story seemed like it was ripped from a front-page article. Overall, I found the story quite engrossing and one that I would recommend to any science fiction enthusiast.