Books Like The Martian

Why Each Pick

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Andy Weir's later novel and the closest match: a lone scientist in space, solving one deadly problem after another with real physics and chemistry, narrated with the same wisecracking voice. Ryland Grace wakes up with no memory of how he got there, so flashbacks fill in the story. It is longer, at 496 pages, and has more heart, with an unexpected partnership at its center.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

For readers who loved Mark Watney's narration most. Murderbot is a security robot that has hacked its own controls and would rather watch TV serials than protect its clients, and its sarcastic, self-aware voice carries the book. It is a 156-page novella, lighter on hard science, and the start of a series about a reluctant hero keeping its humans alive.

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

Space travel treated as realistically as The Martian treats Mars: thrust, gravity, air and water all matter. A missing-person case and a destroyed ship pull a detective and a ship's officer into a conspiracy across a colonized solar system. It is a bigger, more political story with two narrators, 592 pages, and the first of nine novels.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

For readers who mostly want to laugh in space. Arthur Dent is rescued seconds before Earth is demolished and drifts through a galaxy that makes no sense. It shares The Martian's comic voice and its hero stranded far from home, but it is pure absurdist comedy with no interest in real science. It is short, at 224 pages, and the first of Douglas Adams's five books in the series.

Endurance by Alfred Lansing

The true story closest to Watney's ordeal. In 1915 Shackleton's ship was trapped and then crushed by Antarctic pack ice, and his crew survived for months on the ice, in open boats and on a barren island before rescue. Like Watney, they survived on planning, improvisation and morale. Lansing's account is nonfiction, written from survivors' diaries and interviews.

Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

The science behind why Watney's attitude matters. Gonzales studies real accidents and survivors to explain why some people stay calm, keep a sense of humor and break a crisis into small tasks while others panic. It reads like a series of adventure stories mixed with neuroscience and psychology, and it is nonfiction, at 336 pages.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman

For readers who liked Watney's irreverent delight in science. Physicist Richard Feynman tells stories of cracking safes at Los Alamos, playing bongo drums and solving problems out of pure curiosity. It is a memoir made of short anecdotes, with no survival plot, but it shares the same joy in figuring things out and the same disregard for authority.

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

Engineering by trial and error, the way Watney works through each failure. Two Ohio bicycle mechanics with no formal training built their own wind tunnel, tested and rebuilt their designs, and flew at Kitty Hawk in 1903. McCullough's biography is calmer than The Martian, with no comedy, but it shows how stubborn, methodical problem-solving changed the world.