I recently started reading The Martian by Andy Weir. Yes, I know, I’m fashionably late to the party. If the protagonist of the story, Mark Watney, learns to survive for months as the only person on Mars, I feel like the last person on planet Earth to finally read his story.

When I started reading the book, I was skeptical about whether I would enjoy it, despite its excellent ratings online. I’m not much of an astrophysics person, and I wondered what could be so appealing about an astronaut stuck on Mars. I might skim an article about it, sure, but an entire book? No way. Well, how wrong I was. I’ve been reading it every chance I get for the past couple of days, and I just had to tear myself away from it in order to write this post.

Now that I’m midway through, I see why it works so well. It has all the ingredients for success: an extremely likable protagonist in an impossible situation, with that situation made possible through sheer determination and ingenuity, both his own and that of people across every rung of the ladder at a space organization. Throw in some international cooperation, some serious sci-fi chops, and you have the recipe for an irresistible read.

It did get me thinking, though… What is it about survival dramas such as The Martian that makes them so compelling? That Watney survives is hardly a spoiler, since I haven’t finished the book myself yet. But knowing what I do about human psychology and stories that endure, I have a strong notion he will indeed make it through. And maybe that’s a big part of the appeal of the genre, isn’t it? Would I want to read a survival drama with an unhappy ending? Would anyone?

Apart from the whole “Yay, happy endings in books make me........

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