The Martian

Six days into the Ares 3 mission, a freak dust storm forces an emergency evacuation and leaves astronaut Mark Watney behind, presumed dead. He is not.

Stranded alone on Mars with damaged equipment, a finite food supply, and no way to signal Earth, Watney must improvise his survival one problem at a time — growing crops in Martian soil, rationing oxygen and water, and coaxing decades-old hardware back to life.

As NASA eventually spots signs of life and scrambles a rescue, the story alternates between Watney’s wisecracking log entries and the engineers, scientists, and crewmates racing against orbital mechanics to bring him home.

Told with relentless technical detail and gallows humor, it is a survival story whose central drama is competence under pressure: math, chemistry, and stubbornness against an indifferent planet.