Arshed Nabeel

The book offers a glimpse into the life and thoughts of Einstein; not just his science, but also his messy and complicated personal life as well as his well-formed and articulate views on society and politics.

I appreciate the fact that the author does not dwell too much on the science. Attempting to present Einstein's science in a popular book would, in all likelihood, have entailed gross oversimplifications and watering down on the key aspects. Since the author is not a practising scientist himself, he has intelligently avoided this trap, instead focussing more on the story of how these discoveries were made and the impact they had on his life.

I also appreciate how both Einstein's messy personal life, as well has his opinions and activities in the socio-political sphere, have been mostly given the attention they deserve. Especially (though not exclusively) towards the latter half of his life, Einstein was outspoken about his views on politics and society: espousing his view of pacifism, socialism (albeit a gentler form), a unified world government, and a strong distaste for nationalism.

However, if you look carefully, it is evident how the author tries to gloss over some of Einstein's viewpoints, especially where they may contradict with the author's own—this is by main criticism of the book. Such views were either ignored altogether, or varnished over with explanatory remarks. A couple of examples: (i) Einstein was scathingly critical about the US administration during the McCarthy/Red-scare era; and (ii) his support for Zionism was anything but unconditional, and he was a pacifist and against nationalism throughout his life. These ‘inconvenient' aspects of Einstein's views are underplayed in the book.

The Martian is a good book. The payback is worth it for whatever time you choose to invest in the book. Depending on your tastes and interests, you could be flipping through the pages, believing in the numbers thrown at you, or be meticulously googling, reconfirming and learning about every bit of factoid you stumble upon. However, it's not a great book. It falls short in language, presentation and subtlety.

The language and presentation has a cheerful naïveté to it – it's endearing in the beginning, And since the protagonist Mark Watney is introduced as a cheerful quirky guy, the tone suits the log-pages he writes. However, it quickly grows tiresome and hollow; and once you get to the point where NASA top brass are talking like high-school hipsters, you realize that the almost-stupid jive belongs to the author himself rather than the protagonist. I found strange sense of humor, the pop-culture references, one-line-quips (some of them coming out of the mouths of middle-aged executive men in highly inappropriate scenarios), and 70's-culture-bashing, all equally terrible.

The language and presentation are rather blunt. There are hardly any sentence that you'll want to read a second time for its beauty; no line or phrase that will stay with you days even after you put the book down. Similarly, the author attempts to streak the storyline with a few emotional threads (family-relations, conversations among crew members etc.), but most of them are underdeveloped, and fall flat on their faces.

However, The Martian isn't about exquisite language or subtle emotional sketches. The Martian is about the survival story of an estranged man caught alone on Mars. It's about the sheer joy of survival stories, and about the tiniest details of how a resourceful guy could fight an impossibly hostile environment. It's a good book, and is a must-read if you're the kind that waits for every update XKCD What-If comic. It's a worthy read if space even remotely fascinates you, or if you love books interspersed with factoids and trivia. I liked the book as a whole, but there are many things about it that I hate.

I no longer read Dan Brown books for the thrill or suspense – once you read a couple of books, you know what to expect, and the “thrill” is practically non-existent. On the other hand, a Dan Brown book will add one more book to your “have-read” list and give a good boost to your bag of trivia; all this with minimal cognitive expenditure. That's some decent returns for the time and effort you spend, I'd say.