The Martian by Andy Weir

Self-published digitially in 2011; published by Crown on February 11, 2014

The Martian is written in a lively voice that I can easily imagine belonging to a frustrated engineer. It isn't an eloquent voice but it isn't meant to be. Mark Watney has a right to feel frustrated as he narrates his story, having been (understandably) left for dead on the surface of Mars by a crew escaping from a hellacious sandstorm. The base in which the crew planned to live is intact but the communications dish Watney needs to contact Earth is destroyed in the storm. Another crew is scheduled to land (although far from his current location) in four years. Watney has enough food to survive for about a year. Seems like the poor guy should starve to death if he doesn't choose a more peaceful death by morphine, but Watney turns out to be a resourceful scientist who doesn't easily give up on life.

New characters are eventually introduced as the action shifts to Earth and to NASA, which eventually notices that the Rover left behind on Mars seems to have moved. The parts of the story that take place on Earth are surprisingly strong in their own way, and a sharp contrast to the individualistic story that Watney tells. Like the rest of the novel, the Earthbound story seems realistic, from the distress that people feel about Watney to the distress they feel at managing a public relations nightmare.

On one level, The Martian is a survival story, sort of an updated Robinson Crusoe on Mars without the monkey. But it's also a pure science fiction story, with a refreshing emphasis on science. There are no zombies here. At the same time, explaining the science doesn't bog down the story, as science-heavy sf too often does. This is fundamentally a story about people and crisis management. Andy Weir put an enormous amount of thought into The Martian, from commemorative stamps honoring Watney that need to be recalled to overtime funding for NASA scientists who work desperately to save his life.

The Martian strikes me as a novel that should have broad appeal. Fans of geek-speak who think science and technical innovation are the most important aspects of sf will find loads to enjoy. Readers who think sf needs to have human interest to differentiate it from a technical manual will find it here in plentiful supply. Readers who only want to spend time with likable characters will love Watney (he's a funny guy). Even readers who like action-filled plots should be happy. The action doesn't consist of battles with aliens using laser swords but the struggle for survival creates a fair amount of tension and keeps the story moving at a good pace. Readers who crave zombies will be disappointed but I suspect most sf fans will be as happy with The Martian as I was.

The Martian ends with a discussion of human nature. Humans can be truly awful to each other, but most of us have an instinctive desire to help one another, even to help complete strangers when lives are at risk, and to risk our own lives to do it. Through Mark Watney, Weir reminds us of our better natures. According to Watney, people who care about other human beings "massively outnumber" people who don't. I think that's probably true. It's a great reminder, movingly illustrated in an emotionally enriching story. I suspect The Martian is destined to be regarded as a classic work of sf. That's pretty remarkable for a book that was originally self-published.

RECOMMENDED

Promise Land by Jessica Lamb-Shapiro

Published by Simon & Schuster on January 7, 2014

Once the exclusive province of books, the self-help industry has expanded to seminars, coaches, facilitators, and other enterprises (some resembling Ponzi schemes) that are dedicated to charging fees in exchange for telling people how to achieve goals or live better lives. You can even email questions to self-help advisers who will answer them for a fee. Although it doesn't seem like "self" help if you are paying a coach to tell you what to do, the industry will happily teach you how to self-help your way to romance, popularity, self-esteem, emotional wellness, satisfying sex, good health, a higher income, a more pleasing body shape, well-behaved children, and pretty much anything else you think you need.

Self-help is nothing new. As Jessica Lamb-Shapiro reminds us, Emerson and Ben Franklin provided the kind of advice that is now regarded as self-help. Thomas Jefferson and Thoreau stressed the power of positive thinking. "Success literature" (covering everything from etiquette to proper diet) thrived during the Victorian era and Samuel Smiles' 1859 self-improvement guide, Self-Help, was hugely popular.

The one-size-fits-all advice that self-help books dispense tends to be superficial, if not glib, in denial of the idiosyncratic diversity of human existence. They are filled with advice that is contradictory and flat-out wrong. They encourage unrealistic expectations (no matter how much you want to achieve a goal, some goals are unattainable unless you have talent). They are based on specious theories -- e.g., "the law of attraction": if you think really really hard about something you want, it will come to you -- that are wholly unsupported by evidence or rationality.

Still, there may be (largely hidden) value in something like "the law of attraction," to the extent that it encourages people to focus their thoughts and to understand their desires. There can, in fact, be value in just about anything if you're willing to dig for it. If a self-help book helps you overcome a fear or gain confidence or think about your problems in a new way, perhaps you found the self-help book that is right for you (while understanding that not all of them will be).

As Lamb-Shapiro points out, some people swear by the wisdom they derive from self-help dispensers while others dismiss self-help as, at best, harmless but lame pop psychology or, at worst, unethical and potentially harmful. Maybe the people who thrive on self-help books need a lot of help or maybe they just enjoy (and benefit from) the inspirational stories that are the backbone of the self-help industry. Lamb-Shapiro brings a tone of playful objectivity to her exploration of the self-help industry, concluding that it fills a national need even if individual self-help practitioners can be "flaky, inarticulate, and deceptive."

The book's weakness is its failure to develop a defining theme. At times, it seems to be intended as a humorous dissection of the self-help industry (surely an easy target) but if that was the goal, it isn't funny enough to succeed. At times, it seems intended as a serious analysis of self-help and it does deliver insight, as in her comparison of serious thought (C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed) to self-help fluff (Grieving For Dummies),  but it lacks the intellectual heft and clear organization that scholarship demands. Although subtitled "A Memoir," Promise Land meanders aimlessly from one topic to another and only occasionally touches on Lamb-Shapiro's relationship to father, a psychologist who developed and sold dull, noncompetitive family games that were a form of self-help but who avoided talking to Lamb-Shapiro about her mother's suicide. If Promise Land is meant to be a memoir, it tells us very little about the author's life.  Lamb-Shapiro does manage to present a balanced if scattered overview of the self-help industry that is neither laudatory nor condemnatory, but a stronger and more purposeful focus would have made Promise Land a better book.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Obedient Assassin by John P. Davidson

Published by Delphinium Books on January 7, 2014

The Obedient Assassin is a fictional account of Leonid Trotsky's assassination in Mexico in 1940. Stalin (at least according to the novel) was concerned that Trotsky had divided revolutionary sympathies in Spain and that he might do the same in the coming war with Germany. John Davidson's novel follows the assassin, a lieutenant in the Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War named Ramón Mercader, from his receipt of Stalin's orders to infiltrate Trotsky's organization in Paris to the aftermath of Trotsky's death. Stalin's orders are relayed through Mercader's mother, Caridad, who proved her loyalty to the Party when she did not resist the execution of Mercader's brother. Mercader hates his mother for letting his brother die but he nonetheless follows Stalin's directive.

To get close to Trotsky, Mercader must get close to Sylvia Ageloff, an American who has access to Trotsky and supports his Fourth Directive. Posing as a Belgian, Mercader arranges to meet Sylvia in Paris and eventually marries her. He later joins Sylvia in New York and Mexico, playing the dual role of husband and spy.

The Obedient Assassin is of historical more than literary interest. I'm not an historian so I can't comment upon the novel's historical accuracy, other than to note that certain events depicted in the book actually occurred and that several persons who plotted Trotsky's assassination turn up as characters (facts I gleaned from Wikipedia). Mercader often seems to be going through the motions -- "I'm doing this because the history texts say I did this" -- while the novel rarely penetrates beneath the obvious in its attempt to reveal his feelings and motivations. Its portrayal of Mercader's feelings for Sylvia -- along the lines of "I'm supposed to be using her but I've fallen in love with her" -- is trite.

I appreciated the attempt to paint Mercader as a man riddled with doubt and divided loyalties, but Davidson didn't make me feel his passion for the Spanish Civil War or the tension that should precede a political assassination. Mercader's fear and frustration near the end of the novel seem real but the description of the assassination is mechanical and the final chapters are melodramatic. While The Obedient Assassin gets off to a promising start, it loses energy that it never recaptures. It often comes across as the outline rather than the execution of a good novel.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Graveyard of Memories by Barry Eisler

Published by Thomas & Mercer on February 11, 2014

John Rain thinks back to 1972 when, at the age of twenty, he was a bagman for the CIA in Tokyo (a city Barry Eisler paints in vivid colors). Rain's violent reaction to violent circumstances places his life in danger and the only way to remedy his plight (and to earn the continued backing of his CIA handler) is to carry out a difficult assassination of a prominent Japanese politician. Hence begins Rain's life as a professional killer.

It's interesting to contrast the younger Rain, reckless and arrogant, with the mindful man that he becomes later in life (as chronicled in earlier novels in the John Rain series). The younger Rain, if not quite dismissive of morality, is still working out his own code of honor. He is just starting to learn the value of ancient Japanese rituals. He's also starting to learn the tradecraft that will keep him alive in a dangerous profession. He has not yet "come to grips with that ever-present weight" that becomes more burdensome with age (particularly if you spend a lot of your time killing people).

True to form, Eisler makes John Rain a likable guy, which is why readers buy John Rain books even though his profession is less than admirable. It's a neat trick to turn a killer into a sympathetic character. In Graveyard of Memories, Eisler builds empathy for Rain by making him awkward and shy and improbably sensitive in his interaction with a young woman in a wheelchair to whom he is attracted. This is an odd love story, but it works.

As is typical of a Rain novel, the plot is intricate without becoming convoluted. Rain suspects he is being manipulated and possibly double-crossed, but he isn't sure who is pulling the strings. The story eventually focuses on his effort to answer that question. Toward the end, Eisler deftly ties the plot into real-world corporate and CIA scandals. But it isn't so much the plot that drew me into this novel as the characterization of John Rain. It was a refreshing change from the norm to read about a thriller character who realizes that he needs to become wiser. I've enjoyed other Rain novels but this one is my new favorite, simply because it adds new and credible dimensions to a complex character.

RECOMMENDED

Lucretia and the Kroons by Victor LaValle

Published by Spiegel & Grau on July 23, 2012

Consider, if you will, Lucretia Gardner. (I begin with these words because I was hearing Rod Serling's narrative voice while I read this novella.) Lucretia lives in Queens. She just turned twelve. She wants to spend time with her best (and only) friend, Sunny, a girl who is dying of cancer. Apartment 6D (according to Lucretia's older brother) is occupied by the remnants of a deformed and rotting family of crack-addicted child snatchers called the Kroons. Are the Kroons the invention of an older brother who wants to scare his sister, or do they exist? Lucretia learns the answer to that question when her mother and brother leave her alone to spend some time with Sunny.

Victor LaValle writes twisted, nontraditional versions of horror stories. His monsters often behave in surprisingly human ways. Despite the monstrous appearance of the Kroons, there's a sweetness to the story and a large dose of gentle humor (including the suggestion that Shea Stadium is actually Heaven). This might be the only story you'll read in which children smoking cigarettes is a good thing.

As LaValle demonstrated in The Devil in Silver, true horror lies not in the supernatural but in the tangible world. In Lucretia and the Kroons -- sort of a longish short story -- it is the horror of childhood cancer, of saying goodbye to a friend who will never grow up. While LaValle achieved a greater degree of poignancy in The Devil in Silver, this story offers another fine balance of creepiness and honest emotion, showcased by characters who are original and sympathetic.

RECOMMENDED