Looks like sf, reads like a thriller. Mark Watney has just become the first man to walk on Mars, and now he's preparing to die there, his crew having left him behind because they assume he's dead after a vicious dust storm. Film rights for this first novel have been sold, and foreign rights sales are booming.

Weir combines the heart-stopping with the humorous in this brilliant debut novel about an astronaut stranded on Mars. When its mission is scrubbed as a result of a powerful windstorm, the team of Ares 3 move from their habitat to the ascent vehicle. In transit, Mark Watney's spacesuit is punctured by debris, knocking him unconscious and disabling the suit's biosign monitor so that he appears to be dead. When he regains consciousness, Mark realizes that his crew has left him: "I'm pretty much fucked." Now all he has to do is survive, reestablish communications, find a source of food, and last until the next mission to Mars. Like TV's MacGyver, Mark does have a few potatoes, lots of duct tape, and plenty of resourcefulness. If only Mars would stop trying to kill him and the crew had left behind something other than disco music and 1970s sitcoms for entertainment. VERDICT By placing a nail-biting life-and-death situation on Mars and adding a snarky and wise-cracking nerdy hero, Weir has created the perfect mix of action and space adventure. Mark is hilarious, which makes the terror of marooned death on Mars not just bearable but downright fun. First self-published as an ebook, this revised and edited new edition has also been sold to producer Simon Kinberg (X-Men: First Class). [See Prepub Alert, 7/15/13; see Q&A with Weir, p. 78.—Ed.]—Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Lib., Wisconsin Rapids