Recommending Books to The Martian Characters | The Martian March

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Welcome back to The Martian March! As a book blogger, it’s no secret that I love recommending books. It’s one of my greatest pleasures to connect readers with the right stories! Instead of just recommending books to my friends or you via this blog, I am recommending books to The Martian characters today!

If you’re confused about The Martian March, you can find my introduction post here!

The Hermes Crew

I’m starting off with our crew of space travelers. They’re definitely the characters we get to know best. We even get an insight into their entertainment preferences when Mark is stuck on Mars with their data sticks. So picking books for the Hermes crew was surprisingly easy!

Mark Watney – The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

For our resident funny spaceman, I’m recommending The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. It’s a book of bite-sized essays, perfect for reading after watering your potatoes or while waiting for the newest NASA message. The essays are both funny and existential, a balance Mark would appreciate. As a character, he mostly copes with humor and we get little insight into his mental health. I think some of the essays in this book would give him a way to process his experience on Mars.

What I appreciate about this book is that the essays are both highly specific in their subjects and still manage to crack open human experiences on a greater scale. So while I might not share the specific experiences (I’ve never had a diet Dr. Pepper), I do relate to the underlying emotions John is exploring.

Alex Vogel – Light Years From Home by Mike Chen

One of the things we get to know about Alex Vogel is that he’s a family person! So my recommendation for him is Light Years From Home by Mike Chen, a very family-focused sci-fi novel. Yes, the family dynamics are fairly dysfunctional and not necessarily happy, but they’re still family.

Not only does Light Years From Home depict very realistic family struggles, but it also poses more philosophical questions about truth and perception. Vogel seems like the kind of guy who would appreciate that!

It’s the kind of book that I’d pick up to forget that I just blew a hole in my spaceship with a bomb. Caring about other people’s problems (and a possibly impending intergalactic war) can be very relaxing.

Related: My Review of Light Years From Home

Chris Beck – Written in Bone by Sue Black

Chris Beck, our resident doctor and Mr Handsome reads a lot of non-fiction. In fact, Mark notes that his data stick contains only medical journals!

I was tempted to recommend him a fiction book but ended up going with Written in Bone by Sue Black, one of my non-fiction favourites. It details her work as a forensic anthropologist along some of the cases she has worked on. I loved how much insight into her work she gave! It is also slightly less personal and story-heavy than All that Remains, her first book.

Beck seems like the kind of guy who would enjoy reading non-fiction about various fields. Written in Bone is also the perfect book for him to annotate and find areas for further research. Because he is definitely also the kind of guy who does academic research in his free time.

I think Written in Bone is the perfect pick for him because it’s still somewhat medical non-fiction…but a lot more engaging than reading medical journals!

Beth Johanssen – Bluebird by Ciel Pierlot

Beth Johanssen is our nerdy hacker and computer genius. I’m pretty sure she would love a high-stakes sci-fi adventure, so I’m recommending Bluebird by Ciel Pierlot.

After all, “badass women fight spies in space” is a pretty good description of this book. I loved the expansive world-building in Bluebird, but I loved the characters even more! They’re all unique and come with their own baggage and quirks. I feel like Beth would appreciate the cast of diverse and cool women!

Bluebird has it all: political intrigue, spies and action (including a heist at a ball!), and spaceship battles! It’s fun and engaging and the perfect book to read after a day of hacking your own spaceship to ignore official NASA orders. You know, a regular Tuesday.

Related: My Review of Bluebird

Melissa Lewis – The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

She might be the commander but to me, Melissa Lewis will forever be a music lover first. So for her, I am recommending The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow!

Yes, it is a Young Adult book. But I am a firm believer in great books being for all ages. And The Sound of Stars is a wonderful book! Not only does it have truly marvelous world-building, but it is also a book about music and stories.

Ellie’s love for music and books is a fundamental aspect of the plot and makes her a hero! I think Commander Lewis would appreciate that and cheer her on along the way.

Lewis is quite a serious character most of the time. After all, she has to keep her crew safe. The Sound of Stars is both romantic and funny (something I personally adore about all of Alechia Dow’s writing). I would love for Lewis to have an opportunity to escape into a fictional world where she can relax a little and worry about other people’s problems for a while.

Rick Martinez – A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djèlí Clark

Finally, our pilot with the smart mouth.

Admittedly, it took me a while to figure out what kind of book Martinez would like. Ultimately, I settled on A Dead Djinn in Cairo. It’s short but packs a punch and sets up a really interesting world. Set in 1912 in an alternate Cairo full of magic and mayhem, this was one of my unexpected favourites in 2021!

The world is just so intriguing and makes you want to keep reading and exploring. For some reason, Rick Martinez seems like the kind of man who enjoys short books with great world-building. And if he likes this one, there are other stories set in the same world to keep reading!

Personally, I’m super excited to keep exploring the world P. Djèlí Clark has created and I hope Martinez would feel the same way.

Bonus Characters

I couldn’t help but pick two of my favourite earth-bound characters from The Martian too. So here are the books I’d recommend to Mindy Park and Venkat Kapoor!

Mindy Park – We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen

Mindy Park is one of my favourite characters in The Martian. She’s smart, a little shy, and does one of the most important jobs: keeping an eye on Mark Watney. So for Mindy, I am recommending We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen.

It’s one of my favourite books of all time! It follows a superhero and a supervillain who are just trying to navigate their powers and life. When the two meet and reveal their identities to each other in an amnesia support group, they reluctantly team up to find out where their powers came from.

We Could Be Heroes is exciting without being stressful, something that Mindy (who is perpetually stressed and busy) definitely needs. It also centers an unlikely friendship! Personally, I loved getting a glimpse into the mundanity of superhero life!

The book also features a cat named Normal and while The Martian doesn’t tell us if Mindy is a cat person, all the fanfic I’ve read definitely does. So my personal canon is that Mindy is definitely a cat lady and would love Normal as much as I do!

Related: My Review of We Could Be Heroes

Venkat Kapoor – Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

Venkat seems like the kind of guy who’d get really into series! So for him, I am recommending Sleeping Giants and the entire Themis Files series by Sylvain Neuvel. It combines science, aliens, and humour, and I think Venkat would enjoy it a lot!

The main character Rose is a physicist and Venkat Kapoor is as well! It’s noted in the book that he has a doctorate in physics so I’m sure he’d appreciate that representation.

Sleeping Giants is told through interviews and log files, which make it really easy and engaging to read. The interviewer (who remains anonymous for most of the series) is also a sarcastic asshole. I just know that Venkat would simultaneously hate and love him.

I don’t know what Venkat Kapoor thinks of audiobooks, but considering he’s a pretty busy guy and looks at screens and emails all day…let’s hope he likes them. Because Sleeping Giant has a full cast audiobook! It’s one of my favourite audiobooks of all time and Venkat deserves a good vacation and time to read a good book.

Related: My Review of Sleeping Giants

Let’s Chat!

And that’s it for my book recommendation for The Martian characters! While some of them proved to be harder to find fitting books for, thinking about their possible reading tastes was so much fun! It immediately made me think about what books I’d recommend for other fictional characters. So maybe I’ll make this a regular occurrence on the blog!

Thank you so much for reading!

🚀 What books would you recommend to your favourite character?

🚀 Have you read any of these books? If so, what did you think?

I hope you have a lovely day,

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