Shelfology Book Pairing

A Novel

by Andy Weir

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Brilliant . . . a celebration of human ingenuity the purest example of real-science sci-fi for many years . . . utterly compelling.”—The Wall Street Journal The inspiration for the major motion picture Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him? NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE “A hugely entertaining novel reads like a rocket ship afire . . . Weir has fashioned in Mark Watney one of the most appealing, funny, and resourceful characters in recent fiction.”—Chicago Tribune “As gripping as they come . . . You’ll be rooting for Watney the whole way, groaning at every setback and laughing at his pitchblack humor. Utterly nail-biting and memorable.”—Financial Times

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Long ago, towards the end of humanity’s first expansion into space, the vast majority of worlds were terraformed under the auspices of irascible genius Avrana Kern. But Kern had rivals, and a team of self-proclaimed innovators took one world from her remit and devoted themselves to reshaping it into a paradise in their own image, using new and unpredictable methods. Later, after the fall of their society and long generations in the wilderness, the new and desperate return of humanity into space is focused on ark ships heading to all the worlds they believe – or hope – their ancestors made into welcoming homes for human life. Whilst most head for the planets that Kern’s people worked on, ancient records show another pristine world, and an invitation from the ancients to inhabit it. Later still, a ship with a crew of maverick humans, spiders and a spectacularly punchy mantis shrimp captain named Cato rediscover the world, and the ark. On their ship, the human Alis wakes up from a nightmare of conflicted realities to discover that she, Cato and the ship’s version of Kern are the only ones left on board. Everyone else went to explore the ark and the planet, and now all contact has been lost. Traumatised Alis and Belligerant Cato must follow in the footsteps of their crewmates to discover the full magnitude of what was done to this world by its terraformers, and to rescue the one surviving member of their crew from the surface – before she becomes a greater threat than anything the world itself can produce.