Like Robinson Crusoe but in the 21st century and on Mars. The exact same archetype, so many parallels. It only deviates in the presence of a third person narrative, the presence of earth's point of view et cetera. Great book, I think the popularity of the book is testament to how attractive our human tendency to survive against all odds is.

Also, what a good scifi book. Instead of having an unrealistic scenario where the science is made up, this book has a very realistic setting and shows us how the only things that limit us are the laws of physics. If we can bring everything down to that, we can fix a lot of problems. I wonder if any other scifi book will get this close to being so technically sound and dense. Watney's character is great, with a lot of life, very Percy Jackson coded.