The Martian

I was a little surprised to get a hard copy (well, soft cover, but close enough) of this, given how this is one of the works that heralds of the e-book revolution point to.

Anyway, this is a straightforward adventure-type novel. My copy has a short interview with the author afterwards, where he mentions admiring Heinlein. I don't really see any Heinlein here, but that era of SF shows through here.

This was apparently first released in serial form, and it kind of shows. There are a few more crises than you'd typically expect if it had been not serialized, some of them more telegraphed than others.

With a book like this, the criteria you're looking for is did it keep you turning pages? If yes, then it did its job. This was diverting, if nothing else.