Proof that the remaining 10% is worth going to Mars for:
These are recommendations made by Tropers for The Martian, so please be sure to sign them all. No-name recommendations will be given only potatoes to eat. Also warn if your fic contains mature content such as sexual moments, swearing, blood and gore, etc. Keep your synopses and reviews short and share as much as you can with your other tropers in the Discussion page.
Do warn when a fanfic may head into non-canon or into a territory of its own canon. Some people just don't like it, and as we all know, Shipping is Serious Business.
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Complete
- Recommended by Polaris
- Status: Complete
- Synopsis: Mark Watney will need to buy a lot of people beers. (A collection of in-world oneshots cataloging the world's reactions. From the news to social media and from regular people to NASA rover techs.)
You Know You Have a Permanent Piece of My Medium-Sized American Heart
by tricatular
- Recommended by: Polaris
- Status: Complete
- Synopsis: NASA starts releasing Watney's logs to the public. Social media reacts.
- Comments: Features lovely crew-as-family moments, Mark readjusting to life away from Mars, the entire world fretting over Mark like a worried grandmother, SCIENCE!, and many, many memes.
- Note: Movie-levels of swearing.
Just Keep Going and its sequel I Win, Mars as well as an unfinished third part Everything After. Also on fanfiction.net here.
- Recommended by: NC Toni
- Status:
- Just Keep Going: Complete
- I Win, Mars: Complete
- Everything After: Ongoing/Dormant
- Synopsis: Following Mark Watney through canon before, during and after the Ares III mission.
- Comments: A fascinating, heart-wrenching, astonishingly well written reimagining of the novel, focusing on the immense mental, emotional and physical consequences of Watney's time on Mars. Delves deep into the effects of solitude, trauma, and mental illness. Dark, but ultimately hopeful.
- Recommended by: rday
- Status: Complete
- Synopsis: Watney still has a lot of talking to do as the crew of the Hermes returns to Earth after his rescue.
- Tags: Sequel
- Unmigrated Reviews
The Martians by JPAnderson
- Recommended by lalalei2001
- Status: Complete
- Synopsis: What if Lewis found Mark in the storm?
The Anti-Spud League by Stratagem
- Recommended by lalalei2001
- Status: Complete
- Synopsis: Mark explains a little about why he doesn't eat potatoes to his friends' daughter. Now expanded to further short stories about Chris and Beth Beck's daughter Callie.
Ongoing
Close to Home by Glowstick
by Glowstick- Recommended by: Capt Equinox
- Status: In Progress
- Synopsis: Like Just Keep Going, focuses on the devastating effects of solitude and stress, in a "What If Mark Had Never Managed To Communicate With Earth" scenario, showing his plans to survive for four years until he can meet the Ares 4 mission, and then what happens after he does.
How Martians Survive Earth by solstar16
- Recommended by lalalei2001
- Status: Dormant since 2017
- Synopsis: Mark Watney and his struggles back on Earth with normality. Drabbles and oneshots. Profanity.
Shipping Fics
Complete
the amazing space opera of mark watney by CerinityKS
- Recommended by: Starfire 2
- Status: Complete
- Synopsis: Mark Watney gets recruited by an OOC Rich Purnell is sent on an undercover mission in a corrupt N.A.S.A (which is implied to be a corporate version of Starfleet from Star Trek) to gain information for the Congregate (implied to be a militaristic organization under the orders of the government but also similar to a spy organization) on the director of N.A.S.A., Teddy Sanders. along the way he has to hide his identity from the crew of the Ares 3 under a fake name, and gets shot at.
- Pairing: Beck/Watney
- Tags: Undercover, Alternate Universe - Space
- Comments: I'm a big fan of hidden identity fanfics, and I found this through the book/movie's wiki. It became one of my favorite fics, which is no easy feat (to date I only have 3 favorite fanfics, and only one other favorite thing). Read if you want a badass crew, action, Beck and Watney going on cute dates (no explicit sex involved, just mentions of it occuring), and the complications that come with being undercover, all with elements from The Martian, this story is for you!
Ongoing
Crossover Fics
Complete
Big Hero Martian by althor42 Also on AO3 under Anonymous. by Kris Overstreet (Now has its own page.)
by althor42 Also on AO3 under Anonymous.- Recommended by Kalaong
- Crossover with: Big Hero 6
- Status: Complete.
- Synopsis: There would have been no rescue for Mark, if NASA had not noticed he was still alive. Unless of course, a certain Big Hero noticed instead.
- Comments: A fun, well-researched romp where Mark Watney gets rescued by a Teen Genius instead of an international effort. Notable for exploring the consequences of such an act. Teen Genius builds a spaceship? NASA impounds it. Teen Genius launches said spaceship? North Korea lanches anti-satellite weapons at it. Teen Genius returns to Earth, expecting international acclaim? The Government immediately invokes the Invention Secrecy Act, leaving him with nothing except a NASA draft for his trouble. Maybe he'll get to build another ship in five years. And maybe he'll get to ride in another one in twenty. Hey, he might even get to own one of his ships - in thirty years.
by Kris Overstreet (Now has its own page.)- Recommended by: Philosophysics
- Status: Completed on 2018-10-19, got an epilogue on 2019-04-01.
- Crossover with: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Synopsis: Twilight Sparkle's experimental interplanetary drive has malfunctioned, stranding Starlight Glimmer, Spitfire, Cherry Berry, a changeling and a dragon on a hostile planet in another universe. With limited food supplies, very little magic, no communications with home, and no way to leave the planet, they must survive until somepony rescues them.
Fortunately they crashed right next door to another creature with the exact same problem- a creature named Mark Watney.
They're going to have to science the buck out of everything- and do whatever it takes to survive Mars and get everybody home.
—OR—
Mark Watney just got stranded on Mars. Planning for survival on a hostile planet is hard enough. Planning for survival on a hostile planet with a dragon, a bug thing, a horse, a pegasus, and a unicorn that came in on a bedazzled rocket ship straight out of a toy line for girls? Well, survival just got a lot harder.
They're going to have to science the buck out of everything. - Tags: Crossover
- Unmigrated Reviews
Ongoing
