A work of genius.

In Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster wrote: "The final test of a novel will be our affection for it, as it is the test of our friends, of anything else that we cannot define." He might have been writing about W. Somerset Maugham's masterpiece, Of Human Bondage.

I do not know of any living writer who seems to have his work so much under control.

A deeply imagined and powerfully moving novel.

Maugham, who usually cultivated a fastidious detachment, shows in this work a personal commitment that was unusual, sweeping the reader up in his own passionate intensity.

like Gravity meets Robinson Crusoe – utterly nail-biting and memorable.

A book I just couldn’t put down! It has the very rare combination of a good, original story, interestingly real characters and fascinating technical accuracy…reads like MacGyver meets Mysterious Island.

The amount of research here is astounding. We’re suckers for well-grounded fiction, and on the technical side, The Martian is exemplary ... witty ... funny

The Martian kicked my ass! Weir has crafted a relentlessly entertaining and inventive survival thriller, a MacGyver-trapped-on-Mars tale that feels just as real and harrowing as the true story of Apollo 13.

Weir’s debut is easily the best SF novel of the year so far

An impressively geeky debut novel ... the technical details keep the story relentlessly precise and the suspense ramped up

Strong, resilient, and gutsy. It's Robinson Crusoe on Mars, 21st century style. Set aside a chunk of free time when you start this one. You're going to need it because you won't want to put it down.

Think Apollo 13 ... on Mars! ... A saga of courage, ingenuity and humour - and utterly convincing thanks to superb research. The best space disaster story since Clarke's A Fall of Moondust.

jaw-clenchingly gripping ... a modern-day Apollo13

Brilliant…a celebration of human ingenuity [and] the purest example of real-science sci-fi for many years…Utterly compelling.

Don’t be put off thinking this is a sci-fi book – it’s so much more than that. Utterly brilliant.

One of the best thrillers I’ve read in a long time, an incredible story about an astronaut marooned on Mars. This is no science fiction tale: the technology is beautifully researched and based on what is currently envisioned for a manned flight to Mars. It feels so real it could almost be nonfiction, and yet it has the narrative drive and power of a rocket launch. This is Apollo 13 times ten. I could not put this book down.

Gripping…shapes up like Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe as written by someone brighter.

The tension simply never lets up, from the first page to the last, and at no point does the believability falter for even a second. You can't shake the feeling that this could all really happen.

Weir has fashioned in Mark Watney one of the most appealing, funny and resourceful characters in recent fiction ... gripping

one of the best survival stories you’ll ever read (think Robinson Crusoe on Mars only more extreme).

Sharp, funny and thrilling, with just the right amount of geekery.

Apollo 13-meets-Robinson-Crusoe-on-Mars, and I guess for those who enjoyed the films Gravity or Moon, this one will be a literary equivalent ... I was, in the end, totally won over by this book in its celebration of how humans can deal with anything the harshness of science and extreme environments can pose, and it kept me reading longer than I meant to

one of the most thrilling and absorbing novels I have ever read

Riveting...a tightly constructed and completely believable story of a man's ingenuity and strength in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Weir combines the heart-stopping with the humorous in this brilliant debut novel... the perfect mix of action and space adventure.

An exciting, insightful science- based tale [that] kept me turning the pages to see what ingenious solution our hero would concoct to survive yet anotherimpossible dilemma

I loved that book.

[O]ne of my favourite reads of the year … Funny, irreverent, touching and well-written, this is definitely recommended.

Draws sibling love and rivalries with as much gentle satire as poignancy.

No one delineates familial bad behaviour the way [Hadley] does.

Tessa Hadley has the natural bent of a short-story writer, given to careful description and the kind of feinted closure that pushes uncomfortably past happily ever after.

Hadley is so insightful, such a lovely writer, that she pulls you right into the tangle of wires that connect and trip up the stressed siblings.

Her best so far

Hadley is expert at conveying emotion... The way she draws each character is so good the book feels like a huge achievement. Her best so far.

Hadley, who won the Hawthornden prize this month for The Past, is literary fiction’s best kept secret. Don’t let her fellow novelists keep her for themselves.

[The Past is] magnificently done: half celebration, half elegy.

There are hints of Larkin in her tender descriptions of landscape and imaginative responses to the ineffable… All her books are wonderful.

This is a hugely enjoyable and keenly intelligent novel, brimming with the vitality of unruly desire.