If the way Jamie Waterman and the Ares crew sweat the EVA checklists, life-support margins, and dust-storm risks hooked you, you’ll love The Martian. Mark Watney’s day-by-day fixes—jury‑rigging water from hydrazine, farming in regolith, and timing rover traverses to communications windows—deliver that same nuts‑and‑bolts, you‑are‑there authenticity that made the Ares mission feel real.

You enjoyed how the Ares expedition kept circling back to a single aim—reach the enigmatic Martian formation and uncover what it means. In Rendezvous with Rama, Commander Norton’s team pursues an equally laser‑focused goal: enter the alien cylinder and map, test, and understand it before it slings out of the Solar System. The same purposeful momentum drives every scene.

If the committee meddling, media pressure, and nation‑state jockeying that dog Jamie Waterman’s mission felt gripping, Red Mars doubles down. From Frank Chalmers’s realpolitik to John Boone’s idealism and Maya’s factional maneuvering, you’ll get the full spectrum of infighting and policy brinkmanship that echo the Earthside pressures weighing on the Ares crew.

In Mars, the story moves among mission members and stakeholders, revealing how clashing priorities shape every decision. The Sparrow offers that same mosaic: you follow Emilio Sandoz, Anne and George Edwards, and the rest of the Jesuit-led team as their personal motives, faith, and scientific curiosity collide—much like the Ares crew’s competing visions and pressures from Earthside handlers.

If the cliff‑dweller enigma on Mars—and Jamie’s desperate push to reach it—lit you up, Deepsix delivers a kindred thrill. Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins leads a scramble to investigate ruins on a storm‑wracked world before it’s destroyed, blending fieldwork peril, piecemeal clues, and that same goosebump‑raising moment when human footprints cross truly ancient mysteries.