Andy Weir

Andrew Taylor Weir (born June 16, 1972), commonly known by his pen name, Andy Weir, is an American novelist whose debut novel, The Martian, was later adapted into a film of the same name directed by Ridley Scott in 2015. He also worked as a computer programmer for much of his life. He received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2016. 2Early life and education Weir was born and raised in California, the only child of an accelerator physicist father and an electrical-engineer mother who divorced when he was eight. Weir grew up reading classic science fiction such as the works of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. At the age of 15, he began working as a computer programmer for Sandia National Laboratories. He studied computer science at UC San Diego, although he did not graduate. He worked as a programmer for several software companies, including AOL, Palm, MobileIron and Blizzard, where he worked on the video game Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. 2Writing Weir began writing science fiction in his twenties and published work on his website for years. He also authored a humour web comic called Casey and Andy featuring fictionalized "mad scientist" versions of himself and his friends (such as writer Jennifer Brozek) from 2002 to 2008; he also briefly worked on another comic called Cheshire Crossing bridging Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and The Wizard of O