Most audiobooks have one narrator. The Martian has two, recorded four years apart, for reasons that have nothing to do with quality and everything to do with publishing rights. If you search for this book you will likely land on both versions, sometimes without much indication of which one you are about to buy, so here is exactly what separates them and why the choice matters more than it might for most audiobooks.
The Short Version
R.C. Bray narrated the original 2013 audiobook for Podium Publishing, before The Martian was a bestseller or a film, and Andy Weir has publicly praised his performance. Audible later acquired the audio rights and commissioned a new 2017 recording by Wil Wheaton, adding exclusive bonus short stories not in the original. Both are well-regarded. If you can find the Bray version, most longtime fans and this site recommend it as the performance most closely identified with the book's cult following. If you are already an Audible subscriber and the Wheaton edition is what is readily available to you, you are not settling for a lesser recording, just a different, also well-executed one.
How This Two-Narrator Situation Happened
The Martian started as a free serial on Andy Weir's personal blog before he self-published it on Amazon in 2011. Podium Publishing produced the original audiobook, and R.C. Bray, an actor who was still relatively early in his narration career, was cast by the publisher, not handpicked by Weir. It became one of the breakout success stories of self-published audio fiction: the book eventually landed a traditional publishing deal with Crown in 2014, a film deal with 20th Century Fox followed, and by the time Ridley Scott's adaptation starring Matt Damon was in theaters, The Martian was a genuine cultural phenomenon.
That success is exactly what triggered the second recording. Audible, per reporting from Space.com, approached the rights holders with what Weir described simply as "a pile of money" for the audiobook rights, separate from Podium's existing print and ebook deal. Once Audible secured those rights, they commissioned an entirely new recording, this time with Wil Wheaton, and sweetened the new edition with previously unpublished short stories about protagonist Mark Watney that only appear in the Wheaton version. Weir has been unambiguous in interviews that this was a rights and business decision, not a quality judgment: "The narrator did a fantastic job. Everyone loved his version, and all was right with the world. Everybody made out like bandits," he told Space.com, referring directly to Bray's original performance.
R.C. Bray: The Original, Made Before Anyone Knew What This Book Would Become
Robert Christian Bray, born in Chicago in 1977, trained at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting and had a background in Off-Broadway and Edinburgh Fringe Festival performance before moving into audiobook narration. When Podium cast him for The Martian, he was not yet the towering figure in science fiction audio he would become, this recording effectively made his career. His performance earned an Audie Award finalist nomination for Science Fiction and a Voice Arts Award nomination, and he has gone on to narrate more than 250 audiobooks, becoming one of the genre's most recognizable and sought-after voices, particularly for military science fiction like the Expeditionary Force series.
What listeners consistently praise about Bray's take on Mark Watney is the specific comic register he found for a character who is, essentially, narrating his own potential death via sarcastic log entries. Watney's voice on the page is wisecracking, profane, and defiantly undefeated, and Bray's delivery leans into a kind of exhausted, deadpan optimism that many fans describe as feeling like the character's "real" voice, the version they heard first and measure every subsequent adaptation, including the film, against.
Wil Wheaton: A Recognizable Voice With His Own Devoted Following
Wil Wheaton needs less introduction to general audiences: he played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation and had a long-running recurring role as a fictionalized version of himself on The Big Bang Theory. Less widely known outside audiobook circles is that Wheaton has built a substantial, entirely separate career as a narrator, with a particular following among science fiction and geek-culture readers who trust his taste and delivery specifically because of his own background in the genre.
Listener reactions to Wheaton's Martian are consistently warm; one Goodreads reviewer specifically noted slowing playback down to savor the performance rather than speeding it up, an unusual reaction that speaks to how absorbing many listeners find his reading. Wheaton brings a slightly different comic energy than Bray, and several listeners who came to the book already familiar with his other narration work, including Cory Doctorow's novels and Masters of Doom, specifically sought out his version of The Martian because they already trusted his voice.
Head-to-Head: The Key Differences
Availability and Bonus Content
The Wheaton edition, produced by Audible, includes exclusive bonus short stories about Mark Watney not available in the Bray edition. If those extras matter to you, that is a real, concrete point in Wheaton's favor regardless of narration preference.
Historical and Cultural Weight
Bray's recording is the one that existed when The Martian was still a cult favorite discovered through word of mouth rather than marketing, and it is the version most closely associated with the book's underdog publishing story. For listeners who care about experiencing a book the way its earliest fans did, that history carries real weight.
Vocal Style
Both narrators lean into Watney's sardonic humor, but listener reports describe subtly different comic rhythms, Bray's delivery often described as more deadpan and worn-down, Wheaton's as slightly warmer and more conversational. Neither description implies one is more skilled; they are simply different readings of the same voice.
Publisher and Platform
Bray's recording was produced by Podium Publishing and is widely available across platforms including Libro.fm and library apps. Wheaton's recording is an Audible-exclusive production, which matters if you are not already an Audible subscriber and would need to purchase or access it specifically through that platform.
Which One Should You Choose?
If you have access to both and no strong platform loyalty, we lean toward recommending the Bray version first, specifically because it is the performance most closely tied to why this book became a phenomenon in the first place, and Andy Weir's own public praise for it carries real weight. That said, if you are already an Audible subscriber and the Wheaton edition, with its bonus material, is the one sitting in your library or included with your credits, you are choosing between two well-executed performances, not settling for a lesser one. This is one of the rare cases in audiobook narration where the honest answer to "which is better" is that reasonable, careful listeners disagree, and the deciding factor for most people ends up being availability rather than a clear quality gap.
What About the Film? Does Either Recording Match Matt Damon's Performance?
It is worth addressing directly, since so many listeners come to the audiobook after seeing Ridley Scott's film adaptation: neither Bray nor Wheaton is attempting to imitate Matt Damon's performance, and that is a strength rather than a limitation. The film necessarily compresses Watney's internal log entries into visible action and voiceover, while both audiobook narrators get to sit inside the character's unfiltered, profane, occasionally despairing internal monologue for the full unabridged runtime. Listeners who loved the film specifically for Damon's charm often find that both audio versions deliver something the movie could not: hours more of Watney's specific, sarcastic problem-solving voice, uninterrupted by the need to also show Mars visually.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does The Martian have two different audiobook narrators?
R.C. Bray narrated the original 2013 audiobook for Podium Publishing. After the novel became a bestseller and film, Audible acquired separate audio rights and commissioned a new 2017 recording by Wil Wheaton, which also includes exclusive bonus short stories.
Did Andy Weir prefer one narrator over the other?
Weir has publicly praised Bray's original performance, calling it fantastic and noting that "everyone loved his version." He has not publicly criticized the Wheaton recording, and the change was driven by Audible acquiring the rights rather than any dissatisfaction with the original.
Does the Wil Wheaton version have different content?
Yes. The Wheaton edition includes exclusive short stories about protagonist Mark Watney that do not appear in the original Bray recording, in addition to being a full new narration of the novel itself.
Is the Wil Wheaton audiobook only available on Audible?
Yes, it was produced as an Audible-exclusive title. The R.C. Bray recording, produced by Podium Publishing, is more widely available across platforms including Libro.fm and library lending apps.
Which version is longer?
Both are unabridged narrations of the same novel and run close in length, with the Wheaton edition running slightly longer due to the additional bonus short story content included in that release.
Read our full audiobook review of The Martian, browse more from R.C. Bray and Wil Wheaton, or explore the Fiction audiobooks and ebooks we have reviewed on WellNarrated.
