The Martian is getting a Deluxe Edition
But are these special limited editions really just the new dust jacket refresh?
The wave of special and deluxe editions doesn't seem to be abating. What started in specialty presses and book clubs has become something of an almost regular thing for books: deluxe editions with some additional bells and whistles, usually slipcases, sprayed edges and endpapers, and similar things.
Over the weekend at the Green Mountain Book Festival, I was speaking with one of our authors about this phenomenon, and noted that while it's become popular, it often falls into two categories: perks for folks who're buying the book right away (like R.F. Kuang's Katabasis), or for books that have an established track record, like James S.A. Corey's The Expanse or Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice (See Orbit's special anniversary treatments) or recently, Pierce Brown's Red Rising. Now, a new classic SF book is getting the treatment: Andy Weir's The Martian.
Andrew Liptak
Penguin Random House posted about the new edition today on Instagram, and it looks like a nice one: it comes with some sprayed edges with a neat design, new cover art, illustrated endpapers, and a slipcase. It'll retail for $38 and is slated to be released on May 26th, 2026.
This isn't the first time that The Martian has gotten this sort of special treatment: back in 2015, Subterranean Press released a limited edition with art by Daniel Dociu (you can still find copies for a pretty penny on eBay), while more recently, specialty publisher Curious King is publishing its own edition with art by Eason Zhang. Those seem to be sold out, and they're going for a lot on the secondary market.
This new edition from Random House will be a lot easier (and cheaper) to get than those other two editions. But if it's anything like the Red Rising edition I got my hands on, it's not likely going to be anywhere near the same class of books that you see from those specialty publishers. Places like Subterranean Press or The Folio Society really redesign the book from the ground up: they source high-quality paper and bindings, reset the type and layout, and really put together a nice-looking volume.
A number of the other recent deluxe editions that I've looked over don't quite have the same level of attention and detail. For example: the 10th Anniversary edition of Ancillary Justice has the same type and layout: aside from the cover and introduction, it's identical to the original paperback edition. The recent deluxe edition of Red Rising credits a number of Adobe stock illustrations on its copyright page, with the map dating back to 2014 (and an updated map credited to Elwira Pawlikowska in 2025.)
It's not hard to see why: publishers have recognized that they can release a copy of a book that sells at a premium rate. And books like The Martian, Red Rising, The Expanse, Ancillary Justice, and others are well-regarded and highly successful books: they don't really need a sales pitch. But these don't feel like they're really deluxe editions: this just feels like a bit more of a souped-up cover image refresh, one perfectly designed for the holiday gift-giving season, or for that dedicated fan of a particular author or title.
A good counterpoint to these examples is the recent deluxe edition of Matthew Stover's Revenge of the Sith. It has a lot of those bells and whistles, but Random House Worlds also went above and beyond to insert nearly 200 annotations for the text: in a recent episode of This Dad Reads, Random House editorial director Tom Hoeler spoke about the work that went into this particular edition. He spoke about their desire to put out a cool edition of the book with something special for readers who'd already read it. "What if we got Mr. Stover to come and annotate the book? And that's where this came from. And that combined with the idea of putting together all these special bells and whistles for the book package itself really came together in the perfect marriage of saying 'wow this is going to be something really special.'"
Over the rest of the episode, Hoeler goes into a good amount of detail about the work that he and his team put into this particular edition, from the design of the packaging to the types of art that they were including in it. There's a lot of work that went into this edition, and while it looks a little like the other special editions out there, it's clear this is a bit of the exception in this trend.
None of this is to say that the deluxe and limited editions that we're seeing a bit more widely are bad, but I feel like if you're going to go through the trouble of developing a special edition of a classic title, really put the effort into it: there's no shortage of excellent artists looking for commissions, folks who can redesign the text to make it stand out, and even give the book an upgrade with a slightly heavier paper stock and cover. Readers are already paying a bit more for these editions (and honestly, a hardcover novel is already hitting the $30-$40 price point), so why not make it actually something that's a premium product, and not one that's dressed up like one?