Project Hail Mary (2021) by Andy Weir


Project Hail Mary (2021) by Andy Weir

Surprisingly, I don’t read a lot of sci-fi - but I was more than happy to give Project Hail Mary a go on my sister’s recommendation (especially given how much I enjoyed reading Weir’s The Martian for a class in college). And I haven’t found myself quite so hooked on a story in a while.

Project Hail Mary follows a middle-school science teacher, Ryland Grace, on a spacefaring suicide-mission to save Earth from the Astrophage, a cosmic microorganism that’s feeding off the Sun. Grace wakes up from a medically induced coma aboard his spaceship in the Tau Ceti solar system, and he battles amnesia while attempting to find out why this system’s star is unharmed by Astrophage (and consequently send his research back to Earth).
This setup makes for an interesting time-skipping structure in the narrative, as Grace’s backstory is filled-in bit-by-bit through flashbacks as his amnesia wears-off. Although the most interesting part of the novel by far is his spacefaring exploits, and what he finds in the Tau Ceti system (hint - Astrophage isn’t the only other life out there).

I had to re-frame my expectations with this book, considering The Martian was a very grounded dose of speculative sci-fi, while Project Hail Mary is a much more fantastically unapologetic space adventure story. The only problem with this was Wier’s use of overly convenient plot-vehicles. I don’t fault them for being there (you have to move the story along somehow) - I just don’t like how Weir unnecessarily draws attention to them in Grace’s inner monologue, blatantly commenting on just how overly convenient they are. It makes the writing feel insecure at times, and broke my immersion over things I would’ve simply accepted otherwise.

That being said, I’d highly recommend Project Hail Mary to anyone, even beyond sci-fi fans. It’s such a fresh and engaging take on alien communication and space travel, and I’m not surprised it was popular enough to be adapted into a film this year. (A film I probably won’t see, though - I can’t imagine it would do justice to a story like this, no matter how accurate the filmmakers are to the source material.)

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