Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir is a science fiction, saving-the-world-and-humanity, epic adventure. Ryland Grace is not your typical astronaut, he’s a junior high school science teacher!
This is the third book I’ve read from Weir. Like The Martian, this book is engaging, witty, and just overall fun to read. It’s full of science and has a very interesting plot. I won’t go into details about that, I don’t want to give away any spoilers.
After I read Artemis, I was very disappointed. I was hoping for another superbly entertaining science lesson, set in space. That’s not what Artemis is, and perhaps it’s my own fault for being disappointed by expecting it to be that.
However, for Project Hail Mary, Weir returns to the formula that made The Martian a success. That doesn’t mean it’s formulaic though! I found it very compelling, and while I did see some plot twists coming, that’s ok. It presents a view of humanity and life that I found inspiring.
Weir fills Project Hail Mary with interesting, flawed, dynamic characters, and it’s fun to see how they go about saving humanity. I think this would make a great movie, with Wil Wheaton as Ryland.
I will say I may never think of spiders in the same way again. Also, I wonder what life is out there in the Cosmos that we just haven’t discovered yet? Because clearly, we can’t be alone in this huge vastness of the universe all by ourselves, can we? Unless we really are just all plugged into the Matrix.