Project Hail Mary tell us the story of Doctor Ryland Grace, PhD, a middle school science teacher who left academia because the science world called one of his published papers dumb, when suddenly, the Sun becomes little less bright. This leads to discovering that the Sun dimming will cause an ice age that will completely erradicate most, if not all, life on Earth. As luck would have it, Dr. Grace is tasked with the impossible, to study the single-celled organisms that are causing the Sun to become dimmer (called ‘astrophage’), by traveling light years away to a star that apparently isn’t affected by these organisms. The book moves back and forth in time, with the present being Dr. Grace aboard the ship (called Hail Mary) travelling to the target star to study it (called Tau Ceti), and the past being the backstory of how this all began leading up to how he ended up aboard the ship. After arriving, Grace discovers we are not alone in the universe, but most importantly, he is not alone studying Tau Ceti. He meets his soon to be BFF, an alien that looks like a giant spider with a body made up of a huge rock/boulder, who he affectionately names “Rocky”, and who just so happens to be studying Tau Ceti for the same reasons as Grace. After lots of Science, they discover a different organism that acts as predator to astrophage (which they call taumeoba), giving hope to both their planets facing extinction by astrophage.
I must say I liked the book, but I didn’t love it, it felt like for every highlight within the book, there’s an equally annoying aspect of it that just doesn’t let me get fully invested in the story and characters to love the book. Part of this is definitely in part because I had such high expectations from the book, and the other part because I wasn’t expecting it to be so similar to ‘The Martian’, so it might just be completely my fault it felt short.
The book follows a very similar structure to ‘The Martian’: problem arises -> panic (mixed with humor) -> try to fix it -> possibly fail (add more humor) -> try again -> fix it -> repeat. This by itself doesn’t really bother me, what bothered me was that Grace was skilled and knowledgeable enough to know how to do anything and everything he needed, he studied molecular biology, but he’s also incredibly adept at math, physics, astronomy, music, even coding! Truly one of the greatest minds of his generation, despite the book telling us he was just Earth’s last resort and not the first option.
By far the best character is Rocky, who at first only communicates via sound, but eventually shows some personality, which is great, because a lot of the other characters really fell short for me, especially during the ‘past’ sections. Rocky was a little sassy at times, which I identified with, because I feel I would have been worse about it if I were stuck with Grace for so long. the characterization/creativity of Rocky’s species is something I really enjoyed and felt fun to learn more about them.
I really felt most of the characters to be really shallow and without any real discernible identity, the scientists only cared about science, the mission director only cared about the mission, there was no room for depth or growth.
I read ‘The Martian’ around 10-ish years ago, and it quickly became one of my favorite books I’d read in a really, really, long time. So much so, that I held off on reading ‘Project Hail Mary’ for fear it wouldn’t meet my expectations – it didn’t. I did like this book, but in many ways it just felt like ‘The Martian 2.0’, and I worry that Andy Weir can only write about lonely sarcastic guys in stuck in space who must overcome impossible odds.
The plot itself is very entertaining and this is definitely a page-turner, but the combination of my gripes I’ve stated above really held this book back for me.
The ending also felt incredibly lazy, it felt rushed, there wasn’t really any emotional payoff (which was something I expected), and it just completely fell flat for me, I had a couple of different endings in mind, but I can confidently say I didn’t expect the ending Weir chose for this book, I’ll give him that.
I’ve read some people feeling like the science was not their cup of tea, I personally didn’t mind it, and understand it’s needed to explain things in this science fiction book, I did get the feeling once or twice however of being talked down to with some of the explanations given.
I’d be remiss in mentioning that I listened to the audiobook, which is fantastic, the production behind it was incredible, from the musical notes when Rocky speaks, to the actual voice acting, no notes from me, I really feel like if I had read it and not listened to the book, my experience would have been worse.
If you love a good plot about a man having to beat incredibly low odds of succeeding in his mission, with some impromptu bromance with an alien sounds like a good time for you, knock yourself out. If you’ve read ‘The Martian’, I would say be wary that this feels very similar, so if you’re looking for something different, it might not be for you.
Rating
⭐⭐⭐☆☆