Title : Project Hail Mary
Author : Andy Weir
Genre : Science fiction
Publisher : Penguin
Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Andy Weir’s first book The Martian is one of my favorite books of all time. I loved the book and I loved the film that was based on the book. Well, after that Weir wrote Artemis, which I tried reading but had to drop because I found it juvenile. So, I didn’t have too much hope for Project Hail Mary but Weir surprises me again – I loved Project Hail Mary.
In Project Hail Mary, our protagonist is stuck by himself (well, almost) in space on a spaceship, and it’s not even familiar space – no planets, no earth, it’s not even our solar system. He’s alone, has apparently woken up from a cryogenic sleep, doesn’t remember who he is or what he’s doing on the ship.
Well, little by little, memory returns. The ship’s computer helps in research and our protagonist is able to piece together the story. Turns out there is a life and death situation back on earth – the sun is in grave danger of dimming. Not by a lot; just enough to kill all life on earth, and this spaceship and this desperate foray out of our solar system is a last ditch effort by all the people on earth (all space agencies and governments have come together) to find a way to reverse this phenomenon.
While on this journey, our hero, Ryland Grace, comes across an alien ship, and happens to communicate and meet with the alien. Turns out the alien is also on a similar mission – the dimming of the sun is affecting his planet too. Given the same goal, will the two be able to find a way to save all life as we know it?
Project Hail Mary is kind of a solitary tale, like The Martian. There’s the human and the alien in all of deep, vast space. Weir is strongest here, describing their interactions, because the two look very unalike, and communicate in very different ways. Still, they form a bond and a friendship and Weir builds it up beautifully and dramatically.
We get the human, of course, because he is one of us, but Weir manages to imbue the alien, as different as he is from us, with very humanlike characteristics – humor, anger, worry, consternation. We root for him too, and that’s the beauty of the novel – getting us invested in not one but two “people”, one of whom is an alien as different from us as we can imagine.
Project Hail Mary is a lovely book! Highly recommended.
