Book Review: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Genre(s): Science Fiction

Ryland Grace awakens in a strange place—not a hospital, though there is medical equipment, and not his home. He quickly realizes he isn’t alone; there’s a semi-intelligent computer and two mummified corpses in the other beds. He has no memory of how he came to be there, no recollection of his past, and can’t even remember his name.

The pieces start to fall into place as he wakes up and spends more time in his surroundings. He’s a scientist, a former teacher, and on a mission to save planet Earth. And based on the state of the rest of the crew (the corpses), he’s completely alone.

This isn’t just a story about survival or human ingenuity, but also about adaptability and an unlikely friendship. It features peaceful first-contact, and how two very different beings learn to communicate and help one another. I wish there were more first-contact scenarios in the genre like this one; it was refreshing to see it from this perspective rather than a doomsday/invasion one. Ryland and “Rocky,” the other being he meets, work together to save both their worlds and find ways to succeed despite their vastly different biology and unique requirements.

And on the topic of science, this book has a fair amount of it. It ranges from biology to physics to engineering. There were a few instances where I had to look something up (mostly to satisfy my own curiosity as a scientist.)

Side note: As I was reading this book, there was a bit of a sticking point I came across. Part of the reason why the main character was sent off on this mission had to do with stars and planets outside of our solar system, and in particular planets with a high carbon dioxide content in their atmospheres. I kept thinking that we have the technology to detect this from Earth, so why did Ryland go on this mission to another star system in part to look for that?

It turns out we didn’t have the capability to detect carbon dioxide on exoplanets at the time of the book’s release in 2021. The first time we actually detected it was in 2022, with the help of the James Webb Space Telescope. If you’re interested, here’s a good article on the topic: Astronomers see carbon dioxide on planet outside solar system for the first time. (Long story short, the potential plot issue didn’t exist at the time of publication.)

But back to the book. I loved the friendship that developed between Ryland and Rocky, and it was interesting to learn more about Ryland’s past as his memory began to return. The flashbacks took a bit of time to get used to, as they aren’t specifically labeled as such. The main narrative is written in present-tense, and the flashbacks are in past-tense. Once I figured out the pattern, it made sense, and I was able to identify a section in the first sentence. Really, that’s my only complaint about this book—the flashbacks were a bit jarring at first, until I figured out what was going on.

That aside, this was a great read with a great story. And without giving away any spoilers, the ending was bittersweet, but I thought it was perfect.

Author website: andyweirauthor.com

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