Project Hail Mary: A Review

Andy Weir, best known for writing The Martian, wrote my latest read: Project Hail Mary. I have seen the movie The Martian, but not read the book. After reading Project Hail Mary, I think I need to read it. Andy Weir is a good writer.

Project Hail Mary begins as a “how did I get here” kind of a story. The mystery slowly unfurls as the story progresses. We gradually see that because of an unexpected development, the Earth is facing a mass extinction event that will drastically change the habitability of Earth over the next 30 to 40 years. There are two ways humanity can react to a situation like this. They can deny it. Or they can take it seriously and throw every resource at it. In this story, I am glad to say, they took it seriously. This is good because in this case anything less than total commitment would be the end. The world leaders have given administrator Stratt almost total power to acquire whatever team and resources she needs. She latches onto our hero, Ryland Grace, a former disgruntled molecular biologist, now working as a middle school science teacher. And it is Grace who finds himself hurtling through space, unaware of how he got there. His memories gradually come back in bits and pieces and we thus get our back story. Ryland hates the almost dictatorial power that Stratt has had over him and everyone else, but it is the only way that humanity has any hope of surviving what’s coming.

SPOILER ALERT

What makes this story truly great is the friendship at the heart of it. Friendship stories are the best and this is the best of the best. Grace and Rocky are in some ways very similar, both love science and discovering things and solving problems. They are also very different, mainly because Ryland is a human and Rocky is a creature from a planet in the 40 Eridani system. When Ryland see’s Rocky for the first time, his responses is: “He is a spider. A big-assed spider.” Rocky’s species have no eyesight (they use echo-location to “see” their surroundings) and live in heat and pressure that would kill humans. They breathe an atmosphere that is mostly ammonia. How could these two possibly get together? How could they possibly communicate? They figure it out, and their methods are logical. Since the human is a scientist and the Eridian is an engineer, they think along similar lines. They have science in common.

The bond between them eventually becomes so strong that they each risk their lives to save the other. It is actually quite touching. I never would have thought I could be moved by a big-assed spider, but there you are.

I can heartily recommend Project Hail Mary, even if you don’t like spiders.

Star Liner

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