Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Andy Weir has already had a huge hit with his novel, The Martian, which was developed into a movie starring Matt Damon which experienced huge box office success and was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Motion Picture. His most recent book, Project Hail Mary, is a New York Times Bestseller, has been listed by one of 2021's best books of the year on a slew of lists, is one of New York Times reader's picks for the best 100 books of the 21st century, and is also being made into a film starring (swoon) Ryan Gosling. I can't wait to watch it. It deals with space travel, so loneliness and isolation are two big ones as well as some instances where the main character gets tossed around quite a bit, as well as death, medical content, light kidnapping, abandonment, and injury. Oh yeah, and the potential death of humanity as a whole.

Ryland Grace wakes up on a strange bed in a strange room with a robot harassing him. He's weak but physically at the top of his game, and it doesn't take him long to realize the only other people in the room with him are dead. Funny thing is, he doesn't remember anything. Not why he's here, not where he is, not who his bunkmates were, not even his own name. Slowly, memories start coming back to him and he realizes that there is something causing the Sun's temperature to reduce - not good for ANYTHING that is living on Earth, humans included. He is on the Earth's first foray to a different solar system to find a solution to the problem, and it is the only chance they'll have to save the species. And now... he has to do it by himself.

Holy moly, I loved this book! I recommended it to no fewer than three people before I was even halfway through, and I'm not usually a science-fiction lover. The amount of research that Andy Weir must've done for this book is absolutely mind boggling. He managed to find a way to describe complex science of all different sorts in a way that didn't just make it easy to follow, but made me think that maybe I'm smarter than I give myself credit for. Ryland Grace is funny from the very beginning, which is pretty extraordinary considering the circumstances. The plot had me hooked right away but it goes in a direction I never would've guessed and ended in a way that didn't leave me looking for more. It has moments that had me laughing, it had moments that had me smiling softly, it had moments that had me crying a little bit (nothing too hard), and it had moments that had me hanging on to the edge of my seat. I meant what I said, I can't wait for the movie and I hope they do it justice.

I'm giving Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir 4.75 stars out of 5. I subtracted .25 stars simply because I sometimes came to conclusions before the main character and it gave me an inflated sense of my own intelligence, I'll be absolutely intolerable until someone knocks me down a peg.

For more from Andy Weir, check out his website at https://andyweirauthor.com/

Pairs well with a ribeye steak and making an unlikely friend.