Audio Enjoyer reviewed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Awesome Science Fiction
5 stars
Great Science Fiction book and a great story of friendship!
Audiobook
English language
Published May 4, 2021 by Audible.
Project Hail Mary
by Andy Weir
- ASIN:
- B08GB58KD5
- Audible ASIN:
- B08G9RZBTT
4 stars
(502 reviews)
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission–and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that’s been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it’s up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.
And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance.
Part scientific mystery, part …
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission–and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that’s been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it’s up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.
And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance.
Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian–while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.
Gerrit Niezen reviewed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Loved it!
5 stars
Funny, entertaining and plausible science fiction. Rocky 💙
ahmednabin reviewed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Review of 'Project Hail Mary' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
I started reading Project Hail Mary buying into its hype. I am happy to report that, unlike most hyped things, it did not fail to deliver. It gripped my attention to the very end, finishing on a satisfying note. So, yes, it's a "go read please" from my side if anyone is asking.
Character-wise, PHM (I am not writing Project Hail Mary repeatedly!) is a story revolving mainly around two characters: Dr. Ryland Grace, a researcher turned high school teacher, and Rocky—yes, you read it right, it's just "Rocky"! There are some minor characters here and there, but mostly it's a two-character story. But don't let that fool you, it's not boring in any sense.
The plot follows Dr. Grace at two points in his life in parallel. He wakes up inside PHM (a spaceship in deep space) without any memory of how he got there. As …
I started reading Project Hail Mary buying into its hype. I am happy to report that, unlike most hyped things, it did not fail to deliver. It gripped my attention to the very end, finishing on a satisfying note. So, yes, it's a "go read please" from my side if anyone is asking.
Character-wise, PHM (I am not writing Project Hail Mary repeatedly!) is a story revolving mainly around two characters: Dr. Ryland Grace, a researcher turned high school teacher, and Rocky—yes, you read it right, it's just "Rocky"! There are some minor characters here and there, but mostly it's a two-character story. But don't let that fool you, it's not boring in any sense.
The plot follows Dr. Grace at two points in his life in parallel. He wakes up inside PHM (a spaceship in deep space) without any memory of how he got there. As if that wasn't enough, he finds two dead people beside him, whom he senses he knew at one point in life but can't remember how! From there on, the story picks up, illustrating how he tries to work around this situation and remembers how he got there in the first place. As readers, we get to know important pieces of information at the same time Grace himself remembers them. Although not new, I think this style of unfolding the story worked very well here. Since the protagonist and we are exposed to important plot points at the same time, it makes a big splash and we can empathize with him easily.
The presentation is so very realistic. All the scientific stuff is explained and portrayed believably. Not even once did I feel that I was reading some made-up mumbo jumbo even though the plot is so outlandish!
I loved [a:Andy Weir|6540057|Andy Weir|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1382592903p2/6540057.jpg]'s first book, [b:The Martian|18007564|The Martian|Andy Weir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1413706054l/18007564.SY75.jpg|21825181], very much, so I had some expectations for this one. And I think you can guess by now that I was not disappointed in any way!
Image Source
interlibraryprone reviewed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Engaging book that frustrated me immensely
3 stars
This book has an engaging plot that kept me hooked. It was fun watching the main character solve problems. It's always great to see some sci-fi that takes astronautics and space seriously rather than hand-waving it away with artificial gravity and FTL. Even if it is curiously done: there are no checklists in the spaceship, no packet of information on the crew in case of amnesia despite otherwise meticulous preparation.
It's a pity the author didn't put anywhere as much effort in the biology in the book as he did into the astronomy and physics. Rocky was fun but the astrobiology was kind of paper-thin. The panspermia implied doesn't line up with what we know about the development of life on Earth. Also: (view spoiler)
Also frustrating were the reactionary gender politics. Stratt, the leader of the project, will only accept heterosexual men as astronauts on the basis of reactionist …
This book has an engaging plot that kept me hooked. It was fun watching the main character solve problems. It's always great to see some sci-fi that takes astronautics and space seriously rather than hand-waving it away with artificial gravity and FTL. Even if it is curiously done: there are no checklists in the spaceship, no packet of information on the crew in case of amnesia despite otherwise meticulous preparation.
It's a pity the author didn't put anywhere as much effort in the biology in the book as he did into the astronomy and physics. Rocky was fun but the astrobiology was kind of paper-thin. The panspermia implied doesn't line up with what we know about the development of life on Earth. Also: (view spoiler)
Also frustrating were the reactionary gender politics. Stratt, the leader of the project, will only accept heterosexual men as astronauts on the basis of reactionist drivel that is not really challenged (e.g. plenty of evidence that gender-balanced teams are more effective) and then the narrative validates Stratt by (view spoiler)
The main character, Ryland Grace, meets an alien, and decides to use he/him pronouns: "I'm going to go with ‘he’ for now, because it just seems rude to call a thinking being ‘it.’ ”"
Seriously dude? The only pronouns you can think of are he/him and it/its? She/her is beyond your comprehension, let alone the obvious they/them pronouns? You expect me to believe that the main character is a schoolteacher in the 2020s and has never learnt any other pronouns? What rock is Grace living under?
The alien, Rocky, is described as biologically hermaphroditic. Yet Grace doesn't reconsider pronouns when he finds this out.
I'm also not convinced that Rocky is actually hermaphroditic. Rocky's species is described vaguely as mating by having each would-be partner lay an egg, and the eggs fuse to produce one offspring. That sounds a lot more like isogamy to me than cosexuality. (If each parent laid and egg and fertilized the other's egg that would be cosexuality, a type of hermaphroditism. Isogamy is when there is no difference between egg and sperm; each parent provides an identically sized gamete which together become the child.)
The acknowledgements at the end of the book make clear the author talked to physics and astronomy people to inform the book. But not a single biologist nor science teacher are listed and it shows. Fun read but the more I stop and think about it the more holes occur to me. Hopefully they'll at least fix the pronoun problem in the movie
𝓣aarion 📕 reviewed Der Astronaut by Andy Weir
Ein Mann alleine Im All auf einer verzweifelten Mission
4 stars
Ich war anfangs etwas überrascht. Stilistisch hatte ich den Eindruck ungeschliffene Fanfiction vor mir zu haben. Es wirkte alles etwas sprachlich einfach. Ich weiß nicht wie ich es besser beschreiben soll, ich hoffe ihr versteht was ich meine. Im hinteren Teil des Buches wurde dieser Eindruck dann aber weniger.
Inhaltlich ist es eine recht lineare Geschichte die in zwei Zeitebenen erzählt wird. Die aktuellen Geschehnisse und Erinnerungen wie es dazu gekommen war. Zusammengefasst, ohne viel zu verraten: Ein Mann, ein Schiff, eine Mission und ganz viel Wissenschaft.
Irgendwie wächst einem der Protagonist ans Herz. Er schwankt zwar ständig zwischen Wissenschaft und impulsiven Handeln aber das ist ja nur menschlich. Und so fieberte ich am Ende richtig mit. Insbesondere bei der Wendung als ich schon das Gefühl hatte das Buch wäre gleich zum Schluss gekommen.
Ich weiß echt nicht was sich deutsche Verlage denken wenn sie die Titel festlegen. "Der Astronaut"? …
Ich war anfangs etwas überrascht. Stilistisch hatte ich den Eindruck ungeschliffene Fanfiction vor mir zu haben. Es wirkte alles etwas sprachlich einfach. Ich weiß nicht wie ich es besser beschreiben soll, ich hoffe ihr versteht was ich meine. Im hinteren Teil des Buches wurde dieser Eindruck dann aber weniger.
Inhaltlich ist es eine recht lineare Geschichte die in zwei Zeitebenen erzählt wird. Die aktuellen Geschehnisse und Erinnerungen wie es dazu gekommen war. Zusammengefasst, ohne viel zu verraten: Ein Mann, ein Schiff, eine Mission und ganz viel Wissenschaft.
Irgendwie wächst einem der Protagonist ans Herz. Er schwankt zwar ständig zwischen Wissenschaft und impulsiven Handeln aber das ist ja nur menschlich. Und so fieberte ich am Ende richtig mit. Insbesondere bei der Wendung als ich schon das Gefühl hatte das Buch wäre gleich zum Schluss gekommen.
Ich weiß echt nicht was sich deutsche Verlage denken wenn sie die Titel festlegen. "Der Astronaut"? Warum nicht den originalen Titel beibehalten? Insbesondere da das namens gebende Raumschiff im Buch auch nicht umbenannt wurde.
Ernesto Miquel reviewed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Excelente
5 stars
Historia original. Humor. Un toque de ciencia. Me encantó este libro.
V171 reviewed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Goodreads Review of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
4 stars
In Project Hail Mary, the sun is going out. Huge bummer. We also don't know why, and it's happening to many stars in the local area of the galaxy. But we figure out why! And we also find one system where the star ISN'T going out even though it should. So we gotta throw together a ship and crew as quickly as possible to investigate, find a solution, and get it back to Earth in time to save the sun. Enter Ryland Grace, one of the crew members of this ship. He doesn't know any of that though, because he woke up on the space ship billions of miles from home without his memory. As his memory returns, he has to work to figure out who he is, what he's doing, and how to save his home. After a shocking discovery in this alien solar system, he has new exciting …
In Project Hail Mary, the sun is going out. Huge bummer. We also don't know why, and it's happening to many stars in the local area of the galaxy. But we figure out why! And we also find one system where the star ISN'T going out even though it should. So we gotta throw together a ship and crew as quickly as possible to investigate, find a solution, and get it back to Earth in time to save the sun. Enter Ryland Grace, one of the crew members of this ship. He doesn't know any of that though, because he woke up on the space ship billions of miles from home without his memory. As his memory returns, he has to work to figure out who he is, what he's doing, and how to save his home. After a shocking discovery in this alien solar system, he has new exciting opportunities to maybe make it back home too.
This was a lot of fun. Very much Andy Weir, down to the movie-like scenes and the quippy dialogue and the weird mix of isolation and hope you get from the story. I wasn't expecting this to be as hard sci-fi as it was, but I really enjoyed those parts of it. I'm not at all familiar with physics, chemistry, or biology, but I found its integration to be seamless and well-done. I found the story to be paced really well, jumping between the present, fixing things, solving problems, staying alive, running tests, and the past as memories return to our main character. We get to learn about the events leading up to this hail mary of a mission and Grace's involvement in it. I don't feel like this dragged at any point, and was a very quick read for being almost 500 pages.
There were aspects I think could have been improved upon. Personal taste, but I really don't enjoy heavy-handed quippy "marvel" dialogue, and that was pretty much every conversation in the entire book. I didn't find it funny or executed well. I'd rather have more authenticity, but I'd also rather have unique characters. Everyone important had the same personality, and everyone unimportant had some token personality quirk that never changed. I also found it hard to suspend my disbelief in some areas. Some things were just far too convenient or far too simple. I feel like, if you're going to commit to hard sci-fi book, then you need to limit the convenient coincidences that help your characters. But ultimately these things didn't detract much from my enjoyment. While it wasn't anything super groundbreaking, it was enjoyable.
If you loved The Martian, I think you'll like this a lot. Also I think if you like Blake Crouch, this would work for you, though it is a bit more lighthearted than something like Recursion or Dark Matter. Also if you like books that are paced like movies this will be perfect. If you like you science fiction to be deeply serious, like anything by Peter Watts or William Gibson, this isn't for you. It's also like.. the opposite of philosophical. Topical? So if you like commentary on the human condition, this doesn't have any of that. Just a lot of the human doing stuff. But I do guarantee you'll have a hard time putting it down!
Wild Woila reviewed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Some cool ideas but one-dimensional
3 stars
(3 stars = I liked it)
A series of (Earth-saving) problem-solutions starring an irksome overenthusiastic science teacher/xenobiologist. Some cool ideas but one-dimensional and the narrative style can be grating.
Reading time 4 days, 119 pages/day
joelchrono reviewed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Project Hail Mary
4 stars
After reading The Mote in God’s Eye, I realized that Garrit Franke, a fellow Fosstodon member, finished reading this book, so I decided to give it a try too.
I have to admit that at first I was a little bit hesitant about this book, because it is a written in first person, and it also starts out with ammnesia and also flashbacks. But after that I got used to the writing style pretty quickly and started to really get into the main story and the mystery behind everything happening around our protagonist.
The story follows a lone astronaut that finds himself facing impossible odds every step of the way. The way the plot is revealed and how it moves forward every chapter is great. The scientific elements are pretty accurate and that was something I found really interesting. It reminded me a lot of Jules Verne’s novels that usually …
After reading The Mote in God’s Eye, I realized that Garrit Franke, a fellow Fosstodon member, finished reading this book, so I decided to give it a try too.
I have to admit that at first I was a little bit hesitant about this book, because it is a written in first person, and it also starts out with ammnesia and also flashbacks. But after that I got used to the writing style pretty quickly and started to really get into the main story and the mystery behind everything happening around our protagonist.
The story follows a lone astronaut that finds himself facing impossible odds every step of the way. The way the plot is revealed and how it moves forward every chapter is great. The scientific elements are pretty accurate and that was something I found really interesting. It reminded me a lot of Jules Verne’s novels that usually felt like something that could be possible to do.
In this case of course the protagonist uses his scientific knowledge (as well as his memory slowly coming back) to figure out how handle his mission, which is pretty much to save the planet from certain demise.
I liked the setting and the characters that show up, there’s quite a bit of science tidbits I learned through this, and the moments of action and uncertainty are quite great. I could not stop reading many times because I just wanted to know what in the world would our protagonist do even just to stay alive to live another day.
I didn’t feel like the book was as long as it was, honestly. It was definitely worth it. I do think that it feels a little like a movie waiting to happen, the prose wasn’t as interesting and the plot ended up kind of predictable, and there’s a very wholesome twist at the end which is nice. Just a very fun read.
EnQueued reviewed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Absolute Favorite
5 stars
This book instantly became one of my top 10 favorites.
The humor and the science is a big draw for me. Everything is so thuroughly explained to the point where you learn while you're sucked into the world and environment. The chemistry is the most interesting that I have ever read.
Right around the half-way mark I started to fall into the world more. I was sucked in and couldnt get out. Once I finished I just stared at the page hoping that once I blinked more pages would appear; I just wanted more even though the ending was quite succinct.
This is absolutely a great read, another banger by Andy Weir~!
Julie R reviewed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Suspend your disbelief and like math, I guess.
2 stars
I'm not a math nerd, but if I were, this would have been more like 4 stars. I am, however, other kinds of nerd and I found the non-math parts of the book to be absolutely bonkers, but not in the joyful way. Weir has given us a protagonist with zero backstory. And I don't mean his amnesia. He ends up remembering how he got on the ship, but apparently those few months were all there was to his life. There's no family, no friends, no flings, no hobbies, no likes or dislikes--and mind you, the book is almost 500 pages in length. When he does finally make a friend, he doesn't even notice that it's the first friend he's ever had. There's no emotional interiority to this guy at all. He's just there to solve puzzles. This is truly science fantasy, not science fiction. There's nothing believable about the …
I'm not a math nerd, but if I were, this would have been more like 4 stars. I am, however, other kinds of nerd and I found the non-math parts of the book to be absolutely bonkers, but not in the joyful way. Weir has given us a protagonist with zero backstory. And I don't mean his amnesia. He ends up remembering how he got on the ship, but apparently those few months were all there was to his life. There's no family, no friends, no flings, no hobbies, no likes or dislikes--and mind you, the book is almost 500 pages in length. When he does finally make a friend, he doesn't even notice that it's the first friend he's ever had. There's no emotional interiority to this guy at all. He's just there to solve puzzles. This is truly science fantasy, not science fiction. There's nothing believable about the majority of science in this, the character isn't believable, and yet I read to the end. Rocky truly saves this book from being impossible, but despite him, I can't recommend this one.
qboq reviewed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
A delightful read
4 stars
This was a delightfully geeky book. The story plays in a near future or alternate present. In terms of science, it seems well thought out. The fictional part of the science is goofy and fun and makes for a great premise. As the story progresses, there is a number of plot twists and each chapter ends with a bit of a cliffhanger. The story is one of both desperation and hope. Still, the tone is light-hearted and even humourous at times.
The ending is a bit too Hollywoodsy for my taste and does not entirely match the premise. It feels a bit like the author is trying to please the audience too much,.
Behizain reviewed Proyecto Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Bost izar
5 stars
Nobela hau irakurri aurretik pentsatzen dudana da: Berriro The Martian nobelaren bertsio bat irakurriko al dut? Ze aspergarria, ezta? Ba premisa antzekoa den arren (espazioan galdutako tipo batek aurrera egin behar du nola edo hala) The Martian bezainbeste gustatu zait, eta ez badidazu sinisten, zuk zeuk irakurri. Ez dizut nobela destripatuko, zertaz doan ez jakitea bere xarmaren parte delako. Gora Rocky.
georgewhatup reviewed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Review of 'Project Hail Mary' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
This book was more of The Martian, if you didn't like that you won't like this. Still the same enjoyably nerdy sci-fi mixed with simplistic characters and humour.
I have to talk about the ending though. I love when I get the feeling an ending might reflect more of the authors own psyche than they may have intended. In this case, I think Andy Weir doesn't know he wrote a profoundly human tragedy.
SPOILERS BELOW
The ending has Grace living on an alien planet after apparently growing as a person by giving up his life to save someone, showing that he has learned the value of friendship and connection. Sure he is suffering physically from the high gravity and he only has a small barren dome to call home, but he is happy.
Sure, yes, on a superficial level that all seems to work.
But scratch a tiny bit deeper …
This book was more of The Martian, if you didn't like that you won't like this. Still the same enjoyably nerdy sci-fi mixed with simplistic characters and humour.
I have to talk about the ending though. I love when I get the feeling an ending might reflect more of the authors own psyche than they may have intended. In this case, I think Andy Weir doesn't know he wrote a profoundly human tragedy.
SPOILERS BELOW
The ending has Grace living on an alien planet after apparently growing as a person by giving up his life to save someone, showing that he has learned the value of friendship and connection. Sure he is suffering physically from the high gravity and he only has a small barren dome to call home, but he is happy.
Sure, yes, on a superficial level that all seems to work.
But scratch a tiny bit deeper and that's not the ending at all, the ending of the book is really Grace so scared of human connection he is happy to slowly kill himself over many years on a barren alien planet - his only company another species - if it means he never has to interact with anyone except through thick glass. He never has to risk being known, or understood, he's safe from judgement or danger. Safe from anyone questioning him and his beliefs.
And the best part is, the whole situation is framed in a positive way.
That's a great ending, intentional or not.
scienced@books.theunseen.city reviewed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
A lot of fun and technical imagination
5 stars
If you read 'The Martian', this one follows the same chain of technical puzzles in a survival setting. But both the setting and the science are quite a lot more fictional. I still enjoyed it very much as it also has 'Enemy mine' vibes. Highly entertaining read, if you don't take the science too seriously.
Subjects
- hard science-fiction
- science-fiction
- sci-fi
- hard sci-fi
- nyt:hardcover-fiction=2021-05-23
- New York Times bestseller
- New York Times reviewed
- Fiction, science fiction, action & adventure
- Fiction, science fiction, hard science fiction