Paperback, 476 pages
English language
Published March 11, 2021 by Ballentine Books.
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.
A thoroughly enjoyable story! I recommend the audiobook, because they do some interesting things with language. (I don't want to say much more, because it would kind of spoil it.)
Hard to rate. The “explaining science” monologues were interesting but a bit irritating (patronizing?) at the same time. On the other hand, I was really invested in the plot and characters. 3.5 stars.
Loved it. It's very much like Martian. It's definitely more fantastical. It's better written. (I could barely put it down.) The main character may be even more charismatic than Mark Watney.
I liked the Martian movie but for obvious reasons they cut some of the best parts of the story that revolved around mixing invisible gases under various pressures in various containers. Andy Weir has made the screenwriters' job only slightly easier this time with mixing invisible microbes in various containers. The science is once again at least 60% of the fun. But the other 40% is still great stuff. I'm sure the movie will be a blast no matter what is omitted.
kept me up late to finish.
If you enjoyed The Martian but wanted a little more fantastical Sci-Fi, this brings it to the table.
There's nothing wrong with SF like this, a whole lot of it was written back in the 30's-50's, and this lacks most of the problematic aspects of that. But I've become accustomed to rather more depth, and while this was a pleasant enough way to spend a lazy sunday (up to a point, it was still 100 pages too long), I can't say much more in its favor.
As far as the central dilemma of the book (which is of course a reference to climate change), I couldn't help but wonder: Is it possible to have a self-sustaining colony on Mars, given effectively unlimited resources and population? What, you ask -- this is not The Martian. Well, Mars happens to receive 590W/m2 of solar irradiance to Earth's 1000 W/m2, and well, if you like this kind of book you're gonna do the math.
Энди Уэйр смог написать захватывающий, открытый SF, так и не избавившись от главного героя повествования, ведущего и объясняющего себя так, будто он находится не в угрожающей его жизни ситуации, а на реддите в очереном треде популярного жанра "наука круто".
Большое достижение в узкой нише: истории, которые рассказывает Уэйр, невозможны без такого POV, но местами почти невыносимы с ним. Благодаря Большому Твисту в этот раз получилось куда свежее, чем в предыдущий.
Я знаю, что на русском у его фамилии есть минимум три часто встречающихся варианта написания
Description of a computer screen. Math. Description of the computer screen again. Quip. Repeat for a couple hundred pages.
I think this will be the book I recommend the most this year. It is entertaining from beginning to end. If you like sci-fi or space stories, read it. If you don't, read it anyway because you will laugh. It is very rare that I tear through a book in the span of a day, but, and I apologise for the cliché, I could not put this book down.
Original and unexpected, full of science and science fiction. It’s a really difficult book to review without spoilers but a worthwhile read, humorous and engaging. The main character is maybe a bit too entitled and on the right side of things, however is a first person narrative. I was a bit concerned on how would it end from the middle of the reading but it is very well finished, probably the most original ending of any scifi books I’ve read.
Extremely well written, well paced and exciting. Felt very similar to the Martian. If you liked that and disliked Artemis, you'll love this.
I did like Artemis though, and this like the Martian still felt like a basically big empty universe with very few people in it, whereas Artemis felt cool and alive.
This is a simply wonderful read. It is at once, uplifting, exciting, interesting, filled with plot twists and science. This is an extremely enjoyable novel of friendship, heroism, and discovery.
Pretty much the same formula as the martian. Positive things happen, then disaster, and smart person figures it out. But the story is different enough to be super enjoyable. I read this book in less than 24 hours, which I haven't done in a while. Its absolutely nothing deep, but is enjoyable, especially if you like the random science tidbits thrown in.
Thoroughly enjoyed this from beginning to end.
I like that Weir didn't shy away from introducing an alien species while keeping things grounded in science (as far as I can tell).
I did find it a bit irksome that things just kept going wrong, like in The Martian.
Also, I'm surprised there was no discovery backing up the paper that Grace wrote about life that didn't require water. Seemed like that just sort of went nowhere.
I will miss Rocky. The audiobook representation was fantastic.
