The hardest part about working with aliens and saving humanity from extinction is constantly having to come up with names for stuff.
Project Hail Mary
by Andy Weir
Genre: Sci-Fi
About: Ryland Grace wakes up from a coma, but he isn't in a hospital. He's in space. Earth's sun is dimming and he has to figure out a solution before an Ice Age level extinction happens. But Earth's sun is not the only star in the universe getting dimmer, and Grace isn't the only space traveller looking to save a civilisation...
The Good
Rocky. The bromance was the heart of this story for me (although of course it isn't really confirmed that Rocky is male). I loved Grace and Rocky's besties-for-life relationship. The sassiness of that rock spider alien will forever stay with me. I thought Grace's character was just as funny as Watney from The Martian, but Rocky really stole the show. Asides from my alien crush, I did also really like the flashback scenes, these were fantastic at developing Grace's character and slowly building up the stakes of the story. And what a clever story! The possible end of the world is classic stuff, but Grace's character arc was its own movie - full of drama and a lot of emotion towards the end. In The Martian you kind of feel you know the ending, in Project Hail Mary there were a few different possibilities. Was I entirely satisfied with the direction it ended up with? Yes... I think the ending was smart and made sense although of course it left me feeling a little sad, a little unresolved, a little in need of an epilogue.
The Bad
It starts out very gripping but the middle section, while enjoyable, didn't have the same sense of urgency as The Martian. I think this was because Grace had to describe so many alien things. We get a lot of description - a combination of extreme science fiction to just plain extreme science. Both well done, but complicated to understand or visualise and that slowed the pace for me. Also, as important as the mission was, the urgency came from not knowing the mission at the beginning and then all the problems that crop up towards the end. The middle had a far more relaxed tone. Like having a very long training sequence before the real action could start.
The Somewhat Iffy
Xenonite was a bit magical at times as its capabilities seemed limitless, and I'm so super jealous at how quickly Grace picked up on an alien language. Happy that he did as I loved the banter, but damn, it seemed to be the equivalent of understanding whales, if whales had a vocabulary as complex as humans.
Overall
When I say this book had me laughing out loud, I mean I kept re-reading sections and laughing over and over at them. The characters are fantastic, the mission is super interesting and I loved it.
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