The novel “Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir was published for the first time in 2021. It won the Dragon Award at the 2021 Dragon Con and the Japanese Seiun Award.
Ryland Grace wakes up in a bed, with a series of life-support systems connected to his body. He doesn’t even remember his identity, and his first thought is that he was in a coma. Two bodies in beds in the same room indicate that this isn’t a hospital, and his perceptions of gravity suggest he’s aboard an accelerating spaceship.
Slowly, Ryland Grace starts recovering his memories, albeit fragmentarily. He remembers being a teacher, a profession he chose after a negative experience as a biology researcher. He also recalls being involved in a project aimed at finding a way to save humanity after the discovery that the Sun is emitting less energy, a phenomenon caused by strange microorganisms.
If the story of Mark Watney stranded on Mars told in “The Martian” isn’t extreme enough for you, you’ll surely appreciate the story of Ryland Grace, the sole survivor of an interstellar expedition aimed at saving all of humanity.
Andy Weir uses the ploy of the protagonist who initially doesn’t even remember who he is, but gradually regains his memory to recount his adventure in space, with flashbacks included in that narration that recount what happened on Earth up until the expedition’s departure.
Ryland Grace tells his story in the first person, in the style that has become typical for Andy Weir. This means the story is dramatic, and in this case, the survival of humanity is at stake, yet the narrative is full of jokes and even slightly silly moments. For readers who appreciate this author’s humor, this is a very entertaining style; otherwise, it can be burdensome, and at worst, it can ruin the dramatic element.
The technical and scientific elements are by far the best in the novel. This isn’t surprising, given that Andy Weir has already proved he’s excellent at developing stories where these elements are central to the plot. This is the case in “Project Hail Mary,” where one crisis follows another, forcing Ryland Grace to use all his scientific knowledge. In his present, this means preventing the expedition’s failure, while the flashbacks recount the studies conducted to identify the cause of the Sun’s problems and a solution.
Actually, Andy Weir doesn’t delve too deeply into the biological concepts connected to the microorganisms he calls astrophages. He embraces the panspermia hypothesis to explain the genetic similarities between astrophages and Earth’s organisms. However, it’s unclear why they’re essentially eukaryotes and no more similar to archaea, but perhaps the author didn’t want to go too in-depth and confuse readers with limited knowledge of biology.
The characters still don’t strike me as Andy Weir’s strong point. In “Project Hail Mary,” the author still tries to give some strength to the human side of the story with an unexpected friendship Ryland Grace forges with Rocky. He also uses it to prevent the protagonist from displaying impossible skills in every field by adding someone to help him, especially when an engineering problem arises.
In the end, even though I don’t find Andy Weir’s humor funny, I found “Project Hail Mary” to flow well thanks to the well-crafted plot, which includes various twists and surprises. This is the author’s style, and his success shows that most readers appreciate it. If it’s OK for you, you’ll probably like this novel. It’s available on Amazon USA, UK, and Canada.
