"Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir

I came into the book with high expectations; I found the concept of the book incredibly interesting, and I thought “The Martian” movie and novel were excellent. There are a ton of things that I thought were excellent that I don’t really want to discuss in a review because the reveals and pacing made the story such a satisfying experience.

I’m not qualified to give any kind of critique on the science, so any complaints I have about it may inherently be off base from my own lack of understanding. That being said there was one thing that really stood out to me as strange, that being how quickly Grace was able to breed the Taumoebas to have nitrogen resistance. That seems to me like something that should take an exceptionally long time—it certainly took some time although I don’t remember how long exactly—in the scope of years, not weeks. That was the only thing that stood out to me during the read, and I wouldn’t really say it impacted my enjoyment at all.

The format of Grace’s work on the ship being interspersed with information about Earth’s condition, the developing status of the project, and research into Astrophage was really enjoyable. Weir managed to avoid cutting away from one when I would have strongly preferred reading the other, which is something that a lot of books taking on a multi-perspective format end up struggling with. The result is a story that unfolds naturally as the plot progresses, with the reader and Grace coming to understand the exact context, actions, and consequences that lead to him being on the Hail Mary. Things come full circle for Grace’s character as he comes to terms with some of his own flaws later into the book and acts in defiance of them. I’m being very vague because it’s a much better experience to read the book than for things to be explained here, but the more I think about the final few chapters the more I like them—and I started off liking them quite a lot. It’s just a really good story.

I think that this is going to be quite difficult to adapt into a movie (of course, I would have said that about “The Martian” as well) and I really hope that the movie turns out well. This story certainly has some extra hurdles that “The Martian” never had to deal with, but I’m going to remain hesitantly optimistic. Maybe this will be the first movie I actually go see in theaters this decade.