Project Hail Mary

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Better than The Martian? 🤔

No book is perfect, so I felt obligated to find something wrong with this and wrote down the only thing I could think of. Then I thought about it some more, and deleted it. 🤷‍♂️

Now many people are probably going to criticize Project Hail Mary for not being as funny as The Martian. It definitely has comedy, it’s just not as in-your-face. But I think the dialed back comedy allowed the story have the proper impact and made it much more engaging and suspenseful. A perfect example of this is the Antarctica scene, I won’t go into detail to avoid spoilers, but it’s one of my favorite parts of the book and really puts into perspective the scope of the story.

Speaking of the story, there is a LOT more science in this book than in Andy Weir’s previous work, 🧪🧬🔬💉🦠🌡🧫💊 so just be prepared for that. But even more-so, Andy Weir needs to be recognized as a master of micro-problems and problem solving; stories within stories. There are several story-arcs throughout this book, and there are several problems that arise within those arcs. Each one not only makes sense as to why they’re happening, but they’re also very well paced and never become too cluttered to the point of becoming too much for the reader to mentally keep track of. Some of the solutions also lead additional problems later on, but even with the many problems that come up, there don’t seem to be any loose ends. Andy Weir does a great job of tying everything up and telling a complete story.

As far as the characters go, Rocky is just the cutest thing ever. He’s the perfect combination of creepy and adorable. And again, to avoid spoilers, that’s all I’m going to say about him.

But Stratt is easily my favorite character. She’s not somebody you want to mess with, she doesn’t waste time, and is a straight G.

“Your Honor,” Stratt interrupted. “Can I make motions now?”
“Technically,” said the justice, “but it’s irregul—”
“I move to dismiss.”
“On what grounds, Ms. Stratt?” said the justice.
“Because I don’t have time for this bullshit,” she said. 

And let’s not forget another great thing about reading Andy Weir: you actually learn some stuff. 🧠

“In fact, the gravity you experience in orbit is pretty much the same as you’d experience on the ground. The weightlessness that astronauts experience while in orbit comes from constantly falling. But the curvature of the Earth makes the ground go away at the same rate you fall. So you just fall forever.”

(Admit it, you didn’t know that either)