Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir- Book Review

 Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - Book Review

Project Hail Mary is the latest book by Andy Weir (author ofThe Martian), and honestly it's the best sci-fi book I've ever read in my life till now. Like The Martian , it's about a scientist stranded alone in space without his teammates, and there's a whole lot of math and science involved in solving the problem. However, the man has complete amnesia- he doesn't know his name, he doesn't know he's on a spaceship, and he does n't know he's light-years away from any other human being. However, he's on a suicide mission, and he's the only person that can save the Earth and all the humans in it from utter destruction.

In this excellent combination of The Martian and Interstellar containing weird red lines, weird metals, and a five-digit clock, Andy Weir manages to deliver an excellent, spectacular story interwoven with survival, adventure, and a LOT of nerdy science.

**This book review contains spoilers for this book. If you still want to read the review, go ahead. However, I strongly recommend you to read this book before reading my review.**

 

Why did I read this?

I stumbled upon this book in the public library- I had just finished my previous book ( More Than This by Patrick Ness ) and was looking for interesting books to read. Then, I spotted ths book, by the same guy who wrote The Martian ! I didn't know if I was going to like this sci-fi story, but I should have known it was going to be a mind-blowing story- it is an Andy Weir book after all. I'd loved his first book his and watched the movie, and I have also read Artemis which is Weir's second book, which was also a great read.

Summary (whole summary, with big spoilers)

A man wakes up in a hospital bed, all kinds of tubes sticking out of him, and he has total amnesia- he knows nothing. As his memories return via flashbacks he realizes that he is Ryland Grace, sent on a suicide mission to the star Tau Ceti to hopefully find out how to kill Astrophage. These flashbacks occur all throughout the story, providing important backstory information. Astrophage, named by Grace herself, are a minuscule alien life that travels using light. It can convert mass to energy and back again, thereby generating an enormous amount of energy. Astrophage has been dimming the sun quickly by taking its energy, moving to Venus, and coming back. All earth life may halve within thirty years, and that's why every nation in the world worked together for a mission that could save humanity. The result was the Hail Mary, an Astrophage-powered spaceship made to travel to Tau Ceti with three crew members. Originally Grace wasn't supposed to be part of the crew, but due to one crew member dying before the launch, Grace was forced onto the Hail Mary .

Grace wakes up alone with his crewmates both dead, and he slowly figures out that he is in space because the gravity is about 1.5 times normal. He spots Tau Ceti's Petrova Line(a red line made by the Astrophage when traveling from a star to a planet and back) but notices that it gets cut off in the middle. But then, an alien spacecraft shows up, obviously not something made with human hands. The ships communicate by physical models, and eventually the ships connect via an airlock. It is revealed that the alien spaceship is made of a extremely hard solid form of Xenon that Grace names xenonite, and that the owner of the alien spacecraft(Grace names it Blip-A) is a five-legged, rocklike creature that Grace dubs' Rocky'. Rocky's ideal environment is hot and ammonia-filled, so Grace and Rocky cannot survive in each other' s environment. They slowly begin to understand each other's language (Rocky speaks in musical tones) and they eventually get to the point where they can speak to each other- Rocky in Eridian (his language his) and Grace in English- and fully understand each other.

Grace remembers (in flashbacks) that he found out how to breed Astrophage, and that Astrophage go from a great energy source (the sun) to any planet with the most carbon dioxide in order to reproduce. Using this information, Grace and Rocky go to Tau Ceti's planet which Rocky names after his mate his and Grace names Adrian. The human-alien duo go to great lengths to obtain a sample of Adrian's atmosphere to see what is killing the Astrophage, and Rocky puts his life at stake to save Grace, who is close to dying due to centripetal force. Grace then puts Rocky back into his ammonia compartment, and Rocky slowly heals. Grace receives enough Astrophage from Blip-A (Rocky's species don't know about relativity so they brought too much fuel) to get back home, so it'

Grace and Rocky eventually find the organism that eats Astrophage, and Grace names it Taumoeba. After finding that nitrogen is lethal to Taumoeba, Grace decides to breed nitrogen-resistant Taumoeba in xenonite tanks. It works, and Grace succeeds in making Taumoeba that is resistant to both the atmospheres of Threeworld (the affected planet in Rocky's solar system) and Venus. The two sadly part as they head to their respective homeworlds.

However, it doesn't end there- Grace discovers that the Taumoeba developed the ability to move through Xenonite, and realizes that Rocky would be trapped in space with his Astrophage fuel all eaten by the Taumoeba. Grace decides to head back for Rocky, and the two head to Threeworld. Grace eats Taumoeba to barely stay alive, but they make it back.

On Erid (Rocky's home planet), technology is less advanced than Earth, but soon the Eridians figure out how to synthesize vitamins and meat (human meat from Grace's DNA). Many years later, Grace is teaching science to an Eridian class, then he gets the news that the Sun's brightness has returned to normal. Grace is overjoyed.

Review

I loved this book- it's definitely going in one of my top 5 best sci-fi list. 

The best part of the book, I think, is how Weir made the characters- both Ryland Grace and Rocky- so alive and fleshed out. Both characters are quite relatable, and as you read you become so engrossed in their problems and overjoyed with their new discoveries or ingenious solutions. Like The Martian , the present-time storyline(with Grace and Rocky) is a series of problem- genius scientific solution- problem, and I don't dislike the pattern- it's interesting to see how science and math is creatively used to solve various problems, and that's also what I loved about The Martian . 

Also, Weir does a fantastic job of keeping two storylines going at the same time- one about the present time with Grace and Rocky, and another about Grace's past through flashbacks. Both storylines were engaging and interesting, although Rocky's bits were far more interesting- I didn't want Grace to meet an alien, and then suddenly drop into a save-the-world meeting in a flashback. 

For me, Rocky was definitely the star of the book, since the five-legged creature was unthought of, easy to picture, and worked together with Grace so well. The science gets a bit convenient at a few points (as it does in The Martian too) but I like clean, good solutions to problems, so that isn't much of a problem for me.

All in all, I extremely enjoyed this book and would strongly recommend it to anybody, but especially people who find exhilaration in scientific problem solving. In short, anyone who liked The Martian should read this book.

I would recommend this book for grade 9 and up. (science may be a bit difficult)

Rating: I would give this book 5/5.