I’ve never read a lot of science fiction books, but I did go to a technical university full of engineers. When Project Hail Mary was released in 2021, it caused a bit of ruckus on my Goodreads feed. All my friends were reading this book, and all of them were leaving raving reviews.
Except my girlfriend. She thought it was a pretty stupid book. Now that interested me, because:
- My girlfriend is the only girl I know who has read the book
- I love subversive opinions
This of course meant that I had to read the book myself as well. I secretly hoped I would feel the same as my girlfriend, but I have to admit that this book was actually a hoot to read.
Plot and themes
The sun is being ‘eaten alive’ by a mysterious space life form. It’s tiny, black, and loves to eat the energy of the sun. All scientist of the world band together to investigate this phenomenon, because when the sun decreases it’s output it will sow destruction on Earth. Massive climatological impact, which impacts food production, which disrupts social-economic relationships on all levels.
The mysterious alien life form doesn’t seem to need water to survive, so the help of an outcast academic who has written rejected theories on waterless life forms is required. This guy, Dr. Grace, currently works as a high school teacher in physics after his academic career stranded.
He starts to research the sample of alien life form and calls it astrophage. This is the start of Dr. Grace’s journey into space. It is however, not the exact start of this book. The book starts with Dr. Grace already in space. He wakes up from a coma, his team mates have died and he’s all alone. No memories, no clue. He slowly but surely starts remembering bits and pieces. How he ended up in the spaceship, what his mission is, and what he should do next.
The plot trick of ‘amnesia recovery’ is a clever way of the author to keep the reader invested in the story. You feel personally connected to Dr. Grace because you also don’t know what the heck is going on. You are excited to read more, because you might learn something essential. And if that’s not enough excitement, then there’s always the plot of the total apocalypse of the world.
Total apocalypse... Project Hail Mary...? Is this some sort of Christian propaganda, you might ask. No, not super-duper I would say. I mean, yes, you could argue that Dr. Grace is some sort of saviour that dedicates his life to the redemption of everyone on Earth. But is that the point of the book? I’m not sure.
Because in space, Dr. Grace is not a lone wolf that saves the world on his own. He runs into Rocky, an intelligent rocky spider-like life form. Rocky is also searching for a solution to the astrophage problem, because the star in his star system is also affected.
Together Rocky and Dr. Grace find a solution to the problem. They track down another alien life form, a tiny cell that is a natural predator to the astrophage. They breed them and make them compatible with both their star systems. They send off the solutions and safe their planets.
Dr. Grace is not able to return to Earth because he doesn’t have enough food on board to survive the long journey, so they both head to Rocky’s planet. Here Dr. Grace grows old and returns to his role of a high school physics teacher, except for young Erideans this time.
So yes, Dr. Grace (biblical reference in his name??) can be seen as the saviour of Earth. In an act of sacrifice, he saves us all. But when we look closer, the solution was found in an act of collaboration and science, so I would say that’s much more the theme than anything Christian.
On the style and other points
So yes, I understand why all my engineering friends enjoyed this book. There’s a lot of physics being used in this book. And it’s being explained and calculated as much as a popular science fiction book allows. I appreciated that talking about physics was not avoided, it made the book much more interesting in my opinion. It gave it an air of realism.
That being said, the plot device of making Dr. Grace a high school physics teacher who therefore ‘knows a lot of random facts by heart’ felt a bit over-used. The author didn’t have to point out every time Dr. Grace did something that's related to him being a teacher. The reader will know that after a couple of times.
Dr. Grace’s profession was not the only plot device that annoyed me. There’s several moments when I was reading the book that took me out of the flow. Dr. Grace being one in 7000 people that has a special gene that helps him survive the four year coma? Or Dr. Grace’s amnesia that was planned out on Earth (he was drugged by some special French CIA type of drug). It all felt very ‘convenient’. There were a couple of these moments in the book that saddened me a bit.
One such moment I'd like to highlight. There was an A-crew of astronauts and a B-crew. We as reader already know that the scientists of both crews won't make it to the space ship, but Dr. Grace will. So what happens? They both die in a stupid science experiment on Earth. Seems like a very convenient plot device, right? Well, yes, and it is very convenient. But what I liked about it, is that it completely subverted the plot point that was being setup. Scientist A and B had gotten into a sexual relationship, and they were not using condoms 'because she's on birth control!'. Omg... as a reader... you think... my gosh, this is an embarrassingly thickly spread foreshadow. Of course they are gonna get a kid and then they don't want to go on a suicide mission anymore and then Dr. Grace needs to go! But before any of that can happen, they both get blow to smithereens. I that that was quite a fun move by the author. I'm sure he had a lot of fun writing that.
Next to that, there was the very colloquial writing style. I’m not a big fan of this style, it feels a bit awkward to me. See the examples below [“aaaand they’re dead” + “scribble, scribble”]. Even though it’s not my personal preference, I can see how this theatrical way of brining personal thoughts to live would work well in adaptations. Perhaps this is the reason all of Andy Weir’s books are being turned into blockbuster movies.
- “Time to get a look at my fellow patients. I don’t know who I am or why I’m here, but at least I’m not alone—aaaand they’re dead. Yes, definitely dead. The one closest to me was a woman, I think.”
- “At this resolution, they’re moving 1 millimeter every 344.66 seconds. To cross the entire 27 centimeters it would take (scribble, scribble) just over 93,000 seconds.”
This modern, quirky style will also assign this book to this specific time period. Just as some of the references it — very neutrally — makes. E.g. to the gender debates and massive scale copyright infringement that are both culturally relevant at the moment. To future readers, these references might not have much meaning, but they were fun little winks to the contemporary reader.
A final point I’d like to address was the Dr. Grace was sedated and put on the Hail Mary ship against his will. This is something we learn towards the end of the book, as it is one of the final memories that returns to him. He then realises that he’s not brave, but in fact a coward. He didn’t want to save the Earth. He wanted to remain on the planet and let other people solve the problem. How I’m describing it like this you might get the impression that this would cause some sort of identity conflict for the protagonist, with all of that set up and effort that was put into this reveal. But… it barely carries any significance…. Not relevant for the plot development, it doesn’t cause any character development, nothing really changes because of it. Which brings me to the issue with Dr. Graces character development: where was that? What has he learned? Not much really. He was a teacher that loves comfort at the start of the book, and at the end of the book, he’s still very much that same person.
So in conclusion: an exciting, fun book to read. Structurally it works very well. The story is solid. But in the end, does this book leave a big impression on me? No, I can’t really say that. It didn’t move me emotionally. There was little struggle, fight, little to conquer, little friction, and the worst crime leading out of all of that: little development.