Author: Andy Weir
Audiobook read by: Ray Porter
I read The Martian by Andy Weir a bit before the movie was released, and thoroughly enjoyed the Ridley Scott/ Matt Damon film that followed. I skipped Artemis, and somehow just sort of missed that Project Hail Mary had been released until the movie trailer dropped and saw that the film was based on a book by Andy Weir.
Jamie, who loved the The Martian, picked up Project Hail Mary, and plowed through it in a couple of days, recommending the novel. Also, I am now listening to audiobooks in one ear while I walk Emmylou in the mornings before work, and this seemed like a good one to listen to after The Godfather.
There's a certain sameness to Project Hail Mary that you'll feel if you read The Martian, and while that's certainly the author's voice coming in strong, it almost feels like the same character from The Martian at times. And I suspect that was a return to form after Artemis, which had a female lead and was a bit more space-adventurey from what I heard, didn't get the same good notices as Weir's freshman effort.
But, like a band whose first record you liked, it's not all bad to get that third album and hear that the band was just finding their way on the sophomore effort, and now they're back in their groove.
An astronaut awakens on a craft headed to a nearby star - his memory is wiped and the other two crew members are dead. As he stumbles about, pieces of memory come back to him.
Earth had a problem - the sun was fading. If a solution isn't found, the planet will drop into an ice age that will kill a whole lot of life on Earth.
SPOILERS
I really liked Project Hail Mary. I don't know that it will be taken for great literature, but it certainly makes for an interesting page turner of a read. Slowly revealing what happened on Earth, how middle-school science teacher Ryland Grace winds up as one of three astronauts sent to save the Sun/ our Solar System is a great engine to propel the story, pushing forward the sturdy chassis of the story of the actual work done to save the planet and teamwork needed to get there.
