Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Andy Weir

NARRATOR: Ray Porter

GENRE: Science Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: May 4, 2021

RATING: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A space drama about an astronaut trying to save Earth. Way more comical than I expected. Just as much of “Yay, USA” as I had anticipated.” Offers quite a geek fest with plenty of STEM topics. Racist and stereotypical at times. Somewhat dragged in between. Portrayal of woman characters annoying. Quite an entertaining read.

Plot Preview:

Dr. Ryland Grace wakes up in a strange location, only to learn that he is in a space ship light years away from earth, that he is the only human alive on the ship, and that he is on a mission to save his home planet. Unfortunately, he doesn’t remember all the details from his mission, thanks to the induced coma he had been put in for the journey. Can he actually succeed when he can't even recollect the exact nature of his assignment?

The story comes to us in Ryland’s perspective from two timelines: present and past.

PSA: Go in blind! Many reviews contain major spoilers.

Bookish Yays:

🚀 Rocky. What an engineer! All my love for Rocky! “Amaze, amaze, amaze”!

🚀 The concept. Mindblowing! Of course, suspension of disbelief is mandatory in the SFF genre, but it is still mostly palatable.

🚀 Ryland Grace as a character. Flawed but human. Clever yet vulnerable. Annoying yet likeable.

🚀 The geeky treats. With so much of mathematical and scientific content, the book is like Science-Geek Heaven! 😅 Even better, the science was mostly convincing! I think that the book could work even for readers who don’t have much STEM knowhow, but have a fondness for it.

🚀 The use of the dual timeline, which helps us understand Ryland’s present circumstances part by part. Both timelines aren’t equally gripping, but they somehow take turns being more appealing.

🚀 The slight surprise in the “Chosen One’ trope. Not that I didn’t see it coming, but I liked how it was written.

🚀 The worldbuilding in the space timeline.

🚀 Interesting proceedings despite having only a single human for a good chunk of the story.

🚀 The regular twists and turns.

🚀 Good use of inner monologues to add a mix of emotion, information, introspection, and action.

🚀 The ending. Totally didn’t go where I thought it would, and ended up more satisfying than the one I had anticipated.

Bookish Okays:

🌠 Ryland Grace as a scientist. Very convenient that he is a whiz at maths, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and any other STEM field you can think of. He was almost like a Marvel superhero!

🌠 The humour. Absolutely not something I expected in a book with such a serious blurb! Most of the times, it’s funny. But on a few occasions, the jokes are of the kind that immature frat boys crack.

Bookish Nays:

💥 The middle part of the book feels very dragged, as if Ryland forgot his main purpose and deviated on a side track. This is mainly why my rating dropped.

💥 All the ‘Yay, yay, USA”. To be fair, it was written by an US author, possibly for US audiences. But cut the rest of the world also some slack! It’s boring to see the same old racist stereotypes about other countries. And even more boring to see yet another “American saves the day” storyline.

💥 The portrayal of the two female characters in the past timeline. Mostly monotonous, partly cliched, partly absurd.

💥 The sexual jokes. Though very few, they were still weird enough to turn me off!

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 16 hours 10 minutes, is narrated by Ray Porter. He is good at voicing Ryland, but his accents of the non-white characters are horrible stereotypical. The amazing sound effects saved the audiobook for me. This might be great to read, but if possible, get the audio version for Rocky. Note that the audio version contains minimal changes to the text, done with the approval of the author for a better listening experience.

📽 Movie Review:

I watched the movie as soon as I competed the book. Quite a crunched-up version of the book, even though it is 2.5+ hrs long. The nerdy content isn't that prevalent, and the Hollywoodized jazzing-up is overdone. In a few scenes, it does better than the book. And the visuals are of course outstanding. But as almost always, the book is better. My kids did enjoy the movie though.

Overall, this story is larger than life by its very nature. The combination of space drama and comedy adds to the appeal. If only the repetition in between had been toned down and the portrayal of all except white males had been more convincing!

Recommended to space fiction fans. If you can stand a little American cockiness and a lot of nerdy STEM content and are a pro at suspending disbelief while reading SFF, you ought to give this a go.

3.5 stars, rounding up wherever applicable for Rocky and the ending.