Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

My love for The Martian by Andy Weir is almost limitless. I even convinced my book club to read the book and then go to the movie together on a field trip. Remember when you could go to movies?  Anyway.  I thought his follow-up, Artemis, was much less successful.  Project Hail Mary was getting very good reviews and I decided that maybe Weir had gotten back to form and put it on my ebook hold list where I waited patiently eagerly for over four months.  

The premise: There's an organism that's destroying Earth and other planets.  Our hero, Ryland Grace, finds himself alone on a spaceship with his dead crewmates and he must embark on mission to save Earth.  Somewhere along the way, he meets an alien from another planet who is on the same mission (to save his planet, not Earth).  Anyway, a buddy comedy with lots of science ensues. 

The first part of this book was an absolute slog.  Until Grace meets his alien counterpart, Rocky, all I could think of is that I didn't want to be reading a book about some guy in complete isolation in light of the pandemic isolation of the last year and a half.  But once that meeting happens, things really pick up and it becomes more fun in a way that is very reminiscent of The Martian, what with a wisecracking astronaut who's really good at problem solving. 

Much like Mark Watney in The Martian, Ryland Grace does not have much of a backstory. We know he teaches at a middle school, but that is really about all we know of his persona life. Does he have a romantic partner? Parents and siblings?  Any interests outside of random science facts?  He doesn't even have a kit with personal paraphernalia in it like his crewmates do (for legitimate plot reasons, I guess).  He's funny, quick on his feet, and pretty good at figuring out how to understand a language with no basis, but we've already seen that in The Martian and I was hoping that Weir would grow in this book and create a new character, not just Mark Watney version 2.0.

In general, I enjoyed this book, but The Martian is still Weir's strongest work. I definitely would recommend this book, though, with the caveat that the first part is brutal.