Project Hail Mary
2021
- hard science-fiction
- science-fiction
- sci-fi
- hard sci-fi
- nyt:hardcover-fiction=2021-05-23
- fiction, science fiction, action & adventure
- fiction, science fiction, hard science fiction
- end of the world
- fiction
- astronauts
The story
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission–and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that’s been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it’s up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance. Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, *Project Hail Mary* is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival *The Martian*–while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.
What it’s like
Brisk, wry first-person narration that reads like a friend thinking out loud, full of dry jokes and a stubborn habit of working problems through on the page. The sensory world is almost entirely interior and spare: a cramped, humming spacecraft, the blank black of deep space, and the strange, quiet rhythm of a man slowly recovering his own memory. Pacing is fast and chapter-driven, with frequent small revelations and sudden shifts of scale from the mundane to the cosmic. Tone is buoyant and curious rather than bleak, with a steady undercurrent of loneliness that softens into warmth as a lonely man slowly builds a friendship across an impossible distance. Intensity is low: there are deaths, referenced rather than dwelt on, and tense technical emergencies, but no gore, no sexual content, and little real violence. It suits a long-haul flight, a lazy weekend with a cup of tea, or a comfort reread, and it is best for readers who enjoy science explained with humour and who want an uplifting, hopeful adventure with a clever, likeable narrator.
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