Project Hail Mary

by Andy Weir

I didn't read his "The Martian," but I did see the movie at my sister's house. The framework is quite similar: alone (mostly) facing problem after problem, and building solutions. Once the premise is admitted, the book is hard sci-fi.

In The Andromeda Strain the virus-like thing is able to use extreme energy to reproduce (which drives the cliff-hanger ending). Here the premise is a bacteria-like thing that takes that to another level, able to draw enough energy from the Sun to significantly dim it--though reproduction requires CO2 from Venus--a space-traveling bacteria that is multiplying fast enough to result in disaster in a few decades.

Our hero wakes up with amnesia, and slowly learns about his spaceship and his memories, with parallel stories of his adventures on the ship and what led up to it on Earth. He's not left in the dark about "why" for long (the reader wouldn't stand it)--every nearby star system save one is clearly also infected and dimming badly. Their job--a "Hail Mary" desperate gamble--is to go find out why one of the stars stopped dimming and see if the information can save the Earth before everybody starves.

The strands are wrapped up, and the decisions are mostly plausible--though the final revelation of character isn't well motivated and didn't ring quite right.

The degree of cooperation among nations is a bit implausible, and the director, though a well-drawn character, isn't the most plausible choice for the project either. Perhaps the population of scientists willing to go on a one-way mission has different characteristics than the ordinary crowd, but the two that paired off didn't resemble anybody I knew.

Without giving away the ending, I see why Weir chose that option. It would have been much harder to write the complicated reactions and interactions the alternative would demand, and I think Weir wants to stick to what he does well.

A little axe-grinding, but on the whole a fun read.