Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
We had a pretty good turnout for our first book of the month vote. To be honest I did not anticipate the problem of there being a tie. I took the liberty of flipping a coin which came out heads for Project Hail Mary. In the future I might have to come up with a better method of tie breaking. I’m figuring this out as I go and it is all just for the fun of it anyway so please don’t take this too seriously.
I intend to read this book over the month of September and then near the end of the month I will create a discussion thread for it where people can discuss it without worrying about spoilers. Follow along if you want to.
👽🚀
- Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir - 20 votes
- Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky - 20 votes
- Neuromancer - William Gibson - 17 votes
- Hyperion - Dan Simmons - 13 votes
- Leviathan Wakes - James S. A. Corey - 13 votes
- A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine - 11 votes
- Wool (Silo Series Book 1) - Hugh Howey - 10 votes
- Red Rising - Pierce Brown - 4 votes
- 22/11/63 - Stephen King - 1 vote
This book was my favorite read from last year. I love Weir’s mixture of researched scientific detail and irreverent humor, which he also exhibited in my other favorite novel of his, The Martian. His protagonists are down to earth even while being literally anywhere else, problem solve while facing extreme and dire straights, and use humor as a defense mechanism in very non-humorous situations.
Though he writes in a similar style to The Martian in Project Hail Mary, the feel is very different. Without spoiling any details, unlike The Martian’s straight forward survival story, PHM has a non-linear narrative, a slowly revealing mystery, epic stakes, and more classic pop sci-fi elements. My wife and I listened to this as an audiobook in the car together, enjoying the tension, the creative problem solving, and the witticisms throughout. If that sounds like something you’re into or if you enjoyed The Martian, you should pick this one up.
I felt that the protagonist in The Martian and Project Hail Mary were way too similar - both loveable science goofs making jokes while doing unreasonable math on napkins. But maybe that’s the right formula to keep the science interesting for the reader.
The stories were different enough, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Mark Watney was on this new mission.
Thank you for this comment. I read both The Martian and Artemis (both by Weir). I loved The Martian. My enjoyment of The Martian was equal to my disappointment in Artemis. I was guarded about giving another Weir book a chance.
Yeah, I attempted Artemis. I couldn’t get into it. I was disappointed as well. Project Hail Mary is far better, in my opinion.
You’re not wrong that Ryland and Mark feel very similar. But I can’t blame the Weir for wanting to put a character with a similar archetype in a more epic story with a new format.
He could obviously have made it a sequel and just had the character be Mark. And, honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that that was the case in an early draft/outline. But doing so would have some unique consequences on the story and challenges to writing the story he wanted to. He would have to worry about precedent and character development from The Martian carrying forward into PHM, but making it accessible to those who didn’t read The Martian. He’d have to justify why Mark has gotten himself in this new situation after barely surviving the last. Having a character we already know would fundamentally change the nature of Ryland’s backstory reveals and the character flaws we learn about in this story (I don’t know how those elements would work with the Mark we know). And making Mark into franchise character would be an odd choice in a story with such a different flavor of worldbuilding and with the consequences of events in this story.
Using a character that is similar to one people loved from your other work may seem like a creative cop out, but I see it more as an iterative development on the archetype he is interested in. And I like the archetype. People write anthology-esque stories with similar themes, settings, subjects all the time. I have no qualms with a writer having a recurring character archetype that they tweak between entirely different stories, especially when they are written to be clever and endearing, but still flawed people. It’s a matter of personal taste, but I resonate with that character type and find them compelling and fun to read. I don’t mind that it’s not a serialized story/character when the stories being told are each self-contained.
Great book, I’m looking forward to the movie adaptation as well
jazz hands
AMAZE!
♪♫♩♪♩♫
Some humble proposals for a few other sci-fi options for the next round that are a bit fresher than Gibson and Asimov (not that I don’t love the old guard!):
- Venomous Lumpsuckers by Ned Beuman - winner of this years Arthur C Clark award for science fiction, a dark satire environmental disaster page turner touching on cryptobros, greenwashing, carbon credits and short selling late stage capitalism. Hilarious, but be warned: optimistic, it ain’t.
- Terraformers by Analee Newitz - another extremely welcome breath of fresh air by Newitz, a sci fi epic spanning millenia also focused on environmentalism and capitalism with her refreshing approach to non-human sentience and fluid sexuality (Check out her “Autonomous” too if you haven’t already!)
- A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers - beautiful prose and descriptions of a colorful and diverse cast of misfits on a worker class intergalactic highway construction ship. Some of the best descriptions of characters I’ve seen lately and some really interesting aliens.
- Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi - imo MUCH improved offering from Scalzi over Red Shirts but still his characteristic pop-culture drenched page turner. One of the most face-punchingly terrible antagonists in recent memory.
- Exhalation by Ted Chiang - incredibly evocative and thoughtful collection of short stories
Great read. Probably my favorite book Weir has put out so far.
Not technically a sequel to The Martian but it kinda feels like it in a way. That’s not a negative for me though, Martian is a great story
I love both the top two choices. Children of Time that series is awesome and I recommend everyone read them. I own both physical copies and audiobooks of all three.
Project Hail Mary is also excellent book but I only have the audio version. Love to get a copy of the actual book because I do understand it diffrent in one way from the audio version.
I read few of the others the Hyperion series is also a great read should have been higher up. I own the ebooks, audiobooks, and hardack copies of that series. A great series.
Definitely will read rest of what’s on this list soon.
Im excited to see the winner! I havent had a good reason to pick up a book in a few years, so this is my push to commit to it. Wish me luck breaking my dry spell!
Waiting on the library copy of phm. I’m something like 32 in line
Project Hail Mary was fucking excellent!
[off topic?]
I’d like to mention two books worth reading.
Author Daniel Suarez is hit and miss for me. Two great ones are ‘Daemon’ and ‘Delta-V.’
Daemon posits a dying billionaire who comes up with a way top rebuild society from beyond the grave.
Delta-V is old school ‘hey, kids, let’s start ming the asteroids!’
Thank you.
Also, I think #6 is the best on the list, but ‘Project Hail Mary’ was very good, too.
Ahh Hyperion. I’ve reread three books/series ever: Dhalgren. Lord of Light and the Hyperion/Endymion cantos. Simply wonderful.
Red Rising is good. Memory Called Empire was ok. Project Hail Mary is quietly waiting on my to read shelf.
Glad the coin flipped head, I’ll be joining for the read!
I’m really late to this whole thing but this book is one of my favorite comfort reads. Idk, I think it feels weirdly wholesome where it’s just 2 people(a guy and a huge scary space spider?) trying their best to save everyone and even though it didn’t have an antagonist, it still felt like there was one in the form of space bacteria(?). One of my favorite reads
I’m listening to the Audiobook of Project Hail Mary. Great listen.
Oh yea definitely. I missed the voting (didn’t even know about this community before) but I had never read a book such as this one. I bought it because I really had enjoyed The Martian and especially the style of the author as I’m an engineer (Artemis was alright) but then it stayed on the shelf for a few months.
One day I pick it up and it basically didn’t last a week total and this included my girlfriend reading it as well (I think she took like 2 days). And we’re definitely not power readers.
Literally couldn’t put the book down.
His next book can’t come quick enough.
If anyone else has recommendations on similar books let me know. We really like that he goes through the thought process of the characters when solving the problems, even with some equations and math mixed it. So if you have recommendations based on that ping me.
Having read both, The Martian was very much a book I just simply put down (I lost so many hours of sleep because of it) whereas this one seemed decent.
If you liked the Martian, you’ll like this one probably. There definitely was some weak moments, and the science portion, while crunchy sometimes, didn’t hold up consistently.
Worth a read.
