Harare Review of Books

476 pages.

First published in 2021.

Finished reading on May 25, 2021.

Genre: Science Fiction.

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.

Was a wobbly, wavering ‘Yeah, I’m not sure *eye roll*’ until near the end. Problematic depictions of non-Americans, I think 🙄😄 And the dialogue could be pretty annoying. At this point, very Andy Weir.

BUT, like a great action movie, the fun parts were extremely fun, and the ending was unexpectedly moving.

Nb. I don’t mind long descriptions of science. If you’re reading sci-fi, I expect that you won’t, either. But I am a hard sci-fi fan, so maybe this is a blind spot for me.

Mild spoiler: I do want to know what happened on the other side, though.

Less mild spoiler: They really did him dirty!

Rated: 8/10. The ending made up for lots. But expect to slog through some tiresome stretches.

Also, Hail Mary, full of Grace, haha.

Edit 13/6/21: Back down to 6/10. Remembered that the (potentially awesome) non-white crewmates barely say anything, die at the beginning, and the hero (/winner!) is a rather underqualified white man 🙃