Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir: one man, one dying sun

Project Hail Mary is Andy Weir’s 2021 novel about a man who wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory of who he is or why he is there, and works out over the next few hundred pages that the Sun is dying and that he may be the only person who can do anything about it. It is a puzzle box of a book, and a warm and funny one.

The idea behind it

Weir’s method is problem-solving as plot, and it works best when the problem has a clear shape. Here the shape is a slow catastrophe: the Sun is losing energy, and the cause turns out to be a microbe feeding on it. Ryland Grace, a schoolteacher turned reluctant astronaut, wakes up alone on a ship sent to investigate, with no memory and only a series of scientific puzzles standing between him and the answer. The amnesia is not a gimmick. It is the device that lets the reader learn the situation at exactly the pace Grace does.

What lifts the book above a set of engineering exercises is the relationship at its centre. The middle of the novel introduces a second presence, and the collaboration that follows, worked out in improvised language and careful physics, is one of the most genuinely likeable things in modern science fiction. The book is optimistic in a way that is hard to fake, which is why it landed with readers who do not usually read the genre.

The story, spoiler-light

Grace wakes up, and the book alternates between his present on the ship and flashbacks that gradually reconstruct how he got there and what Earth is facing. The flashbacks carry the politics and the grief. The present carries the science, and it is presented as a chain of solvable problems: where is he, what is the ship for, what is killing the Sun, and what can one person actually do about it.

Roughly halfway through, the novel changes shape, and for the better. I will not say how. If you have heard anything about the book, you already know the broad shape of the middle, but the pleasure is in the detail and the voice, and both hold up.

What makes it science fiction

It is hard science fiction in the readable sense: the physics is mostly sound and, more importantly, it is the reason the plot moves. The novel is built so that every advance comes from someone understanding something, and every setback comes from a physical fact. That is rarer than it sounds, and it is why the book feels satisfying rather than merely clever.

The premise is also a good example of the genre’s favourite kind of disaster: not an invasion but a physical process nobody is prepared for, which forces cooperation instead of war. Weir wrote The Martian first and this is the maturer book, warmer and stranger and less impressed with its own cleverness.

Who should read it, and who should give it a miss

• Read it if you want a genuinely fun, optimistic science fiction novel that still respects the science.
• Read it if you liked The Martian. This is the same author doing the same thing better.
• Read it if you want a book that is easy to recommend to people who do not read science fiction.
• Give it a miss if you want moral complexity. This is a warm book with a clear good.
• Give it a miss if you dislike first-person narrators who explain things. Grace explains a lot.
• Give it a miss if you want prose that draws attention to itself. It is efficient and plain.

Where to start, and what to read next

It is a standalone, so start here. If you have not read Weir before, The Martian is the obvious companion and shares the same pleasure of a smart person solving a hostile environment one problem at a time.

If what you liked was the alien relationship, the genre has a small tradition of warm first contact, and Becky Chambers’s Wayfarers books are the natural next stop. If what you liked was the hard problem-solving, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora is the same territory with a much colder eye.

The verdict

One of the most purely enjoyable science fiction novels of its decade, and a rare example of hard science fiction that is also a pleasure to read aloud. It is not subtle and it does not want to be. Read it for the puzzles, stay for the friendship, and expect to finish it quickly.

Frequently asked questions

Is Project Hail Mary part of a series?

No. It is a standalone novel, published in 2021.

Is it like The Martian?

Very. Both are about a competent person solving physical problems in isolation, written by the same author. Project Hail Mary is the warmer and more ambitious of the two.

Is it hard science fiction?

Mostly. The physics and biology are treated carefully enough to carry the plot, though the book is more interested in solving problems than in being a textbook.

Where can I buy it?

It is available as a Kindle edition, and the buy links for Amazon.com and Amazon.in are on this page.