[Discussion] Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir (Spoilers)

One of my favourite sci-fi books of all time. I managed to have nothing spoiled and was stunned by the direction the book went in. Loved it.

My sister taped over an illustration showing the spaceship on first page as that is in itself a spoiler.

I keep recommending the book to everyone while not saying anything about it, since it's best to discover everything on your own.
- I always love to go in to a book completely blind, but OMG, I was so glad I did with this one.

John, Paul, George, Ringo and Jazz Hands

The real story wasn’t what was in the book it was the 🎵🎶🎵🎶🎶🎵 that we made along the way

I listened to it on a long drive recently, and really enjoyed the audiobook version. The voice actor did a good job, and I liked the chords with the alien voice. The last 20% we were listening on the edge of our seats.

And then, a few weeks later, it's... fine. I like to call books like this "Good Time Fun". It probably won't be remembered in 100 years like other more timeless works, but it's a heck of a lot of fun if you just go along for the ride.

Another commenter suggested Young Adult, and that's exactly what it feels like. There's challenges, strong emotions, a bit of a a twist or two (pretty easy to see coming), clever creativity, Science To The Rescue, and Friendship Conquers Everything! You know, Good Time Fun!

I am unsure if it is possible to write about meeting an alien species and not have sixteen people and their cousin not poo poo the whole thing. That said, I loved the way Mr. Weir had me rooting for the alien main character more than the human. Fun Sci-fi read. Somewhat Scooby-Doo, but I expect that with Weir and am totally ok with it. There is nothing wrong with feeling good about a science fiction book.

It's just straight up "fun". I really enjoyed it, but would never suggest it's one of the sci Fi greats, and is defensible among the greats.

That said, I'll reread it in a year or so, and recommend it to non tech/nerd friends looking for a sci Fi story

Oh, the audio book is excellent. I can't imagine it any other way

The Audio book was FANTASTIC. It's a bit goofy and plays a little loosy goosey with some of the "SCI" part in Sci-fi. I also recommend this to anybody looking for a book recommendation, it's an easy read and entertaining.

It did however highlight a very interesting challenge that the movie is going to face.

In the book Grace sets up a translation system for communication initially but after a while just simply understands what is being said. In a book/audio book format the reader will only understand the words grace understands and because of the format we accept the limitation and don't really think about it.

How the heck are they going to make an alien who speaks in chords understandable for the audience in the film?
- Hire Ray Porter to voice Rocky. Lots of movies have parts where they magically switch to English.
  
  Hunt for Red October, Avatar, 13th warrior, and more.
- Probably have him build an audio device he wears that runs his translation code. Then never mention it again
  
  That or subtitles, like how han solo just chats with aliens in the cantina, each speaking how they speak

Uh, such a tease! I was scrolling through Lemmy when I came across this article. As the first half of the cover image entered my screen I got all hyped seeing Andy Weir's name, thinking it's a new book announcement. Then I realized it's Hail Mary.

Great book. I think Weir's genre of choice is: slightly self deprecating, really smart specialist is left alone in the face of great adversity and works to overcome it using science and creative thinking. And you know what? I'm a fan of that genre.

Some people complain it's just the character from The Martian in a different story. Well I liked that character so I liked PHM. Same concept, different medium is Zelda breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom. Maybe it is a giant extension of the first game but that's exactly what I wanted in the first place.
Andy Weir made a short story for Amazon in the book "Forward". I am still trying to source it cause it seems like an exclusive to Amazon e-books. Came out on 2021.

I noticed that Andy Weir’s publisher has made a deal to make the English language version of the audiobook of this an “Audible Exclusive”. Pretty gross. It means you can only buy it from Audible, and you can’t even get it from a public library.

I only listen to his books as audiobooks and I refuse to pay audible prices. I listened to the sample and it didn't hook me like the Martian or Artemis so I guess I go without
- First I know that everyone loves to hate on Amazon and rightly so. Second I am also aware that there are apps that allow you to use audio books from public libraries which is great resource that everyone should take advantage of if they can.
  
  I guess the question I have for you is how quickly do you go through audio books? If it's only 1 or 2 books a month Audible isn't that bad.
  
  For me $15 a month for audible has me more than covered for the audio books I listen to. If I do end up finishing my current book before the next credit of the month there are plenty of podcasts and free audiobooks to listen to to tide me over, or I can go back and re-listen to a past book.
  
  Personally I believe that Audio books should ALWAYS cost significantly more than the original book. The amount of work that goes into an audio book recording is mind boggling in some instances and I am willing to pay to make sure publishers will still provide audio books as options.
  
  wether or not someone should be taking the option of making it a Amazon exclusive is a challenging question. Someone probably laid down a stack of cash with some graphs that said this is our user base. You will get the majority of your plays here anyways and we are willing to pay for it. Does that mean less opportunity overall for readers? Yes. Is it also possible that this ensures a better pay day for the Author, Voice Actor, Editors and Engineers? Also possibly yes. I have no issues with creative getting paid for their work.

After being mostly disappointed by Artemis and The Martian I was quite wary of this one. Perhaps my expectations were more reasonable this time around, but I think it was also a better book. Considering how those other books were trying their hardest to stay within a reasonable level of scientific accuracy and plausibility I was completely surprised that there turned out to be an alien in this one. An intelligent sentient species no less. He also just kind of showed up out of nowhere and I was in disbelief that that was the direction the story was going for a bit.

Like someone else mentioned I did find the book to be a bit too much "for all ages" kind of thing. Like it was intentionally written so that it could some day be a PG movie for both kids and adults. There is nothing wrong with this of course it is just not my usual thing. I did find it a bit eye rolling at times how great this supposed average teacher was at any kind of science and alien communication. Rocky was clearly the best character in my opinion. If he wasn't there to offset the whole lone savior idea like The Martian I don't think I would have enjoyed this book.

The science bits were a bit too sciencey and not enough fictiony for my tastes, but I don't think it is Weir's style to try and make up his own fictional science. Almost all of the science was just real science and math. I think the only thing that was pretty much entirely made up was the idea that something like astrophage and its neutrino harvesting amoeba could exist. I did like the details given for everything Ryland and Rocky were doing.

I kind of wish he actually managed to get back to Earth. It felt like a bit of a cop out for us to never fully see the impact to Earth. We know that at least somebody survived, but I wanted to see the scale of the damage. Anyway I liked this book more than I expected and I'll more than likely read whatever book Weir publishes next.

Unrelated, but your desk is beautiful!

I read the three body problem trilogy at about the same time, it was so nice to have collaboration between aliens in hail Mary as opposed to the dark forest universe.

I thought it was great sci Fi, and I'm excited for Andy Weir's next. Love his sense of realism.

Oh man the Three Body Problem. That there is quite the interesting series of books. It's one of the few that I go back to on a regular(ish) basis to re-read.
- The last hundred or so pages were rough. I had to stop and read a book about trees to get through it.
  
  It was an awesome series all in all, but man, did it get dark. So you re reading should I just make sure you're doing ok?

I enjoyed the concept of the book. I didn’t like being constantly reminded that Ryland Grace was a teacher as if I couldn’t remember that between chapters. There was way too much of this beating me over the head with simple science and reminders of things that happened earlier that it took me out of enjoying the story.

Yeah it was like that all over. The characters are more or less wooden planks and it feels like the reader is being treated as a kid. A bit 2010 and later Discovery Channel. I still personally really enjoyed it but I can see it's shortcomings

I enjoyed this one, a bit less than the martian but more than Artemis. Like the other two, it is a book that's easy to read and a page turner, his humor resonates pretty well with me. However having read three books from Andy Weir, they all feel very much the same and I get a little bit of "one trick pony" vibe from his books because they're so similar.

I found it entertaining but a bit shallow in terms of dialog. It felt aimed at the younger crowd. Don’t get me wrong it was most definitely a fun read.

Well, for the majority of the book you've only got two characters and one of them is an alien so that does limit things a bit, but yeah despite touching on a lot of high-school science topics the premise of the book itself is pretty basic.

Still enjoyable, but not as deep/complex as say maybe something by Vinge, Tchaikovsky (the author, not the musician), or maybe Friedman.

TBF I cheated on this one and did it partly by audiobook while getting chores done. Porter does a pretty good job of conveying the emotions of the main character which IMO does add a bit to the engagement
I have to say that I just don’t get the hype about this book.

Project Hail Mary is really targeted at a middle grade reading and maturity level. I would have happily given it to our kids to read in middle grade (as I did The Martian).

It’s a Robinson Crusoe meets a buddy in space boys-own-adventure tale (although Weir insists on male gendering a hermaphrodite when ‘they/them’ is well understood). There are clear indications that the story was told to pull in immature readers - starting with the ludicrous scene where Grace has spent days waiting for zero G without stowing any of his lab equipment or supplies.

It’s a compellingly written ‘work the problem’ read but anything beyond high school science concepts isn’t really there. Once again, I feel like we’re seeing more overhyped STEM based on concepts that haven’t advanced beyond what a mid 20th century bachelors degree would cover.

It held my attention as an easy read while fighting a bug, I can’t see picking up another of his books for myself.

There are a few very odd ‘too much information’ references to sexual relationships and use of alcohol that seem almost awkwardly placed to bump up the level, but there’s not really enough in there to even warrant the ‘school edition’ treatment that ‘The Martian’ got. Otherwise nothing stretches past middle grade emotional maturity.

All told, I was expecting more.

OMG i love that book

Project Hail Mary is such a better book than Artemis.

The theory that he was under pressure to publish his 2nd book after the success of The Martian, so he just put out Artemis may hold water. Lol

I actually enjoyed Artemis. Its nowhere near The Martian, but still a good book in its own right.
- I'll add some Artemis love here. I was disappointed by the comparably lower success because I was very ready for a sequel. I loved the dynamic that was established between the main character and the ruler of Artemis - it kind of reminded me of Vimes and Vetinari. I do feel that Hail Mary was better though.

I have only one thing to say about this book: "Good good good!" ;)

jazz hands
- 🎶 🎶 🎵 🎶 🎵 🎵 ✨ 💗

One of the best books i have ever read

It's always a great read with Andy Weir's books. It's like listening to a science communicator trying to explain a science concept and why we should care. In this case you need to care because we are rooting for rocky!

Sometimes I wish I can be a fly in the room whenever Ryland and Rocky are interacting.

I loved that they wanted to use Excel because of how battle tested it is. I use a lot of "newer" programming languages and libraries in my work but having something stable and reliable really has its place.

Absolutely love the book and read it a few times already. It's fast paced and engaging. I enjoy the sciency parts as much as the relationship building between the two characters. It has a very straightforward narrative and does not try to be more than it is. It's nothing deep, but straight up good entertainment. I went in expecting as much so I was not disappointed.

Honestly this book has a special place in my heart. I recently started reading again and Artemis was one of the first books I read once I found out about Libby.

While that book was alright, it got me reading regularly again. And then after a couple more books, I read PHM, and I was hooked on reading.

Loved this book, loved the whole premise. Recommended it to my wife who wasn’t a big sci-fi reader and it put her on a sci-fi kick. Especially loved that she pronounced “astrophage” as if it were derogatory towards alien homosexuals.

I absolutely love every book Andy weir writes. This one has to be my favorite of them so far.

The multiple mysteries going on at once, and both unique problems and way of solving them lead to a book that was hard to put down at some times. I especially loved the concept of his friend he meets. Would be interesting if he did a follow up novel where we learn some of the results from the data he sent back to eath

I enjoyed it. One thing that bothered me is that there was no need to evolve the predator organism in the ship and send the already evolved organism back. People back on earth would be perfectly capable of figuring that out and solving that problem. He should just have sent the organism sample immediately when he had it available. Delaying it put the entire mission in a great risk for no reason at all.

I understood this to be necessary because of the lack of advancement of science on Rocky’s planet. Evolution was a new concept. If he’s doing it for Rocky, might as well do it for Earth too.

This was a major disappointment for me after the brilliant Martian and The Egg. I just can’t stand the writing style that’s like someone is describing what happens on a movie screen (Harry Potter is the same). While the tech and the alien were good ideas, almost every single action is predictable like a movie that’s stitched together from cliches until the very end that had a good twist.

Ohh, I had no idea The Egg was Weir. Very foundational piece of writing for me.

This book is weird and silly and contrived and takes a lot of liberties and I absolutely loved it.

Started reading few hours ago. Still in a room ~~without a view~~ with 2 robotic arms. That's my weekend I guess.

Does the arms have names?

HDIL MDRY

The science was all over the place. It's like the author know things exist, but doesn't grasp high-school level science. And yet, he has to insist on putting numbers and citing things all over the book.

Really, nobody between the smartest people on Earth anticipated that they would find a predator? The idea that a food network is what keeps the population of most species stable isn't even high-school level, we teach it to younger children. That's way to much contempt to the book characters and to the reader. And also, could the author skip a single chapter without pretending that mitochondria is some kind of primordial organelle? Everybody knows the thing multiplies in an atmosphere, and yet nobody at all imagined the all-purpose lab needed an atmospheric sampler? And also, was there no physicist on the team or low temperature freezers were out of stock?

The book starts as a very good one. Enticing to read. But by the time it gets to the climax those things have accumulated so much that it isn't interesting anymore.

Yup, lack of advanced science concepts and an accumulation of errors despite a pretension to working problems for the audience.

Even some basic geography errors - early in the book, he claims that the sample had to be landed in Saskatchewan for a high latitude to match the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Baikonur is at 45 N latitude, about the same as the border between North and South Dakota. Everywhere in Saskatchewan is North of the 49th parallel and south of 60. Sigh.

I ALMOST bought this today at the book store. But I wanna finish the annihilation series first

Waste of time. Protagonist was paper-thin shallow, no character development, the "I'm a coward" twist at the end was uninteresting because it didn't contribute to character development. Oh, and the protagonist and MC yucking it up together 2 days after learning each others' languages because of course 21st century American humor is universal.

This is the first time I've seen someone else share my opinion on this book. After finishing it I read reviews and could hardly believe we read the same book. Would have been great as a YA novel, but fell flat big time for me.
- There are dozens of us! I think the book is enjoyable if all you're expecting is a fun but shallow ride. If it's been hyped up, it's going to be disappointing. A lot of reviews treat it like the pinnacle of the genre, which is ridiculous.