Project Hail Mary

I liked The Martian in both book and movie form and as a follow-up, this book was better in almost every way. I was locked in the entire time; first-person narratives are probably the most fascinating things you can read, and when it's done right it's basically crack.

I can't think of a single thing I didn't like about this book. I like that we aren't frontloaded with context and story, instead, it throws us right into the action alongside our lovable amnesiac middle-school teacher-cum-astronaut. What unfolds is arguably one of the best portrayals of science in science fiction as well as one of my all-time favorite first-contact interactions. I actually did very little research coming in, so when this turned out to be a first contact story I did take a big nerdy breath; to then have it be so good was incredibly rewarding.

I will give the science element one additional note, I am not sure how scientifically sound all of that stuff was (I'm not a subject matter expert) but it helped to set this story apart from some of the “harder” SF novels, and it's a tremendous shoutout to teachers everywhere (I'd reckon half the book is teacher shoutouts)

It was a smart choice to give the narrator the amnesia, with story altering context being introduced in real-time. Having the backstory delivered in this way helped to break up the pacing and keep us in suspense without wasting the reader's time. There was a lot of time and attention given to keeping the story moving without bogging us down in the science and backstory, still managing to deliver that information while keeping it consistent and grounded.

If I had one complaint it would be the ending but only because I felt such a desperate story deserved an equally happy ending. I really was hoping that Grace would make it back home but what we got wasn't far off, and despite the overly optimistic portrayal given to the Eridians I found the interactions between Grace and Rocky to be heartwarming, and their impact on the story to be logically consistent. The amount of altruism required for everything to go the way it went was astonishing, and that hopeful message was enough for me.

This is a seriously good read.