Book Of The Month for November was Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. For online Book Clubbers there are some questions below for you to get involved with. Either answer in the comments section or use as discussion points at your next Book Club. If you haven’t read the book check out the Lowdown all about it here.
Project Hail Mary – the blurb
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, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery-and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.
And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.
Or does he?
Discussion Points
The following are written with the presumption you have read Project Hail Mary. If you haven’t, bookmark the post and come back to answer the questions later.
- Are you a sci-fi fan generally or is this a rarity for you? What attracted you to the book?
- Have you read The Martian, also by Weir? If yes how do the two compare? How do they differ?
- The book is very sciencey – how did you cope with the technical parts? Did you skim read, try your best to understand, pick holes in the theory?
- What did you make of the ending of the book? Did you agree with Ryland’s decision to stay on Erid?
- Were you able to picture Rocky clearly? Or his ship? How well did Weir do describing a whole new world?
Get Involved
Feel free to answer as many of the questions as you want. Post your replies below, discuss with us on social media using @BookSocialUK, or pose some questions of your own. If you enjoyed the questions, have a go at previous month’s Get Involved: Careering.