Book of the month was Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. The Big Review is below.
***Big Reviews are written from the point of view that you have read the book. If this is not yet you, bookmark the page and come back once you have***
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?
Spaceman, always wanted to be up in space man.
This book did get a head start simply because I loved Weir’s first venture into space with The Martian (standalone book, no connection). In many ways it was similar – man in space, all alone, impossible task that he tries to science his way out of it. Yet the two books are also very different. For one the alien involvement is a new thing. The front cover gives very little away as to what exactly Ryland encounters up in space and I liked its reveal. The beginning in fact was one of my favorite parts. What exactly had happened for Ryland to wake up next to two dead bodies? The reasoning behind the mission all seemed sound and I would have liked to have read more about Stratt – what a cool customer she was. Yet sending Ryland up in the first place seemed the books biggest flaw. Weir never fully explained why Ryland was SO good and was involved right from the beginning over the REST OF THE WORLD.
What ever the flawed reasoning Stratt was clearly right as boy did Ryland nail it. Concentrate as this is when the science comes in. Yes at times it went over my head and yes I did skim read parts but I got enough to get the general drift of when something was bad and when something was good. I can imagine it putting a few people off (and I really hope there are some people arguing at the science as they read it the way I do court dramas).
I found the ending, strange. To choose to live on an alien planet even after they were able to send him back to earth was a weird one. His friendship with Rocky was touching but I’d want to make it home just to make sure I had actually saved the world. Even if I had chosen to save Rocky, I’d still want to return home. To never see another human again, eat real food, smell the air, feel the seasons changing would be too much for me friendship or non.
I enjoyed it, but Ryland is not quite Mark Watney and Project Hail Mary is not quite The Martian. I can however see it making an excellent film. Just make sure you cast Stratt well!
Get Involved
If you would like to get involved with the Book Of The Month choices try answering the Book Club questions published every month. Just search in the footnotes section for the ‘Get Involved’ articles. A new book is chosen every month so keep your eyes peeled for the Lowdown on next month’s book of the month soon.
