In “Project Hail Mary,” Ryland Grace wakes up from an induced coma in a spaceship hurtling toward an unknown destination, the “sole living human within several light years.” He can’t remember who he is or how he got there. “Project Hail Mary” is a bit of a reset - both book jacket covers even feature a recoiling astronaut! - but Weir’s ambitions in his latest far outreach our solar system, for better and for worse.Īs in “The Martian,” the story begins with a man stuck in space with only his wits about him, only this time Weir adds an amnesia wrinkle. His sophomore effort, “ Artemis,” a heist caper following a smuggler on a lunar colony, added more complications and characters to Weir’s space thriller formula, yet struggled to keep them all in orbit.
Nearly a decade later, Weir has stranded another science guy in space and escalated the stakes from rescuing one man to saving an entire planet in “ Project Hail Mary.” It makes sense that he returned to this winning format in his third novel, even if the similarities sometimes feel like Weir plagiarized from his own material. Still, the heavy on the science sci-fi story of an astronaut stuck on the Red Planet never got bogged down in the minutiae, thanks to gripping suspense and one of the funniest protagonists you’ll ever encounter. His best-selling 2011 debut, “ The Martian” - which was adapted into a Matt Damon-starring, Oscar-nominated blockbuster - was hailed for its scientific accuracy, jam-packed with so many equations and theorems that it now has its own classroom edition (minus all the swearing). In the church of computer programmer turned nerd-thriller novelist Andy Weir, the sacred text is a science textbook.
16Project BOOKS 5-16-21 Michael Hirshon for The Boston Globe
Illustration for review of "PROJECT HAIL MARY" by Andy Weir.
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