#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING RYAN GOSLING AND DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER LORD AND PHIL MILLER From the author of The Martian, a lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science. HUGO AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS: Bill Gates, GatesNotes, New York Public Library, Parade, Newsweek, Polygon, Shelf Awareness, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century “An epic story of redemption, discovery and cool speculative sci-fi.”—USA Today “If you loved The Martian, you’ll go crazy for Weir’s latest.”—The Washington Post 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? An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

We were not a fan of Weir's follow-up to the Martian. The premise of the book was alright in the world-threatening dilemma it creates, and there's a moment of first contact with an alien that is handled in an interesting way, but there are just too many flaws in this book to redeem it. Most of us were along for the right until about the halfway point, when the story just becomes unplausible and the twists too much to stomach. There's science underlying this book, but some of the chances that would have to go right for things to happen, namely how the junior-high-school teacher protagonist becomes the co-savior of two species is just ridiculous. And the dad jokes -- oh, the dad jokes. Every character has almost the same sarcastic, take-'em-down-a-notch attitude with just straight-up dumb dialogue. The ones of us who didn't enjoy half the book caught this tone in the first few pages and just groaned through the whole book. The second half is essentially a buddy cop movie with an alien and you just want to groan the whole way through it. Part of the problem is tone; the leaning into the aw-shucks DIY budget MacGuyverisms just don't work. But the other problem is the scope. The Martian worked because the stakes were personal, and thus relatable. Threatening two whole species should have made the story more dire, but instead it just got flatter. Of course all of humanity wasn't going to die. Of course the 'suicide mission' would turn out ok. Without a burning sense of risk, it's just a pile of science lessons and bad jokes, and that is not a compelling novel. Skip this one and save yourself an agonizing trip.