The book Project Hail Mary by acclaimed author Andy Weir is another space adventure novel. Much like Weir’s other book, The Martian, the book focuses on one main protagonist, Dr. Ryland Grace. Dr. Grace is a high-school teacher who was somehow convinced into becoming an astronaut on a spacecraft through mysterious past events. One day, or night, Dr. Grace wakes up inside of an unknown vessel that he believes to be a centrifuge with two corpses beside him and with memory loss. Every once in a while, Dr. Grace gets vivid flashbacks of past events and which helps him, along with the reader, uncover his peculiar past. He also discovers why he is on an unmanned spacecraft heading for a giant star in a completely different galaxy and why there were two corpses in the ship with him.
The book starts off slow with Dr. Grace waking up from his sleep without any recollection of past events, wandering the vessel he is trapped in, and getting vivid flashbacks to help him unlock locked parts of the ship that needs past info about Dr. Grace to grant him access. Personally, even though this part wasn’t very exciting, I still enjoyed reading about it because it helped me picture the kind of environment around him. It also gave little nods to Andy Weir's other book, The Martian. The book picks up when the spacecraft alerts him of a strange object getting closer and closer to his ship. I was honestly expecting this because so many other “space adventure” novels do this as well, but Andy Weir pulls it off in a very unique way that felt like a fresh breath of air in the “space adventures” books.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book since it also incorporates the reader in some of the mysteries regarding Dr. Grace's past and who or what is in the mysterious object floating toward Dr. Grace’s vessel. It was also quite suspenseful because normally right before something important happened, the book would cut away to a flashback sequence. There were also some long stretches of silence to build the drama and suspense. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I did.
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