Project Hail Mary

It's such an optimistic thought that humanity could ever be capable of interstellar travel. A tremendous amount of energy would be needed to be harnessed for a spaceship to reach a feasible velocity for so vast distances. Science fiction novels like presenting different ways to accomplish this, with varying degrees of plausibility. In Andy Weir's third published novel, Project Hail Mary (2021), the solution is quite an imaginative one, quite the fantasy for the required technological leap. It is also the problem that raises the need for interstellar travel: the Sun is dimming.

The hero of the story is Ryland Grace, a molecular biologist turned junior high school teacher. The novel follows him in two time periods: in the past when the dimming caused by astrophage is discovered, and in the present where he's searching for a way to undo it. The past is visited when Grace's selective amnesia bit by bit returns his memories. Sometimes I felt the amnesia was the least plausible thing in the whole scifi novel: how it extremely conveniently enables the narrative.

Like Weir's first novel, Hail Mary too has a humorous tone. It's not quite on the level of The Martian but I did snort a couple of times. The situation is a bit more dire and Grace's metric vs. imperial system jokes weren't enough to make me laugh out loud.

In the novel's past, Eva Stratt of the European Space Agency has been given absolute authority to lead the efforts to save humanity. She reminded me very much of Thomas Wade from Death's End by Liu Cixin: a callous person that will get the task done no matter the lines needed to be crossed. Stratt knows some of her actions will not be judged favorably in the future but she doesn't let that stop her. I wonder, in real life, how much could be pardoned if you actually prevented a total annihilation. Surely it would count for something -- at least spare you from a death sentence (that tended to be the fate for all the failures in Liu's books).

Grace's task ends in an unsurprising conclusion but when I saw how many pages were left, I knew the actual ending wasn't going to be exactly what I had hoped -- there was just no way that there could be that much aftermath when he had returned to Earth. I knew something would still go wrong. The ending did win me over though with how Grace reflects upon his life. It wasn't an unhappy ending after all.