Project Hail Mary by Andy WeirMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I saw this Science Fiction movie on opening night in the theater (never saw a movie on opening day before).
I read the book after watching the movie (seldom do that, either).
Weir also wrote The Martian, which is a favorite movie of mine.
His forte/theme is fortitude in difficult situations, scientific problem solving, realizing your mistakes, and receiving help from unlikely sources.
When scientists discover the sun is being eaten and cooled by alien microbes, leading to climate catastrophe in 30 years, the nations of the world launch a coordinated mission to a nearby star that isn’t dying, to figure out why and send a solution back to Earth. The main character, Ryland Grace, is an academically ostracized scientist, now junior high science teacher, who is drafted against his will to work on the mission and be one of the three crew members.
The two coolest things about the story:
1. Grace wakes up at the beginning with coma-induced amnesia after years of interstellar space travel. His two crewmates are dead. He is alone, and has to figure out what he’s supposed to do and who he is. He gradually recovers his memory (including his name, about 100 pages in!), and figures it out.
2. Grace encounters and befriends an alien seeking the same solution Grace is. Their relationship becomes the heart of the story.
Besides being heavily evolution- and old-earth-based, and a handful of swear words, there’s little objectionable in the story, and worth seeing/reading with 12 year olds and up. (Weir actually subs out mild words for swear words more often than he uses vulgarity.)
Going to great lengths to help a new, strange friend becomes the main theme. Earth needs the Eridian alien, and Erid needs the human Grace. If they don’t work together, two planets die.
Great story!
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