What a journey.

There’s a certain familiarity to Project Hail Mary, aside from Weir’s humor which is always front-and-center. The whole “end of the world” genre has been around since the early days of entertainment, but it feels recently that there’s been a resurgence, especially in those dealing with space.

One could easily point a finger at Christopher Nolan and Interstellar, which raised the bar immensely (like everything he touches) for everything that came after. However, Andy Weir’s debut novel, The Martian, could also be put in this category.

Comparing the two novels – The Martian and Project Hail Mary – you can see obvious trademark similarities. As stated, Andy Weir’s humor is on point. It helps to bring a sense of levity to many situations in Weir’s novels, which gives it a certain cool factor. Ryland Grace, our protagonist in Hail Mary, has a fun edge of wit in his narration. When I learned that Gosling was playing him, it made 100% sense. They are essentially the same character.

Science is another thing that plays heavily into Weir’s work. His background in programming and his immense love of space and science fiction give him a particular voice that you can’t find elsewhere. Well, you can find it in other work, but Weir manages to keep it digestible. He toes the line between being too far out there to comprehend and too watered down to be interesting. I understood a lot of what was going on due to great explanations and comparisons to real world ideas, and because I trust Weir to tell me the truth as he guides me through his story.

That said, I was still surprised when he introduced – spoiler! – and alien in this novel. Not any alien, mind you, but Rocky – a rock-spider-like creature from the 40 Eradani system. He’s cute as hell and immensely likeable.

The journey in the story is not only them trying to solve the problem with astrophage, a virus that’s sucking energy from suns in multiple galaxies which is killing both their home worlds, but their journey in understanding each other. The friendship that builds between these two is palpable. The emotions as we learn Rocky’s history is real. In fact, this is the real centerpiece of the story.

When it comes to its conclusion, I felt the main story took a slight backseat to the bromance in the front, and that’s perfectly fine. Weir explains the solution which the two inevitably come up with to save their worlds, and its plausible and exciting in a science-y way, but we knew it was coming in some form. What we didn’t know was coming was the love of this relationship that instantly grabbed me and got me hooked from page one.

A fantastic read.