Project Hail Mary
Aug. 3rd, 2021 08:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI absolutely loved The Martian (against all expectations) but wasn't so keen on Artemis, so I went into the audiobook version of the new Andy Weir book - Project Hail Mary - with some uncertainty.
And my response to it was mixed.
Weir has obviously gone back to what he knows well and what has done well in the past - a man alone in space, not expecting to survive but doing whatever he can to make that happen. In this story, Ryland Grace has the added pressure of having to save humanity as well as himself.
The structure works well - Grace has amnesia so uses what he has on his spaceship to try to figure out what's going on, while chunks of his memory start to come back to him in flashbacks to the last few years on Earth. But, at least for the first third or so of the book, it's very, very slow going.
I was engaged enough by the character (aided by very good audiobook narration) and intrigued enough by the situation to keep listening, though it was touch and go for a while. There's a lot of 'working things out using scientific first principles', which isn't something that generally interests me. All the science stuff in The Martian actually did fascinate me, but here it didn't so much.
Then, another character is introduced to the present-tense space narrative, which leads to another section of very slow progress, which was a bit of a slog. However, once that aspect of the plot really gets going, things pick up massively, and the second half was much more entertaining and emotive.
And the ending was really cute and very satisfying - so, overall, I would say I enjoyed this book, even though I nearly gave up on it before I got really good. And, anyone who is more interested in space and science than I am will likely not have the same problems with it.
And my response to it was mixed.
Weir has obviously gone back to what he knows well and what has done well in the past - a man alone in space, not expecting to survive but doing whatever he can to make that happen. In this story, Ryland Grace has the added pressure of having to save humanity as well as himself.
The structure works well - Grace has amnesia so uses what he has on his spaceship to try to figure out what's going on, while chunks of his memory start to come back to him in flashbacks to the last few years on Earth. But, at least for the first third or so of the book, it's very, very slow going.
I was engaged enough by the character (aided by very good audiobook narration) and intrigued enough by the situation to keep listening, though it was touch and go for a while. There's a lot of 'working things out using scientific first principles', which isn't something that generally interests me. All the science stuff in The Martian actually did fascinate me, but here it didn't so much.
Then, another character is introduced to the present-tense space narrative, which leads to another section of very slow progress, which was a bit of a slog. However, once that aspect of the plot really gets going, things pick up massively, and the second half was much more entertaining and emotive.
And the ending was really cute and very satisfying - so, overall, I would say I enjoyed this book, even though I nearly gave up on it before I got really good. And, anyone who is more interested in space and science than I am will likely not have the same problems with it.
