This book was my favorite read from last year. I love Weir's mixture of researched scientific detail and irreverent humor, which he also exhibited in my other favorite novel of his, The Martian. His protagonists are down to earth even while being literally anywhere else, problem solve while facing extreme and dire straights, and use humor as a defense mechanism in very non-humorous situations.

Though he writes in a similar style to The Martian in Project Hail Mary, the feel is very different. Without spoiling any details, unlike The Martian's straight forward survival story, PHM has a non-linear narrative, a slowly revealing mystery, epic stakes, and more classic pop sci-fi elements. My wife and I listened to this as an audiobook in the car together, enjoying the tension, the creative problem solving, and the witticisms throughout. If that sounds like something you're into or if you enjoyed The Martian, you should pick this one up.

Don't make the mistake of making this your first audio book, it will ruin all other audio books for you.

Great read. Probably my favorite book Weir has put out so far.

Not technically a sequel to The Martian but it kinda feels like it in a way. That’s not a negative for me though, Martian is a great story

jazz hands

Just to echo what others have said, the audiobook version is amazing. It adds a ton of depth to the book that you can't get without reading alone.

Ok so as soon as I saw that the book was called Hail Mary, I was said to myself "OK so there will be a main character called Grace or something"

My buddy (fairly religious guy) read the whole book without noticing that same pun. He's usually the one who points this kind of joke out to oblivious me.

It's such a "I started with this joke and worked backwards" kind of great name lol.

Project Hail Mary was fucking excellent!

Book ordered! Thanks for running this Izzy!

It's a decent book, but there were some things which bothered me.

The hero is similar to the Martian, all-knowing MacGyver type, always optimistic, likely author's alter ego. The character seems hollow. This unending optimism and humour spoils the atmosphere for me. Universe is a dark, dangerous place, I want some of that in sci-fi books ...

I also disliked the easiness with which the hero was able to learn to communicate with Rocky. I guess it was necessary to progress with the story, but figuring out a communication with aliens might be way more challenging because their whole way of thinking would be likely different (e.g. Arrival).

Out of the rest of the books, my favorites (roughly in this order) are Hyperion, Wool, Neuromancer, Children of Time.

Red Rising is IMHO rather a YA fantasy than sci-fi.

All of these books have a 3 month wait on my Libby. Oh well thanks for the list!

Project Hail Mary is one of my favorite reads this year and I recommend it to anyone that's even a little sciencey.

Oh yea definitely. I missed the voting (didn’t even know about this community before) but I had never read a book such as this one. I bought it because I really had enjoyed The Martian and especially the style of the author as I’m an engineer (Artemis was alright) but then it stayed on the shelf for a few months.

One day I pick it up and it basically didn’t last a week total and this included my girlfriend reading it as well (I think she took like 2 days). And we’re definitely not power readers.

Literally couldn’t put the book down.

His next book can’t come quick enough.

If anyone else has recommendations on similar books let me know. We really like that he goes through the thought process of the characters when solving the problems, even with some equations and math mixed it. So if you have recommendations based on that ping me.

Love the outcome of the poll. Project Hail Mary is simply my favorite book

Glad the coin flipped head, I’ll be joining for the read!

Some humble proposals for a few other sci-fi options for the next round that are a bit fresher than Gibson and Asimov (not that I don’t love the old guard!):

• Venomous Lumpsuckers by Ned Beuman - winner of this years Arthur C Clark award for science fiction, a dark satire environmental disaster page turner touching on cryptobros, greenwashing, carbon credits and short selling late stage capitalism. Hilarious, but be warned: optimistic, it ain’t.
• Terraformers by Analee Newitz - another extremely welcome breath of fresh air by Newitz, a sci fi epic spanning millenia also focused on environmentalism and capitalism with her refreshing approach to non-human sentience and fluid sexuality (Check out her “Autonomous” too if you haven’t already!)
• A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers - beautiful prose and descriptions of a colorful and diverse cast of misfits on a worker class intergalactic highway construction ship. Some of the best descriptions of characters I’ve seen lately and some really interesting aliens.
• Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi - imo MUCH improved offering from Scalzi over Red Shirts but still his characteristic pop-culture drenched page turner. One of the most face-punchingly terrible antagonists in recent memory.
• Exhalation by Ted Chiang - incredibly evocative and thoughtful collection of short stories

Ahh Hyperion. I've reread three books/series ever: Dhalgren. Lord of Light and the Hyperion/Endymion cantos. Simply wonderful.

Red Rising is good. Memory Called Empire was ok. Project Hail Mary is quietly waiting on my to read shelf.

I'm listening to the Audiobook of Project Hail Mary. Great listen.

[off topic?]

I'd like to mention two books worth reading.

Author Daniel Suarez is hit and miss for me. Two great ones are 'Daemon' and 'Delta-V.'

Daemon posits a dying billionaire who comes up with a way top rebuild society from beyond the grave.

Delta-V is old school 'hey, kids, let's start ming the asteroids!'

Thank you.

Also, I think #6 is the best on the list, but 'Project Hail Mary' was very good, too.

I'm really late to this whole thing but this book is one of my favorite comfort reads. Idk, I think it feels weirdly wholesome where it's just 2 people(a guy and a huge scary space spider?) trying their best to save everyone and even though it didn't have an antagonist, it still felt like there was one in the form of space bacteria(?). One of my favorite reads

One of my favourites. Weir's style may put some people off but he's definitely one of the best contemporary sci fi authors according to me.