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Cover of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Project Hail Mary

  • 496 pages · about 8 hours
  • First published 2021
  • 32 editions

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1 About this book

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission–and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that’s been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it’s up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance.

  • Hard Science Fiction
  • Science fiction
  • Survival
  • Survival after airplane accidents, shipwrecks
  • End of the world
  • Astronauts
  • Space flight
  • Memory disorders

2 What to expect

Hard science fiction about a man who wakes alone on a spacecraft with no memory of who he is or why he is there, and slowly works out that he has been sent to save Earth. The story alternates between his experiments aboard the ship and returning memories of how the mission came about. It is fast, optimistic and often funny, driven by scientific problem-solving and by an unlikely friendship that is best met without knowing more.

Good for readers who want: hard science fiction, problem-solving with humor, and a hopeful, fast read.

3 About Andy Weir

Born 1972

Andy Weir ( ; born June 16, 1972) is an American novelist. His 2011 novel The Martian was adapted into the 2015 film of the same name. He received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2016. His 2021 novel Project Hail Mary was a finalist for the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and was adapted into the 2026 film of the same name.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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