tiny book reviews.2025.n7 -- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

 

I honestly don't remember how this book got on my radar. I clearly read about it somewhere, in passing, and was interested enough to open Audible and download it. Up it comes in the queue, and in blind obedience to my past self, I read it.

Science fiction: The end of life on Earth is imminent (for none of the reasons you might expect), the world's governments come together (perhaps the most fictional part of the science fiction) to launch a deep-space vessel with a crew tasked to discover a solution to the problem that's killing Earth, adventure ensues. 

Like any good sci-fi, the book is about so much more than telling a fanciful story, and as science fiction goes, I'd say it's pretty good--not great, but pretty good.

And Hollywood apparently agrees, because I believe a movie adaptation of the book is expected in 2026. So, read it now, go see the movie with your friends, and enjoy the pleasure of being insufferably pompous by telling them all the ways the movie didn't live up to the book.

Oh, and, for what it's worth, I think this book might be particularly compelling to teenage boys. There's one of those that lives in my house, and I plan to make him listen this summer as we road trip from here to there and back.

3.5 of 5 stars.