‘Project Hail Mary’ by Andy Weir

Andy Weir, author of The Martian and Artemis, now has a new book out called Project Hail Mary that lovers of the former story will surely go for, as it involves another lone astronaut stranded far from Earth.

This time though, rather than being stuck on Mars, the protagonist in Hail Mary finds himself alone on a tiny spaceship hurtling through the far reaches of space. What's more, he only discovers this fact after waking from a long sleep with no memory of who he is, what he's doing on this ship, and why there are two mummified corpses next to him.

From the description:

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.

Seeing Ryland piece together the clues of his own life and the mission ahead of him is one thing, but it only gets wilder from there.

I don't want to spoil too much, but you should know going in that, in true Andy Weir style, there is a LOT of technical jargon/detail in the book that should make hardcore sci-fi nerds happy, but could be challenging for others to slog through. In other words, the protag has to “science the s*** out of” one mystery after the next.

If you can make it through all the engineering mumbo-jumbo, you'll be rewarded with plenty of twists and turns, engaging action sequences, and a most satisfying and unexpected ending.

Get the book in these formats:

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