Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary

Author	Andy Weir
Audio read by	Ray Porter
Cover artist	Will Staehle
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Science fiction
Publisher	Ballantine Books
Publication date	May 4, 2021
Media type	Print, ebook, audiobook
Pages	496
Awards	2021 Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
ISBN	978-0-593-39556-1

Project Hail Mary is a 2021 science fiction novel by American novelist Andy Weir. Set in the near future, the novel centers on junior high (middle) school-teacher-turned-astronaut Ryland Grace, who wakes up from a coma afflicted with amnesia. He gradually remembers that he was sent to the Tau Ceti solar system, 12 light-years from Earth, to find a means of reversing a solar dimming event that could cause the extinction of humanity.^[1] Project Hail Mary is Weir's third novel, after 2011's The Martian, and 2017's Artemis.

The unabridged audiobook is read by Ray Porter.^[2] The film rights have been purchased by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Drew Goddard (who adapted The Martian, Weir's traditional publishing debut, into a 2015 film) is slated to adapt the book for the big screen. Actor Ryan Gosling plans to star as Grace in the film adaptation.^[3]

Plot[]

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The plot is delivered both through Ryland Grace's flashbacks of the events leading up to the launch of the Hail Mary spacecraft, and the present events on board the Hail Mary. The two perspectives are often intercut within the story, swapping between the current ongoing events and his previous memories as they gradually return.

Before launch[]

Ryland Grace is a devoted junior-high school science teacher in the United States, having left his former career as a molecular biologist. He is recruited by Eva Stratt, head of a UN task force, to find the cause of a solar dimming event that could end humanity.

A probe sent to Venus discovers an alien single-celled organism reproducing uncontrollably around the Sun, absorbing crucial amounts of solar energy, which will cause a new ice age within 30 years. Grace names the microbe "Astrophage," Greek for "star eater." Grace soon discovers it uses carbon dioxide to reproduce, and emits extraordinary amounts of light energy to migrate between Venus and the Sun. Other scientists quickly conceive of using it as a high-output fuel source.

Stratt is given absolute authority to procure materials for a project to bring the Astrophage under control. Astronomers discover a nearby star, Tau Ceti, has resisted Astrophage infection, while the surrounding stars have not. Stratt spearheads the development of a starship, the Hail Mary, to travel to Tau Ceti in order to study and figure out why it has been unaffected in the hope its discoveries will help Earth find a solution to deal with Astrophage before humanity goes extinct. If a solution is found, four probes called "Beetles" will be sent back to Earth, but Hail Mary cannot return. Earth has limited time to build the ship and fly to Tau Ceti before facing environmental collapse, and there is only time to cultivate enough Astrophage to fuel the vessel for a one-way trip, making it a suicide mission.

To spare food and water, and preserve the crew's sanity, the crew will be placed in a 4-year-long coma aboard the ship. Genetic research finds a gene that improves the likelihood of surviving the coma. Grace finds out he has this genetic marker during routine testing. Two crews of three volunteers, each with the genetic marker, are chosen for the Hail Mary mission. The primary crew consists of Chinese Commander Yáo Li-Jie, Russian engineer Olesya Ilyukhina, and American scientist Martin DuBois. Grace is tasked to train DuBois and his backup for the Hail Mary mission.

However, nine days before launch, an explosion at the Baikonur Cosmodrome kills both DuBois and his backup, during an experiment on Astrophage. A replacement cannot be found and trained in time for the launch, forcing Stratt to ask Grace to become the third crew member. Grace refuses and threatens to sabotage the mission if he is forced to go, but Stratt, knowing he is their best remaining option, detains him until the departure, saying that she will have him sedated before the launch and placed directly into the coma for the trip. To avoid him revealing his unwilling presence on the ship to his crewmates upon waking up and causing distrust or tension, she plans to program the ship's caretaker computer to issue him an amnesia-inducing drug before reviving him at their destination. Stratt counts on the assertion that Grace is a "fundamentally good person" and that by the time he remembers what Stratt has done, he will have become involved with the mission and feel compelled to see it through.

Aboard Hail Mary[]

Ryland Grace wakes up with no memory of his name or where he is. He finds himself in a starship, and finds the two other crew members, Yáo and Ilyukhina, long since dead. His cognition slowly returns after a few days. After gaining access to the ship's control room and airlock, he gives the other crew members a space burial.

He finds out his ship, the Hail Mary, is in a stable orbit around Tau Ceti. Soon after this, the ship detects another starship close by which is of extraterrestrial origin. The other ship, which the radar and later Grace calls Blip-A, sends over a physical star chart model to communicate to Grace that it comes from 40 Eridani for the same reason as the Hail Mary: its star is infected by Astrophage. Blip-A connects to Hail Mary, and the single crew member aboard Blip-A comes to meet Grace. Since the alien came from the Eridani star system, Grace names the new species an "Eridian."

The alien resembles a dog-sized five-legged spider with a stone-like carapace. It lives in an atmosphere 29 times denser than Earth's, composed mostly of superheated ammonia. Eridians never evolved eyes, using echolocation as their primary sense. Grace names the alien "Rocky".

Rocky communicates in tones, and Grace sets up a computer program to translate Rocky's speech to English. Like Grace, Rocky is the sole survivor of his crew, and has been alone for the last 40 years. He is also able to learn about Eridian biology, including their nearly 700-year lifespan and unique processes by which they eat and sleep. He is a genius-level engineer, but lacks Grace's scientific knowledge to do the research needed. Rocky constructs enclosures with suitable Eridian living conditions aboard the Hail Mary so they can work together to solve the Astrophage problem.

Because of the nature of their environment and evolution, Eridian technology and science is slightly less advanced than human technology. Although the Eridians have built a space elevator, they have never before left their home planet's orbit, with their lack of vision meaning space lacks any sort of sensory input to them. With the Blip-A being their first venture outside their atmosphere, the strong magnetic field of their home planet has also shielded them from any radiation. They do not know about radiation sickness, which killed the rest of Blip-A’s crew, or time dilation due to special relativity. Because of this, the Blip A had enough fuel for 30 light-years of travel, but would have perceived less than 10 years of relative flight. Rocky assures Grace that he can give the Hail Mary some of his excess fuel, allowing Grace to return to Earth after the mission.

They find out Tau Ceti's third planet contains Astrophage, but the population is controlled by a natural predator, a microbe which Grace names "Taumoeba." After a dangerous low orbit maneuver, they recover a sample of Taumoeba, but find out it cannot survive any exposure to nitrogen. As both Venus and the Astrophage breeding planet in Rocky's system have nitrogen-rich atmospheres, they have to breed a nitrogen-resistant strain of Taumoeba. They succeed, but the initial Taumoeba sample escapes and infects the Hail Mary, consuming its remaining Astrophage fuel.

After disinfecting and refueling the Hail Mary with Astrophage from Blip-A, the two part ways, knowing that they won't meet or communicate ever again. However, Grace soon discovers that the nitrogen-resistant Taumoeba has inadvertently also developed the ability to pass through the material the Blip-A is made from. It will get into the fuel tanks, consume the Astrophage, and cripple the Blip-A, dooming Rocky's civilization. Grace sends out the Beetle probes with the mission's findings and live-samples of Taumoeba, then reverses course to catch up to and rescue Rocky, and take him back to his planet so he can save his people.

On their journey to 40 Eridani, Grace resigns to the fact that he will starve to death after they reach Rocky's homeworld, because Eridian food is toxic to humans and he would not have enough food left for a return journey to Earth. Rocky points out that Grace could eat Taumoeba, until his people find out a way to produce human-friendly food. They continue on their journey and the book skips ahead to years later, showing Grace on Rocky's planet, living in a dome with Earth-like conditions. The planet's higher gravity has meant he has aged and weakened at a faster rate, but he is nonetheless happy. He receives news from Rocky that Earth's Sun is no longer visibly infected with Astrophage, indicating that the Hail Mary’s mission was a success. With the repaired and refueled Hail Mary in orbit, Grace has the option to return to Earth, but delays the decision to another day. The book ends with Grace teaching science to a group of young Eridians, leaving it unclear whether he eventually decides to return to Earth or live out his days with the Eridians.

Characters[]

• Ryland Grace – The novel's protagonist and disillusioned molecular biologist, who unwillingly transitions to become a junior high school science teacher before being recruited to study Astrophage by Eva Stratt.
• Eva Stratt – A Dutch woman who works for the UN, who is subsequently given absolute authority to stop Astrophage, leading to the Hail Mary mission.
• Rocky – An alien from the 40 Eridani system whose planet is simultaneously threatened by Astrophage. Rocky's vessel eventually encounters the Hail Mary and works together with Grace.
• Yáo Li-Jie – The intended commander of Hail Mary’s crew; stern and courageous. He dies en route to Tau Ceti.
• Olesya Ilyukhina – The intended engineer of Hail Mary’s crew, ribald yet cheerful. She dies en route to Tau Ceti.
• Dr. Lokken – A Norwegian scientist who assists in the design of the Hail Mary and has a short rivalry with Grace.
• Dimitri Komorov – A Russian scientist who develops the Astrophage-based propulsion system for the Hail Mary.
• Steve Hatch – A researcher from the University of British Columbia. He develops the "Beetle" probes. He is described as very talkative and optimistic.
• Martin DuBois – An American man and original science advisor on the Hail Mary mission. He is described as honest and gregarious.
• Annie Shapiro – The original backup science advisor on the Hail Mary mission.
• Robert Redell – A solar energy expert from New Zealand. Arrested for embezzlement and the death of seven technicians in a testing accident, he develops a method to breed Astrophage rapidly.
• François Leclerc – A French climatologist who helps to slow down the climate changes caused by the Astrophage stealing the sun's energy through the development of a method releasing trapped methane embedded in Antarctic ice sheets into the atmosphere through the use of fusion bombs

Production[]

In a profile in the New York Times, Weir says that after completing The Martian, he began a multi-volume space opera called "Zhek," which was about a substance that could absorb electromagnetic radiation and use it as a fuel for interstellar travel. He wrote 75,000 words before abandoning the project and beginning on Artemis. Several elements from "Zhek" were brought over to Project Hail Mary, including a ruthless bureaucrat character, and an energy-absorbing substance used as starship fuel.^[4]

Publication[]

Project Hail Mary was released on May 4, 2021, by Ballantine Books. It is available in hardcover, e-book, and audiobook formats. The audiobook narrated by Ray Porter uses melodic sound effects in the background, whenever "Rocky" speaks.

Reception[]

Project Hail Mary has received generally positive reviews. Writing for The New York Times, sci-fi author Alec Nevala-Lee wrote "For readers who can forgive its shortcomings, the result is an engaging space odyssey."^[5] Kirkus Reviews gave the book a starred review, describing it as "An unforgettable story of survival and the power of friendship—nothing short of a science-fiction masterwork."^[6]

In writing her review for the Washington Post, SFWA president and science fiction writer Mary Robinette Kowal mentions that there are plenty of things to love about this book, such as Grace's infectious enthusiasm for science. At the same time, Kowal mentions some of the many flaws in the novel, such as the lack of the use of checklists, which are very important in the fields of aviation, astronautics, and medicine in reducing human induced errors which Grace seems to ignore and could have prevented him from creating his many errors in judgment.^[7]

A reviewer for Locus Magazine wrote "Project Hail Mary, however, isn’t a simple rehash of The Martian. Instead, it’s a celebration of Weir’s voice... Weir’s jaunty blend of science and fiction in Project Hail Mary is a return to the work that got him where he is."^[8] The reviewer for the Boston Globe wrote that "Project Hail Mary is still a suspenseful space yarn that zigs and zags — sometimes literally — in ingenious directions."^[9]

Project Hail Mary debuted at number 3 on The New York Times Best Seller list for Combined Print & E-Book Fiction in May 2021.^[10] By August 2021, the book was on the NYT list for 9 weeks.^[11]

The novel also debuted at number 2 on the Los Angeles Times SoCal Bestsellers for Hardcover Fiction^[12] and number 6 on the Wall Street Journal Bestselling Books List for Hardcover Fiction^[13] during the same month. The book was still on the L.A. Times list in mid-August.^[14]

In August 2021, Project Hail Mary debuted at number 1 on the Locus Bestsellers list for hardcovers.^[15] As of August 2021 the novel has remained on the above mention best seller lists.

Bill Gates added the book to his 2021 Book recommendations. ^[16]

Awards[]

• 2021 Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.^[17]
• 2021 Best Science Fiction, Goodreads Choice Awards.^[18]

Film adaptation[]

Weir sold the book's film adaptation rights to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in early 2020 for $3 million.^[19] Actor Ryan Gosling plans to produce and star as Ryland Grace. It will be directed by filmmaking duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Its screenwriter will be Drew Goddard, and Ken Kao will produce it.^[3]

References[]