Project Hail Mary

This was one of the most enjoyable reads I've had in a while, it kept me gripped from beginning to end. The story structure may appear a little rigid, it seems to follow a pattern of: Problem -> Solution -> Complication -> Resolution, which should look familiar to those who have read "The Martian". With that said, I cannot deny how effective it is as a storytelling tool for keeping the reader engaged. The author manages to keep the stakes of each chapter high enough that you can only see the problem in front of you, as if masking this simple yet effective storytelling pattern.

I feel like the author did a good job balancing the "real" science with the sci-fi elements when it came to the plot. While it still demands some suspension of disbelief on the reader's part, the book does it's best to make everything "make sense" within the fiction. It also does this without overloading the reader with pointless jargon, Weir does a good job at telling the reader only what they need to know instead of getting into the weeds about everything.

As someone who normally does not like flashbacks as a narrative tool, I thought the use of them in this book was quite clever. They typically follow a very tense moment aboard the Hail Mary, allowing some breathing room between crises, although some of the flashbacks end up being quite tense in their own right which can shake things up a bit.

This is such an easy and gripping read that I highly recommend this to anyone even remotely interested in sci-fi, espeecially if you're a fan of Weir's previous work like "The Martian".