Project Hail Mary

I???ve now read all of Weir's novels, and I think I???ve got a firm idea of the type of story he likes to write. His sense of humour is always threaded through the entire book and it???s a bit of a miss for me. In this story in particular I noticed straight away the character wakes up in an unfamiliar medical environment and starts joking about tubes in his butt and alien probes. Honestly, that just wasn???t funny to me and I thought it took away from what could have been a great opening if it had been written in a less comedic style. The comedy got less intense as the book continues and I found the rest of it didn???t take away from the story but simply didn???t enhance my enjoyment.

And I think it stems from the fact that I felt like I was reading Mark Watney lite. The sense of humour is strong in all of Weir's books and I think it leaves a lot of his characters with the same flavour, jokey science nerds who are incredibly clever but can???t take anything serious. I thought that was great in the Martian but as more characters have the same attitude it becomes less fun to read. And that???s my only real complaint with Project Hail Mary. Our character is always ending up in situations that just kind of happen to him and then his superior knowledge saves him every time, and it just falls a little flat.

Aside from the character feeling juvenile, the plot was great. Another lone astronaut in space, sure, but this one didn???t feel like a re-do of The Martian. The plot was built up over the book with flashbacks adding complexity and more of that science heavy problem-solving I liked so much in his debut.

All in all, this was a fun science fiction book that I had a good time reading. I???m not sure if it has the same star quality of The Martian, but it???s not far off.