Project Hail Mary

Some of my favorite books ever are the ones I know the least about heading into them.  With most media I like to know what I'm getting into, but recently I've had a lot of fun with books where I find out about them just from a social media post or a friend telling me they're great with no follow-up.  I found out about Project Hail Mary from the former as one day I was browsing Reddit and saw a post with the title ‘Project Hail Mary took me to the stars'.  Knowing nothing about the book besides the fact that someone said it took them to the stars, I decided to try it out.  Project Hail Mary continues the trend of me having great experiences with books I know almost nothing about prior to reading the first page.    Project Hail Mary is in many ways your classic space-exploration novel.  It focuses on one character (Dr. Grace) who wakes up and is trapped on a space shuttle with amnesia.  As with most modern sci-fi, there's a lot of snark (which I have heard is characteristic of Weir's writing).  The areas where the novel is stereotypical are good for what they are, but there are two areas where the novel really separates itself.    The first is in how the amnesia is dealt with.  As the novel goes on, Dr. Grace continues to recover pieces of his memory.  The pieces of memory he recovers also serves as exposition to the reader.  This feels a bit forced at times but I am overall a fan of it as it nicely breaks up the book into two separate ‘timelines' in ‘past' and ‘present', allowing neither section to get too monotonous.  Where this device works extremely well is near the end of the book.  Throughout Project Hail Mary, Dr. Grace has assumed that he volunteered to go on a suicide mission to save Earth.  He has thought of himself as a hero for this choice and this ego boost has carried him through some of the more difficult events that occur during his journey.  But in one of the last flashback/'past' sections, we (both the reader and Dr. Grace himself) find out that he was forced onto the mission against his will and that he was given medicine that would purposefully induce memory loss in order to ensure his cooperation on the ship.  It's a gut punch that functions well as both an emotional beat as well as explanation for why he had amnesia in the first place.  I do wish there was a bit more emotional payoff to the reveal that he was a coward instead of a hero but I can overlook that considering how great the moment itself is.   The second area the novel really stands out is in the main non-Dr. Grace character in the ‘present' sections of the novel.  At first, Dr. Grace is alone in space but around one-fifth of the way through the book his ship encounters another one.  This ship turns out to be inhabited by an alien that Dr. Grace names Rocky.  I cannot put into words how much I love Rocky.  Even though Dr. Grace describes him in ways that make him sound like a monster (he's a five-legged pentagonal spider covered in a jagged metal exoskeleton) Rocky is an absolute delight to read.  The friendship that develops between Dr. Grace and Rocky, two creatures who are just trying to save their species, is heartwarming and far and away the best part of the book.  I was so worried that Rocky was evil the entire time and while that may have made the book more dramatic, I like Weir's decision to keep the relationship as a wholly positive thing for both of them.  This book made me fall in love with a creepy space spider and I couldn't be happier for it.    Project Hail Mary does so many other different things greatly as well.  The characters we meet in Dr. Grace's flashback sequences are all reasonably well-developed, seeing Dr. Grace finagle his way out of seemingly impossible situations is really fun and the science itself is really solid.  Weir covers all his bases to make this novel a well-rounded piece of literature    After finishing the book I decided to check out the Reddit post that inspired me to read it.  As expected, I saw a lot of praise but I also saw a decent amount of comments disagreeing with the original poster.  A lot of the criticism focused on the abundance of sassy jabs between the characters in the flashback sequences, the amount of suspension of disbelief required throughout and the science being kind of hand-wavy at certain point.  After reading that criticism I can see why someone would have a problem with these points... but I don't care.  Project Hail Mary isn't perfect, but it made me have so much fun that I could easily overlook its flaws and just let myself enjoy the ride.  That is a feeling I crave in any sci-fi or fantasy book and it's why I continuously go back to these genres.  Project Hail Mary took me to the stars too, and I'm not sure I want to come back down.