Project Hail Mary

by Andy Weir

First published 2021 · 496 pages

About this book

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.

Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, *Project Hail Mary* is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival *The Martian*–while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

  • hard science-fiction
  • science-fiction
  • sci-fi
  • hard sci-fi
  • New York Times bestseller
  • New York Times reviewed
  • End of the world
  • Fiction

Reader reviews

  • Josh40/100

    Wait for the movie, then don’t waste your time on that either. If this was just a mediocre sci-fi adventure book I’d have given three stars (four if it was funny). It gets two starts because of the thread of authoritarian politics underlying the bad writing. Wooden dialogue, two dimensional characters and tedious, yet predictable plot. On a positive note, it's short.

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