Tildes Book Club discussion - Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
This is the fourth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing Project Hail Mary. Our next book will be Ocean at the End of the Lane around the end of July.
I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.
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I got a surprise "skip-the-line" loan for this book back when we were reading Cloud Atlas, so I actually read this a while ago.
I loved it. I adored it. I have an icy cold heart and this warmed it and made it sing.
I went in knowing nothing. Literally zero about the plot. My only point of reference was that I read and loved The Martian. This ended up being a great way to approach the story. It meant that every development was a big surprise to me. The sun is dimming? Interesting. Oh, it's actually being eaten? Wow! THERE ARE ALIENS OUT THERE TOO? HOLY SHIT.
At the beginning I was into the compelling sci-fi aspects of the book, but I ended up commuting my interests entirely onto the heartwarming story of the lovable space bros. Ryland and Rocky were such a great pair. Two lonely scientists trying to make the best of a bad situation and finding kinship in the unlikeliest of places.
I'm normally a critical reader. I would normally look at this book and find so many faults with it. Like, Weir pretty much re-used the same main character from The Martian. The book wanted to be hard sci-fi but also felt comfortable doing a lot of handwaving for some of the more difficult problems (you know, like the language translation/acquistion and using xenonite for everything). And don't even get me started on the complete implausibility of Ryland, with his expertise, being a junior high school science teacher!
Somehow though, this book broke through my cynicism. I don't care about its faults. I can look past every flaw. As a teacher myself, I was rolling my eyes at how pander-y the book was being painting us super one-dimensionally as unsung genius heroes, yet I was legitimately, honestly, in tears at the end when Ryland is teaching students in Rocky's homeworld. It was so beautiful. It touched my tired, beleaguered teacher heart.
I love sci-fi, but a lot of it can admittedly feel cold. Often that's what I like about it. It matches my usual pessimism.
This, however, was surprising in its warmth. Ryland and Rocky sold me on optimism. The book felt like a hug. It was a touching testament to the ideals of science, the power of cooperation, the utility of problem-solving, and the interconnectedness of life.
How did I feel about it?
Love, love, love.
My reaction is nearly identical to yours. I knew almost nothing about the book the first time I read it two years ago. At that time, I read to where Grace meets Rocky and I was so astounded by how Weir got from amnesiac Grace to an alien, that I stopped, went back and re-read the beginning again. I loved this book so much, and was thrilled this was a book club selection. I re-read it all over again this month (including re-re-reading the start as I had before!). I loved how the two timelines worked to unfurl the story, with Grace in space knowing nothing just as the reader knows nothing; he discovers his past at the same time we do.
There was plenty of science presented well enough to satisfy my love for hard sf, and the characters were interesting and distinct. Grace is full of joy, excitement, and curiosity, and Weir communicates that so well. Grace's voice is quite like that of a junior high teacher, with a notable avoidance of serious profanity ("Oh my gosh! This is it! First Contact! I'm the guy! I'm the guy who meets aliens for the first time!" and "Well, hell’s coming back to you, Stratt. In the form of me. I’m hell. I don't know what I'll say to her. But I definitely plan to say stuff. Mean stuff.")
The miniature sculpture Rocky made to send to Grace with the spheres and connecting lines to communicate the astrophage problem, and the location of his own planet was so clever. There were many moments of almost laugh-out-loud humor that kept me smiling throughout. Rocky and Grace had great chemistry together.
I also adored this book and its optimism. It’s one of only a very few that I could recommend to almost anyone, even those who generally dislike sf.
How did I feel about it?
Love, love, love.
I had a very similar reaction to this book, and I ended up finishing it within a few days because of this. At the beginning I wanted to learn more and more about the astrophage and how exactly they were going to solve that problem. I was also very curious on how Grace would end up on the mission based on all the other flashbacks.
Then once we meet Rocky, I wanted to know everything about him, his planet, and the progression of the teamwork and friendship between him and Grace.
I'm definitely a sucker for a optimistic or happy ending, and the way these characters came together and worked together was awesome.
I see this criticism from time to time and it really doesn't ring true for me. The characters have a sense of humor in common (childish but hilarious) in common, and they're both 30-something white cis American men, but that's pretty much it, no? It's the situation that they find themselves in that is, although when you get down to reading, The Martian is a hard sci-fi novel and Project Hail Mary is more like pulp (a term I use in the most loving possible way).
I enjoyed both The Martian and Project Hail Mary, but I feel like Andy Weir would benefit from a slightly hostile editor. In my opinion, some of his writing feels like the author trying to be cute or clever or to show off that he passed a college physics course.
I haven't seen the term used elsewhere, but a friend of mine used to call it "cabbaging" when a character says some piece of dialog, often a technical explanation, that they would have no in-universe reason to say but the line exists purely to convey information to the audience. Wesley Crusher on ST:TNG was often bad about this, and I feel like Weir falls into the same pattern:
Marissa clearly knows about the probe, Ryland does not need to explain the basics of it back to her. Changing that to a question, "Is that the one in solar orbit between Mercury and Venus?" would have given the same information to the reader but would have robbed Ryland of a chance to be a know-it-all. A lot of the experiments end up with that same kind of "let me explain this like you're an idiot despite being someone who should know about this" vibe to them:
He does the same thing in The Martian, where a guy stranded on Mars is apparently explaining minute details in case laymen find his records somehow, and it gives the writing a weird feeling. I don't want it to sound like I didn't like the story, just that I think a little clean up would have gone a long way. Like original trilogy George Lucas compared to prequel George Lucas, having someone else to say which ideas are good and which ones are bad makes a huge difference in the end result. I wonder if by getting his start in self-edited web publishing Andy Weir missed that step.
Some other random thoughts:
Bwahahahaha that is awesome.
Re: cabbaging: I will offer two counterpoints. First, I know a ton of people who "nerds plain" even when not necessary and 2) it does serve as a vehicle for the reader's information, especially in a book that is exploring the implications of specific technical phenomena. I think it would have been better if he had a foil for it, like in the CSI shows where the cop who isn't a trained scientist basically exists to give someone who needs an explanation beside the audience (and to do macho shit). Maybe someone back on earth he was explaining his decisions to, a mentor or partner.
It could also be read as neurodivergent info-dumping. For people with ADHD or ASD, this sort of info-dumping is very normal even when we know the other person knows the details. Possibly this is why I didn't even notice this section of the book until reading the above comment
I was going to comment that Grace seemed like he was intended to be somewhere on the autism spectrum. I don't think a neurotypical person would have made the life choices that Grace did at the end of the story.
You mean to go to an alien planet and probably die instead of going home, or did you mean something else? I thought that was pretty normal. He had just spent a good amount of time in a lonely part of space with a friend and was getting a taste of the 4 years of loneliness he was planning to experience. He chose having a friend over loneliness. Then he never goes home because all his social needs are met where he's at. Seems pretty neurotypical to me.
I kind of wondered whether it would make sense to send a mission with both Grace and some Eridians to say hi to Earth, because then it wouldn't be such a lonely trip. Maybe less of a priority from a resource cost perspective though. I feel like humans would definitely be planning such a trip just out of curiosity though, and Eridians seem to be just a curious as humans.
Yeah, I meant choosing to stay with the Eridians. I wasn’t sure if spoilers were OK. 
You mentioned that all of his social needs are met, and that’s exactly what I mean. I don’t think that would be the case for the average person.
Regardless of how great the aliens are, they are still aliens, and in my opinion a neurotypical person would be unhappy forsaking any possibility of interacting with another human being for the rest of their life.
Grace is also apparently perfectly content with the idea of never having a romantic partner, or even just sex, to the point where he doesn’t even bring it up when explaining his decision and describing his life. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but that doesn’t seem normal to me.
I should mention that it’s been a couple of years since I read the book, so I may be forgetting something. You mentioned something about the prospect of a lonely four-year trip back to Earth, which I didn’t remember. I just assumed he’d be put into a coma for the return trip.
The assumption (and expectation) with Tildes Book Club discussion topics is that everyone participating has read the book already. So there are no restrictions on discussing spoilers in this topic.
Makes sense, thanks.
That's a reasonable perspective. Maybe the author did too good of a job of selling the relationship between Grace and the Eridians so I ignored some obvious things.
He considered it risky to go back into a coma because he still doesn't know why the other two crew members died. You'd think he would have eventually figured out how to access medical logs or something, but I guess that's just not part of the story. So, I don't think he would want to make the ~4 year trip back to Earth without some company.
He had a lot of time to make peace with his decision to with the Eridians and to adapt. It's not like he really had a choice.
I saw his lack of interest in a romantic partner a way to serve the story. Had he had a love interest I think would bloat the book. Most of the book is him in space by himself or with an alien, and the flash backs are an exposition dump so shoving in some romance would be too much in my opinion.
He just seemed like a quirky scientist to me.
This was Grace's thought regarding that. I felt it made enough sense for me to not think about it any more.
Good catch, I must have missed that.
For what it's worth, while Base 10 is by far the most common human number system, it's far from the only one. Base 20 shows up all over the world, as do the occasional base 5 or 6 systems, and even wilder ones like systems that alternate between bases - the most well known being the Sumerian 10-60 base, but others exist. It just so happens that the Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic (Egyptian, Arabic) and Chinese number systems are all base 10, so that's a lot of global influence. Perhaps Rocky's world has a similar history with multiple competing systems and base 6 winning out in the end. It's also generally a pretty decent base for arithmetic, so if they ever had to make a decision whether their "metric system" should use, say, 6 or 15 as the base, then 6 is the obvious choice.
Re: the Eridian number system - humans have 4 limbs with 5 digits each, so by that logic we would use base 5 or base 4 or base 20. Maybe they consider two limbs more like arms and the others more like legs?
Yeah, a sibling comment to yours had a quote that I missed somehow that confirms your guess.
What do you think about this book as a first contact novel?
I like how he figures out that the odds of an alien being in the same location in space would be insanely small - unless they were both there for the same reason.
Small detail but other literature may have glossed over it or given a less compelling explanation for running into an alien out in the vastness of space.
Based on the description of the book that I read I had no idea it was going to be a first contact novel, it was an extremely unexpected surprise to me. But in the end that turned into a pleasant surprise and is probably the main reason why I liked the book so much.
What are your thoughts about Rocky?
I think the 'watch you sleep' angle, as explained by Rocky's biology, was exceptionally well done. It took an activity that we are all familiar with, and put a completely-believable-once-explained twist on it, allowing Rocky to be both Alien and Relatable. It's one of my favorite vignettes in sci-fi books I've read in terms of meeting an alien.
rocky is best <3
I appreciated some of the choices that made the similarities between humans and Eridians seem more plausible. Like all being descended from some DNA–based diaspora. It gave a framework for many of the convenience similarities that others have commented on.
I think the similar-but-with-surprising-differences feeling of their interactions seemed similar to the Lustitanian ecology in Speaker for the Dead.
I was a little disappointed that the epilogue on Erid glossed over his interactions with the larger population so much. It made the Eridians feel kind of one-dimensionally benevolent. I guess it fits with the overall tone (kind of a "true love conquers all"), but it feels like a missed opportunity to make them more interesting as species.
I really enjoyed the narrative/worldbuilding choice to make the Eridians effectively mini-computers with perfect memory. When trying to create a shared language, there's the "fun" parts of discovering new words and getting over the initial hump of communication, but getting beyond super basic stuff, it would normally require a ton of time and effort. Giving Rock the ability to remember every English word and seamlessly translate his grammar system to English, allows Grace's simple sound-to-word script be the only thing needed to "solve" the language barrier. And then once that problem was solved an no longer interesting to think about, seamlessly transition to Grace just not needing the laptop anymore as well.
"Save... Earth... Save... Erid."
He said 'save Earth' first!
The relationship between Ryland and Rocky is heartwarming. They don't just work together because they have no other choice to reach their own goals. They genuinely want each other to succeed.
Despite coming from entirely different cultures, they quickly find enough common ground become true collaborators. They completely trust one another, make changes to accommodate each other's needs, and take huge risks for each other, and are repeatedly vindicated for doing so.
It's nice.
Overall I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. I never read The Martian, as the description of super realistic modern sci-fi didn't really appeal to me, as I generally like the world building aspects of my fiction. I ended up really enjoying the process of having some problem/question and then thinking of a relatively simple science experiment to solve it combined with the fantastical elements of the astrophage and Eridians. I was expecting way more getting into the weeds of science (which there still was some of it), but overall none of the science being done I felt like was very difficult and didn't really need a PhD person to do it (other than experience with various lab equipment).
Having read the blurb of it being about a guy waking up with amnesia and figuring out that he was sent to save Earth, the first chapter or two kinda failed to grab me, since Ryland was just trying to figure stuff out that we already knew (he's on a space ship, etc). But once he got caught up, I got more into it. I war extremely not expecting it to turn into a first contact type of novel, and I think that's what really sealed it for me. It added in just enough speculative sci-fi stuff that I found way more interesting to engage with. All of the thought into how another life form that could exist in such a different environment was right up my alley.
Was there any aspect of this book that broke the suspension of disbelief for you, where you thought that just wouldn't happen?
The concept of Xenonite broke my suspension of disbelief. Here's a material that is nearly perfect - it's lightweight, absurdly strong, very temperature resistant, is easy to form into virtually any shape during creation, and can be formulated to be optically clear. The very thin strands of it in the model of the stellar neighborhood couldn't be broken by Grace, and it's said a few times that large flat panels of it are able to contain 27 atmospheres of very hot ammonia gas against vacuum. The size of the blind spot that this represents for Earth's materials scientists is enormous.
Maybe the Eridian race has been around on their home planet a lot longer and has had time/need to develop such a material?
PS: Happy to join the discussion! This is my first time participating in an organized book club of any sort and it's provided a good motivation for me to read more. Thanks for organizing!
I don't disagree, but I put it in the same category as the endless and amazing duct tape and epoxy that solved so many problems in The Martian.
I wasn't sure what I felt about omnisolvium featuring so prominently in both, but in the end I decided that I'm reading a fight-against-impossible-odds story of survival. It's really easy to get bogged down in the details, and impossible to account for everything, because you need to rely on nonexistent tech to drive things forward. It's ok as a storytelling device to focus on the problems you want to highlight, and fix the rest with a little story magic. It keeps things moving.
I largely agree with you from a technical point of view, but as a story device, it put Ryland and Rocky on a much more even footing technologically while still giving Ryland all the scientific analysis responsibility. Without it, if Rocky is just a technician, then work together doesn't feel like a true collaboration, and I think their bond would seem less real. If their collaboration had relied on a mixed responsibility for doing the science, there would have been an order of magnitude more alien technology to invent and explain for Rocky's role in it.
I felt like the Eridian technology was inconsistent, and had several spots where I caught myself wondering "How would the Eridians know that?"
Being blind, how are they aware that their star is dimming? How are they able to identify the one local star that hasn't dimmed? How are they aware of other stars at all? If they are using their light-to-texture-screen device, how are they not aware of other kinds of interstellar radiation? It's not like they would have any reason to detect just visible light from space and nothing else.
The one thing that truly made no sense to me was that the ship was not equipped in any way to do any real sample collection other than the astrophage itself. And even then, the Beatles were only capable of bringing back data. They know that an alien life form is causing the issue, so you would think they would include some sort of plan for another organism from one of the planets being the solution. The only reason the mission being a success is due to the xenonite and it's infinite utility made me appreciate it a bit less. If xenonite was just used for things that could have been done differently, but require more effort (like building the breeder farms), I wouldn't mind as much.
I had a similar thought when I reread the book recently. It surprised me how they had no mechanism for going into atmosphere. Even something like a drone or rover to collect some data. Seems like a huge oversight when they planned for other unknowns like providing a huge library of software and lab equipment.
A lot of things didn't make sense to me from a hygiene perspective. He handles living alien particles from space and then goes to teach schoolchildren the next day? Yeah, right, he'd definitely be in quarantine. He brings in an alien cylinder and opens it inside the area he lives in? He just goes out into the tunnel between ships to greet an alien without wearing an EVA suit? That's just absurdly reckless. Then how did he make sure there weren't any residual Taumoeba on or inside himself?
It was mostly just the human behavior stuff that annoyed me. I feel like any alien tech is fair game. It's sci-fi, after all. There was a lot of actual science stuff that was quite good. I actually have an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer and a gas chromatograph sitting about 20 ft away from me as I'm slacking off at work writing this comment, so I liked seeing the use of those instruments described realistically. Anyway, this story is more about relationships than realism, so after I got deeper into the story, the relationships were interesting enough that the unrealistic parts stopped bothering me.
I think if the ship were truly made of COTS systems, the integration would have been terrible, and many of the ways he used the ships systems would have been impossible. This is a very technical nit though. For anyone who hasn't done significant software integration, it probably seems entirely reasonable.
What did you think of the structure of the book with the flashbacks etc?
Amnesia is a bit cliche as a story device, but I actually really liked how it was justified and used in this book. It made me feel like I could relate to Grace even more, since I was just as clueless to start as he was. The revelatory flashbacks added some lovely twists and turns to the story too, that otherwise wouldn't have been possible. And the flashback where he realized he was a coward, tried to run away, and was sent on the mission against his will was a clever and emotionally devastating one that I did not see coming.
I think coward might be a little harsh. It is a big ask, worse than being drafted to a war. On the other hand, the stakes are the highest possible.
Yeah, I personally wouldn't use that label either. What they were asking him to do would be a tall order for anyone, especially with all of humanity relying on you succeeding. But in the end, he did succeed (so was Stratt justified in the kidnapping?). And despite all the danger and setbacks, he showed courage multiple times throughout by never giving up, and even being willing to sacrifice himself to save Rocky.
However, Stratt did call him a coward, and he even calls himself that after the flashback as well (which is what I was referring to):
Yeah, I can understand someone who is sensitive and genuinely well meaning feeling that way about themselves, especially after it is too late to change anything. However, I don't think Grace is being fair to himself under the circumstances.
Agreed. He was definitely being way too harsh on himself. But I can see how his actions with Stratt made him think the worst about himself though, since he did literally get dragged away kicking and screaming. And especially after assuming for so long that he had volunteered himself, I imagine he was in a bit of shock upon realizing that wasn't the case. Nobody wants to believe they would behave like that when asked to sacrifice themselves to save so many others.
IMO, that extremely panicked response was entirely Stratt's fault though. If she had just given him a bit of time to sit down and truly consider things, I think he would have eventually come back and agreed to go. But she was just so used to getting her own way, immediately and without question, that she forced the issue, insulted him, and made him panic as a result.
His reluctance to go actually confused me. Even if it was almost certainly a suicide mission, if he didn't go, all of humanity was doomed, including him. Maybe not instant death, but he himself says that the people who managed to hang on for a while would live very unpleasant lives. Whereas if he went, the conditions on board the ship weren't bad, probably better than what most people back home would be going through, and there was at least a chance of surviving.
I'm pretty sure his reaction was just due to him having a panic attack. And as someone with panic disorder, who has totally random panic attacks daily, I can tell you from experience that the giant adrenaline dump they trigger makes your lizard brain take over. So while you're having one, you can't usually think very clearly, and are instead operating in purely instinctual fight or flight mode.
Had Stratt simply given Grace some time to calm down, he probably would have eventually come around to the same logical conclusions you did, and agreed to go on the mission.
Yeah, they would have had to bring in the back up anyway. You can't have a mission without multiple backups, as they just observed. Have Grace train the backup(s), realize for himself that they won't be ready in time, and it's a much easier path to getting him on that ship. Tell him he's got less than a day to decide, and that's just too much pressure. It's not like he did any last minute prep anyway, so they could just give him the 13 days or whatever to make his own decision, and if he never comes around they could just drug him right before the launch and throw him on the ship with the same results.
I enjoyed the structure a lot, but I thought the content of the flashbacks wasnt as good as the "present day" plot
I enjoyed the flashbacks as a way to piece together what had happened, and was very curious about how Grace actually ended up on the ship when there were so many other experts in training. There were times later in the book that I did want to just get back to the present and read about what Rocky and Grace were doing though.
I would love to see a novel with an ensemble set of protagonists that follows what happened on earth while the Hail Mary was away. I'm not sure Andy Weir is the one to write it though. Having recently read The Future and The Power by Naomi Alderman, I feel like she could pull it off.
The funniest thing just happened to me: I got gifted this book for the second time by the same person. They forgot they had previously given it to me - evidently they think I'm the exact audience.
They're right, of course. I deeply enjoyed the story. I do wish maybe a bit more time had been spent examining the demise of the crewmates and the MCs response to that. The ending was a bit stranger than I had anticipated, with the choice to remain on an alien world. But these are superficial criticisms I think, the arc and contents are very solid.
I appreciated the "first contact" scene, with both sides using a scientific approach in establishing communications. I think that if humanity ever does come in contact with an alien race we'd be able to use shared scientific concepts as a starting point to be able to understand each other.
Finally, I was left with some desire to examine the changes on Earth that would come about from the efforts to avoid environmental catastrophe. Nuking most of the Antarctic, among other things, would surely have major political, social, and long-term environmental effects. It reminds me of Ben Bova's series, where the voyagers to an apparently habitable world return after a nearly two-century long voyage to find the ecosphere massively altered and the concomitant changes to society to be difficult to come to grips with. This isn't a main point in that series either, so if anyone can recommend a book where something along those lines is an important plot thread I'd appreciate it.
I am very very late to this because I was scared of book club, but I did re-read Project Hail Mary this year.
On my first read I absolutely sped through the book, staying up until 4am to finish it. I think that's because of the strength of the relationship between Grace and Rocky. I thought Rocky was really cute and Grace was a different protagonist than Weir had written before (kinda... non-cursing, kindly, more patience, not just Mark Watney with a different name).
On my re-read though, I got a bit annoyed with the formula.
"I have a problem. Luckily, we know through this experiment I did with my kids that I'm just now recalling that this problem is solvable! Let's solve the problem. Oh, there is a new problem!"
But I think that's mostly for the first third - once Rocky shows up I was very interested again. I think a character I didn't appreciate enough on my first read was Stratt. Now that I've done a fair amount of work on climate change, I wish it was as easy as 'the governments have decided to give one person the power to do what it takes to fix this.' I don't know if Andy Weir intended it as a climate change metaphor, but that is definitely how I read it this year.
One final note is when I finished the book I wrote him an email saying how much I loved it, and how the relationship between Grace and Rocky was my favourite part. He wrote back immediately saying thank you, and how that was the area of writing he struggled with the most. He said that this book was him really trying to stretch himself to create a non-solo protagonist book, and a relationship people cared about.
I think he was very successful. I'm really looking forward to seeing the movie with Ryan Gosling, as I think there's quite a bit of physical comedy, and Ryan Gosling is hilarious
Thanks for jumping in!
What are your thoughts about Ryland Grace?
Big fan of the twist that Ryland wasn't the self sacrificing hero that we think he is the entire time, and instead he is a "coward." Even when he is literally their only option in the flashback, we just assume he decides to see reason, since he's clearly on the ship now. So when we see him go to Stratt with the flimsiest of reasons, saying he needs to stay on earth for the kids sake, when obviously if he wants to save the kids, he would go on the mission.
But while he avoids risk, he is not a bad person, and everyone knows he won't sabotage the mission even if he's forced onto the mission. And I think this is really what made the ending shine for me. We just had the image of our Hero Dr. Grace shattered, but when push comes to shove with regards to saving his friend Rocky and the Eridians, he does make the choice to sacrifice his own life to save the others, and it really felt like that growth was earned. It really warmed my heart when I realized that at the end, he is kind of in the same position he started in, but this time it is more positive. At the beginning of the book, he was alone in his apartment eating a sad Lean Cuisine because he is hungry and he gets to teach kids science. And at the end of the book, he is isolated in his dome eating serviceable food just to stay alive, and he gets to teach kids science. But this time, he's there with his best friend Rocky because of a brave choice he made, while on Earth he was alone because of cowardly choices he made.
I kind of had a different perspective. Grace felt like he had a tough 4 years ahead of him trying to get home while not going crazy from loneliness. The beatles are not a sure thing, so bringing the taumoebas back to Earth himself is better assurance, but it's a harder path for him personally. Feeling so much loneliness after just a few days by himself, it's easier to sacrifice himself because death is in the far future while he gets to be with a friend right now. So in the end he got to both wuss out and also make a noble decision.
What do you think about any of the science and or engineering in the book? This book includes a wide spectrum of scientific content, from biology to physics and more. Does it do a good job?
I liked the middle school science project aspects, but a lot of the flashback parts pushed the limits of disbelief
e.g. the idea that for a mission of this much importance, there wouldn't be more security to ensure there are multiple teams ready to go and that the teams are living in different countries on different sides of the world, like, my primary concern here would be a terrorist attack and for that reason alone id want everyone separated by a lot of borders (both geographical and political)
I thought there was a reasonable explanation for that. The scientists needed specific genes to have the best chance to survive the sleep process and they needed to have the right educational background. The genes were and educational background were both rare, so finding individuals with both was exceptionally rare
they did have two teams though, and they mentioned a distant third candidate.
also, why not send multiple crews in multiple ships
I thought this was explained by them pushing their technical limits to make enough astrophage to fuel just one ship.
ah yeah, that sounds right
I read this book when it first came out, so I'm a bit rusty, but one of the things I love about Andy Weir's novels is that the science is usually believable. It might still be futuristic technology but it's got a believable route to get there. This book in particular is the most fantastical of his in my opinion (see the discussion of the xenonite elsewhere) but still usually believable.
My experience mirrors yours!
All of this discussion has me wanting to do a re-read. I’m going to start during lunch today!
I feel like one of my "problems" with hard sci-fi is that I find myself always trying to make sure all the science lines up correctly, even if it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. Overall, I think it did a great job with the science aspects.
I did have one thing that I saw, and haven't found anyone else online talking about it, so I'm not sure if I'm missing anything: Rocky makes a remote control for controlling the Beatles when the ship is in centrifuge mode in order to stop their rotation. But they specify that Rocky's remotes work via audio waves, not radio waves. So how is it able to control the Beatles that are outside in a vacuum where audio waves can't propagate?
The beatles are mounted to the ship so they can sense vibrations through the hull, I guess.
So I'd like to talk a little bit about the formats this book comes in. I was waiting to read it until it came out in paperback, for various reasons, but it seemed like it took ages. Admittedly I haven't followed new releases for a long time, but I was sure paperback editions used to come out less than a year after the hardcover, but here it took a full year and a half to release PHM on paperback. Is that how it is these days, or was something weird going on? The only hint I could find was that there seemed to be a worldwide paper shortage due to the pandemic, but I'm not sure why that should have made a difference in which edition to print with the available paper, and I don't know if that was the reason anyway.
And then, once I had ordered my copy, I saw a random comment online that it was better to listen to it on audiobook anyway for reasons not given because of spoilers. So, after all that, and since I was making regular long drives at the time anyway, I decided to take that advice. It was great to listen to (once I nearly missed my chance to get gas when the tank was low, because I was so absorbed in the book), but for the first five hours, I wondered why this format was so recommended. And then Rocky spoke for the first time and I about lost my damn mind. They did a great job making Rocky's voice! I was so entranced both with it and with the realization that they really wanted to make the audiobook special.* And later, when his dialogue was transcribed in English, they continued to add musical tones to his words, which I loved.
I only had a couple of problems with the audiobook format. One, the narrator had to describe the Eridian clock symbols each time, which felt slightly laborious. And at one point, Ryland says something like, "The bottle says vodka. I guess that means vodka in Russian." Presumably that was in Cyrillic in the text, but it made no sense out loud.
*Note that I don't think listening to the audiobook will be particularly hype if you've already read it, although it could be a great way to reread it for the variety. For me, it was because it was so unexpected that I enjoyed it so much.
Since you got me curious to hear what Rocky sounded like in the audiobook, I went looking for samples and found a reddit post linking to a google drive folder with various mp4 clips.
He's cute sounding. I can see how that would add to the experience. :) I hope they do something similar in the upcoming movie!
What do you think about any of the big moral choices in this book?
I think that not to have Ryland go back to Earth, or getting to see Earth saved was a very deliberate narrative choice by Weir. It is sad that he will probably not get to see Earth again, but on the other hand, with the logical way that Weir builds consequences, I don't think there is a realistic way for there to be a short term happy ending there. Not even including time dilation so all of Ryland's friends would be old/dead, a lot of discussion was had along the lines of how even though they'll avoid the 50% of the population dying of starvation, once supply lines started drying up, the chances of wars and other conflicts are inevitable. I feel the book is meant to showcase the positives of humanity: how we can come together in a time of crisis (at least in the short term to build the ship) and how some of us are willing to sacrifice for the greater good. Showing Earth 30 years later would just change the optimistic ending into a pessimistic one.
Was there any aspect of this story that surprised you, was very original?
The Astrophage itself was an excellent plot driver, and I particularly liked how it had some pretty amazing uses beyond the incipient doom angle. To me, at least, it gave the danger a sense of verisimilitude- here is this Black Swan Event, but it carries no moral judgement behind it, it simply is what it is- what, then, can we do about it?
I agree about the astrophage. I particularly liked the process of discovery about them - learning why they make the petrova line in the shape that they do, why they only go to Venus, why the light they emit is a specific wavelength, how they regulate temperature, how they store energy, etc. The whole reveal process had a satisfying feeling, like puzzle pieces slowly falling into place.
What are your thoughts about Stratt?
As a plot device, her existence makes sense. She was pretty flat as a character. I thought her Machiavellian hardness was pretty unbelievable. Although I suppose in hindsight pretty much every character other than Ryland and Rocky was pretty flat, so I suppose one could argue that they are the only ones that matter in the story and the rest are merely there to provide a plausible background.
I don't think her personality was all that unbelievable. Pretty much every Dictator in history has done way worse for far less noble ends. What I did find unbelievable was how every major world government agreed to cede that much control to her in time to even give us a chance of surviving. But maybe that's just the pessimist in me talking. I personally think global warming is probably going to wipe most of us out, especially at the rate things are already getting worse (see India right now). So I have serious doubts that the world's politicians would be willing or able to do what was necessary to save us if an astrophage showed up.
You are probably right about global warming, but its might be easier to band together against an external threat. The astrophage spell certain doom and are an outside enemy, vs all the finger pointing and shirking of responsibility by governments and global capitalism.
Yeah, it being an external threat would probably change things. And I could certainly see a lot of money being thrown at the problem. But even with a solar system ending external threat, I simply can't see all our governments ceding that much control to anyone, or being that unified in working towards the same solution. Optimistically, I suspect we would see the NATO bloc doing its own thing, and China's sphere of influence doing their own as well. Likely sharing data with each other, but probably not their resources, and certainly not giving up their control to anyone else, especially a singular person.
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Your edit appears to have re-pinged all participants. At least, I received a notification for this and was a little confused.
That is unfortunate.
Thanks for telling me. I wouldn't have known otherwise.
I will be aware for future. I thought it would ping the one person I added.