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Project Hail Mary is a fucking masterpiece

all hail andy.

By Rachael MacDonaldPublished about a year ago Updated about a year ago 3 min read
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Project Hail Mary is a fucking masterpiece
Photo by Jongsun Lee on Unsplash

Ok, listen. If you have not read this book by Andy Weir, notable author of the stellar novel The Martian, stop reading right now. The Martian was incredible in its own right, absolutely, and it brought me to this novel which I will forever be grateful, but I'd rather trek over hot coals than ruin the magic of Project Hail Mary.

So read it. Savor it. Then come back if you so choose.

Spoilers, beware.

Project Hail Mary is nothing short of a triumph and I say this as someone who NEVER writes reviews or in that breath nonfiction. (Cue the over-dramatic adjectives). 

The feeling of melancholy is real today. Once in probably five years, I come across a book that easily slides its way into my top five. This novel, ladies and gentlemen, THIS NOVEL, fits that brief. In addition to The Millennium Series by Stieg Larsson, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling ( say what you want about the author, these books made eleven-year-old me equate reading to breathing), The Broken Empire Trilogy by Mark Lawrence, all of these, take up the deep space in my soul.

And yes, I realize just I named more than five, but fuck. Now every night, just before that blissful fall into the unconsciousness of sleep, these characters will continue to live in my head rent-free for light years to come.

I sit here this evening finished, I grieve for the conversations left unspoken, the lives lived but not recorded. What more Earthain mysteries did Ryland have to teach the Eridians, and what new discoveries were found on Erid? You had us hooked, Andy, could you not have spared a new more hundred pages to satiate our curiosity?

I hate things that make me cry. You made me cry, Andy. And for that I have one thing to say, well maybe two. Fuck you, and Thank you.

Grace as a middle school science teacher is humbling and relatable. His candor refreshing and genuine. The flashbacks, astoundingly confessive. Their development throughout the book, diary-like, did nothing if not make me love him more. Coward, yes, hero, ALSO Yes. 

Rocky is alienistic brilliance. He is ingenuity and naivety in all the best ways. The friendship and bond that forms between the last hope for both species becomes equally cathartic to my jagged heart as it is a mystical goal of humanity ( and eridity?). The trials they face and the brilliant solutions that as a C+ student in high school biology, I could never question. Andy, you made science sexy. It was a privilege to experience both the elegant science and full scope of entirely humanistic errors.

Lack of sleep makes humans dumb. YES. 

This book made me question life. It made me question sacrifice and the beauty of friendship. Sometimes we choose greatness, and sometimes we are dragged along kicking and screaming. But in the end, does it really matter? Does it matter how we ended up light years away, alone and afraid, with the fate of humanity on our shoulders?

It is the juxtaposition of the question: is it the journey or the end result that matters? I say both. A life well lived IS a life of regrets. It is a growth and an adaptation. How do we adapt to our ever changing environment? Will we evolve or will we die? The choice is always our own.

But really, all I really want to say is Thank You. Thank you, Andy Weir. 

Simply brilliant. 

Now if you don't mind me, I am off to find someone to watch me sleep.

artificial intelligencebook reviewextraterrestrialfantasyhumanityopinionscience fictionspace
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About the Creator

Rachael MacDonald

Avid Reader, Sometimes Poet, Occasional Writer, and searcher of truths often lost in the breaths between candy-coated lies.

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  • David Morton Rintoulabout a year ago

    Thanks for the great read. I appreciate your passionate insights. I'll have to check out this book for myself.

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