Prepare to Blast Off!

Today (May 5th) is National Astronaut Day and tomorrow (May 6th)  is National Space Day.  It does seem fitting that they are right next to each other on the calendar like that.  But it did make it hard for me to get a book read for each of them.  So I am using the same book to honor them both.  

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

(from the book jacket) 

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and Earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn't know that.  He can't even remember his own name, let alone the mature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he's been asleep for a 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, Ryland realizes that an important task now confronts him.  Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it's up tp him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery - and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he's got to do it all alone.

Or does he?

This was fun to read.  It was one of those books where every time you put it down you want to get back to it to see what happens next.  Grace wakes up with no memory of who he is or what he is supposed to be doing.  I like that we are inside his head as he tries to figure it out.  It's fun to see him surprised by his own figures of speech and knowledge.  The story flips back and forth between Grace in space trying to figure out what he is supposed to do and Grace back on Earth as he slowly remembers how he got there.  As his memories come back Grace starts to remember who he is, not only his name and where he is from, but his character too.  Some of the things he remembers about himself he isn't happy about.  And he has to deal with those feelings all alone on a spaceship while he also has to save the world.  It is a fun, exciting, interesting story.  There are some very interesting characters but some of the members of the international team did seem rather cliché sometimes.  Grace's relationship with Rocky (he is an important part of the book but I don't want to give too much away) makes them both seem like children at times even though they are doing very complicated math and science things.  Like a kid who has finally found another kid who loves Dungeons and Dragons as much as he does.  But these are barely even complaints.  The story is told with lots of humor.  The menace to the planet feels real and believable.  There is a lot of science.  At first it was light lifting but it got heavier as the book went along.  It does not interfere with the enjoyment of the book or your understanding of what is going on.  But if you don't like science you might get slightly bored at times.  (But if you don't like science what are you doing reading this book?)  There were enough twists that you are never really sure you know what is going to happen next.  And I liked the ending very much.  It was a nice, satisfying finish to Grace's adventure.