Project Hail Mary Andy Weir, Ballantine Books. 2021. Ebook: ISBN 9780593135211

David Longman, 30/4/26

Andẏ Weir’s science fiction novels have been outstanding successes. The Martian was the first, offering a fresh, contemporary science-oriented realism about survival on Mars. It was subsequently filmed and a commercial success. Then came Artemis set on a near future mining and tourist destination on the Moon, threatened by corporate skullduggery (not filmed but in the works). Now comes Project Hail Mary, a saving-the-Earth-from-extinction story that has also become a major success in its filmed version.

Andy Weir is – was – a software engineer, with a passion for for physics and all things to do with space, a “lifelong space nerd” as he describes himself. His stories are well constructed using accurate but speculative scientific and technological details to create realistic scenarios with good doses of jeopardy to activate his characters. These details are certainly one of the appealing features of his books, so much so that perhaps they could be seen as less science-fiction than science-faction.

Project Hail Mary (hereafter PHM) fits this mould well but, although it is quite fascinating for its sci-tech details, I cannot help but find it a rather silly story, charming but overstretching the science, the Panspermic threat (‘Astrophages’ consuming our Sun’s energy), the technology (including a 12 light-year journey in record time) and, in a major lapse of realism, a spontaneous and unified global response to the threat of extinction. All overseen by one all-powerful commander-in-chief – a strong woman of course. It’s also not a surprise to find that the Americans lead this global show while Russians and Chinese along with everybody else falls into line. Oh yes, and there’s that what-are-the-chances meeting with an amazingly clever creature from another planet in the distant star system (Tau Ceti) where the story takes us to find the solution to our Earthly woes (and here ‘realism’ lurches into fantasy.)

Naturally, the reader can only sigh and think, “… but isn’t this very like Earth’s situation right now (the threat part anyway, a threat based on much better science) yet – and here’s the reality check – instead of global political unity we have …chaotic indifference…”. That’s putting it mildly. I guess the point here is only that, as with almost all science fiction, reality will check in, if you let it, no matter how detailed the pretence of ‘scientific realism’, for all science fiction is but a dreamscape. PHM is no exception; the real and present threats to the survival of our human community, with time-lines measured in one or two generations, have generated no unified, let alone global response.

Andy Weir may have lent himself to his story as the heroic nerd. When we first meet the protagonist of the novel, Ryland Grace, he is a teacher, an excellent one by all accounts, full of deep and inspiring lessons to put before his classes. Why is he a teacher? Because he simply could not get on with the demanding world of academia. But he knows his stuff, he is brilliant (American of course) and finds himself enrolled in the project to save the Earth from a cold, cold death.

He is not your usual hero. He is a self-proclaimed chicken and when the predictable moment arrives (he is the only one left who can crew the starship ‘Hail Mary’) he baulks, stamps his foot and self-identifies as a coward. However, he can’t avoid it and we follow him into nerd heaven (I note that the film emphasises his nerdiness by dressing him up with owlish spectacles). Like all heroes he pays the ‘ultimate price’ eventually (but in the nicest way given the circumstances).

After the early chapters where there is some genuine fictional science (apologies for the oxymoron), the nerd finally prevails as an emblem of one of our most relished human traits, the unpretentious but brilliant, generous and selfless individual, a welcome contrast to the real world we inhabit in which too many dangerously sociopathic human beings strive to control the destiny of billions of both people and dollars. He also makes a friend too, that alien from another planet, but you have to read the book to find out about that. There’s some clever details here about how evolution might unfold in different planetary environments but the physical complexities of this particular relationship do require some imagination!

However, the book is not a waste of the reader’s effort (and, from what has been written about it, the film requires even less effort, emphasising its spectacular and inter-species qualities). There is much to enjoy here but across all three books, and with the passage of time, the speculative science and technology becomes less convincing. The unresolved risks of travelling to Mars and the challenge of even a short survivalist jaunt (Elon Musk – our home grown Martian) – notwithstanding) seems ever more daunting and, although the Moon may seem more accessible than ever, it is the political perils that will undermine any lofty, earthly ambitions given that unified global governance remains our ultimate fantasy.