Reading this book felt unexpectedly comforting.
The science fiction I've read often assumes that meeting another intelligent species will eventually lead to war. I'm used to stories about invasion, conquest, dominance, conflict, competition over resources, and the idea that difference inevitably turns into hostility. I loved that this book imagined solving a common problem together.
Is that realistic? Maybe not?
We humans, are too messy and prone to violence and aggression. And we expect other species, a bit more intelligent than us, to be the same. I'm not too sure.
► Genre: Hard science fiction, speculative fiction, space opera, first-contact novel, scientific thriller, survival adventure.
► Themes: Cooperation across differences, friendship, sacrifice, survival, scientific curiosity, problem-solving, memory and identity, hope, responsibility, trust.
► Author's Age at Publication: 48 years old. Andy Weir was born on June 16, 1972, and the novel was published on May 4, 2021.
► Nationality of Author: Andy Weir was born and raised in the United States.
► Settings of the Story: Primarily aboard the interstellar spacecraft Hail Mary, traveling through deep space toward the Tau Ceti system. Flashbacks take place on Earth in various international locations involved in the global response to the crisis, including laboratories, government facilities, and scientific institutions.
► Year of Publication: 2021 (first published on May 4, 2021).
► Pages: 496 pages (hardcover edition published by Ballantine Books).
► Publisher: Ballantine Books (an imprint of Random House Publishing Group).
What I loved
One of the things I liked most about the book is blending science, the end-of-the-world stakes and cooperation.
A lot of stories I've read, about survival or aliens, eventually become about defeating someone else. Here, the struggle feels different. The protagonist isn't really fighting a villain. He's fighting circumstances. Physics. Biology. Distance. Ignorance. Things that are huge, impersonal, and completely indifferent to whether humans make it or not. I found that refreshing.
I also loved that Andy Weir didn't go for the easy version of an alien. In so much science fiction, extraterrestrials end up looking suspiciously human. They have the same number of limbs, communicate through vocal cords, and can even breathe our atmosphere with the same oxygen concentration and everything else. They also deal more than fine with our gravity, or vice versa. I remember reading once about theories suggesting that intelligent life might converge toward certain body plans, maybe even something resembling four limbs, although I can't remember the details well enough to know how seriously to take that idea. In any case, it was great to encounter an alien that genuinely felt alien. That made me curious.
Another thing Weir consistently does well is making people solve problems. This was one of my favorite aspects of The Martian, and it works here too. Characters observe, improvise, test, fail, rethink, and try again. Plenty of stories rely on problem-solving, of course, but Weir has a way of making it engaging, showing that the protagonists are not suspiciously genius and can solve anything at first. Reading about someone thinking creatively under pressure was nice.
The scientific detail also helped me immerse myself in the story. I have absolutely no idea how much of it is technically accurate, of course, and I don't plan to learn the basics to figure it out!. Maybe an actual scientist would highlight entire chapters with a red pen. But it felt convincing enough that I bought into the logic of the world. It gave me the sense that every obstacle had a sense to it. Of course, the book needed to have the most equipped spacecraft ever for that to work out.
The humor worked for me as well. Sometimes. Some jokes landed better than others.
The structure grew on me. The first time I read the novel, I found the constant movement between past and present distracting. I kept wanting the story to stop looking backward and move on to the interesting parts!. Reading it again, more than 4 years later -because of the movie-, it made much more sense. I understood the mechanism of the fragmented memories as part of the experience of discovery.
And finally, I felt the ending was appropriate. I think Weir could have chosen a safer route, a more predictable form of payoff. Instead, he went in a direction that surprised me just enough while still feeling earned. It satisfied me not because it gave me exactly what I expected, but because it remained faithful to the rest of the book.
What didn’t work for me
Grace's sense of humor was just OK. I didn't hate it. Some jokes were fine, but at times they felt a bit too cartoonish. The book didn't always trust that the situation itself was interesting enough and occasionally introduced some unnecessary "funny" remarks.
Mainly, I wasn't a fan of some of the clichés around scientists. The way certain characters talk about sex and relationships sometimes felt immature, like the book was relying on old stereotypes about brilliant but socially awkward people. It was boring, a bit offensive, and just bad writing for my taste. It felt beneath a novel that is otherwise pretty clever. Same with clichés about Russians being alcoholic.
More than anything, I wish the human characters had been more memorable. Most of them exist to move the plot forward, solve a problem, or deliver information. They get the job done, but very few of them felt specific or fully realized. Ironically, the book gave me one of the most convincing aliens I've encountered in science fiction, yet many of the humans feel assembled from familiar pieces.
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