But in Project Hail Mary, Grace has no such luck Rocky turns out to be from a species of roughly similar intelligence and technological ability as humans. Some sci-fi stories solve the communication problem by gifting the aliens such superior intelligence that they learn English from terrestrial broadcasts that leak into space, arriving ready to talk turkey. I suspect that much of the technical stuff in Project Hail Mary is probably also right on the money. He gets off on relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned space flight. How the two would communicate if they don’t share anatomy or biochemistry is not only an interesting philosophical problem, but is being studied for real, just in case. After all, for much of his life, Weir was a software engineer and an amateur rocket scientist. The “first contact” moment when humans meet an alien species has, like world ending events, long been fertile ground for sci-fi. What’s more, in order to save our star and therefore Earth, he needs to be able to talk to this alien, which he names Rocky because of its appearance. Spoiler alert: there’s a plot twist early in the tale, so look away now if knowing it would annoy you. Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martianwhile taking us to places it never dreamed of going. A true example of hard science fiction, Project Hail Mary features Weir’s characteristic combination of humor, scientific accuracy, and technical speculation while incorporating more speculative elements of the genre, notably in its depiction of human contact with extraterrestrial life.

Read more: 10 of the best popular science books as chosen by authors and writersĪstrobiologist Ryland Grace, uniquely qualified for the space mission to save the sun, wakes up millions of miles from Earth with dead crewmates and little to no memory of what he is doing there or how to do it.Īnd that isn’t even the most interesting aspect of this tale.

Hail mary andy weir