2 points of clarification. 1. The reason Stratt included him in all the meetings was due to his genetic disposition to have high ‘coma tolerance’. This was quite rare and enhanced his potential as a replacement greatly. 2. The reason why his memory recall was unusual was because it wasn’t due to brain injury but was the result of medication - developed by the French secret service to suppress recall - which gradually wore off.
Personally I think the reason Stratt kept grace was as a moral compass. Stratt new people and their abilities. And so she knew she was a well oiled machine to get the job done. She needed someone she could trust to be genuinely good and couldn't be corrupted. Ironically she does to him, what he prevented her from doing the entire way.
I wouldn't even say he was included in all the meetings. He very clearly was not, but they were first-person flashbacks. It would break narration to switch to a 3rd person omniscient POV Basically, he was just a part of every meeting that he was a part of
re: why grace was in every meeting cause he tested positive for having that unique gene trait that allowed him to survive long comas. re: why he can remember things linearly because the drug that was used to wipe his mind made him forget the most recent events that happened to him so the first ones to come back were the oldest (but also it just makes senseas a narrative device)
5/5 book for me. Andy is very optimistic in how he sees the human race tackling an issue of this magnitude and I hope he's right about it. I think this is going to be a movie and I can't wait to see Tau Ceti, planet Adrian and Rocky's homeworld on the big screen (albeit he described it as being pitch black). Plus, the vision in my head of Rocky doing jazz hands is adorable and they better include that in the film
@@soukaina1113 My first reaction was not positive too. But I heard Andy Weir say Ryan Gosling is very excited about playing a more comedic optimistic role. He says he is sick of being cast in “Ryan Gosling looking moody staring out window” roles, or that is how Andy Weir put it. If he is really invested in the role and wants to bust out of the image he has been typecast into it should be interesting.
While reading Chapter 🎶🎶, I envisioned Erid as the Heptapods’ side of the wall in “Arrival.” As long as I see “20 little Eridians bouncing around like idiots…” I’ll be happy, happy, happy.
Grace basically saved the world when he figured out how to farm the Astrophage, and he is one of the only people Stratt trusts to be impartial and scientific about all the decisions because of his reputation. She keeps him around because he clearly has valuable insight, has no allegiances to world powers, and clearly is a much-better "people person". His ability to make friends with almost everyone he meets and willingness to compromise comes in handy for her, and she isn't too proud to see that. That's why I believe he is in every meeting.
I should've clarified: Most of the meetings I'm cool with. Like all the science meetings? Sure. He was the first to do it, and she likes his boldness. But when she was having him practice in the space suit? I literally could not figure out ANY reason he'd be doing that. Why would he even think it was reasonable? That was the scene that really pulled me out.
@@Bookborn she did explain that the reason she had him training in the EVA suit and various other things he shouldn't have had any involvement was because he was always meant to be a backup in case the worst happened
I loved it. The audiobook narration was particularly fantastic. After finishing and thinking about it, I was a little confused about a few things. Like why does Ryland remember being a "crew" with Yáo and Ilyukhina? I was also disappointed that he never played any music for Rocky. It would have been fun to see what he thought of it.
@@FPChris that's a very surprising opinion to me. I was very impressed with the voice acting. Is there an audiobook youd recommend that demonstrates great voice acting?
@@glennchamberlain1737Andy Serkis’s The Hobbit, the Tim Dale Harry Potter series, and a few with Will Wheaton narrating. Sort of cheating but Enders Game Alive and Dune both have casts of narrators, and they’re super well done.
Stratt(?) (the woman in black, literally) literally tells him why she was keeping him around. I won't spoil anything, but the timing of every flashback that Grace experiences completely explains why he was kept around. After finishing the book, I almost started questioning my own sanity, and that Grace was always meant to be THE guy. I still wonder if Stratt goes to sleep with a huge grin on her face, knowing that she pulled this gigantic, galactic master plan off. The White Room scenario, AKA the amnesic hero coming to terms with his past, was so good. I cried at the end of the book. I am giving this book a strong 9. And I"m not giving it a 10 simply because I can't give something a 10 unless it literally fists my bump out. Jazz my hands, Rocky.
This is definitely one of my favorites of the year…but that might be partially because I’m a science nerd, haha. It was very similar to the Martian, but I actually found myself liking this book more. The dynamic with Rocky really elevated this one for me, I think. I loved the problem solving scenarios as well as the moral and ethical questions posed. I can see why you may have been frustrated by the items you mentioned, but for whatever reasons they didn’t really take me out of the story.
A lot of people complain about stories I love too, lol, I think some things just hit us all differently. Rocky was definitely a stand out. I could honestly have a follow up on this with just Rocky x Grace shenanigans lol
Project Hail Mary was one of my favorite books I've read this year. For me, it's one of those rare books where I definitely see the issues, but for some reason still absolutely love the book despite it all and gave it five stars. I agree with all of your criticisms except the one about Grace not being serious enough. I listened to the audiobook and the delivery of Grace's lines and thoughts by the narrator were the perfect balance. In some of the jokes you could hear a sense of anxiety and stress in his voice, which made the tone more serious. So maybe this criticism really depends on your internal voice while reading.
I actually wondered about this while reading and should have mentioned it in the video - I wondered if audio book made it seem less like that. I don't really like audiobooks so I'll never choose to read them, but I could see how it might help here. Either way I still gave it a 4 and would highly recommend it to people - I liked the good parts enough to forgive the bad (for me).
@@Bookborn That's understandable, but also just so you're aware, the PHM audiobook specifically I would say is better than the physical book, because instead of music notes you get the actual sounds, and when Rocky speaks it's through a voice changer that makes him sound alieny 😁
@@Language42 I listened to the audiobook as well, and it was, hands-down, my best audiobook experience ever. Ray Porter did an amazing job on Grace's voice, and the whole Rocky language... just...wow. What a production. I had the same thought about whether @Bookborn would like the audio better, but it sounds like she's pretty sure of her 4 ;) This was a great review. It covered the big bases. Nice job!
The tone of the book is actually really important as it mellows out the intensity of the scientific jargon throughout. I also think that the tone of the central character is what makes the reveal that he refuses to go so effective.
Honestly, I really liked Grace's character in the end, though I'll admit the first chunk of the novel felt a little awkward. The thing that hurt the novel the most for me was how the world's governments listened to scientists about a massive global problem and came together to solve it is completely hand waived away. In a book about first contact and traveling near the speed of light to other stars, the thing which strained believability most was leaders listening scientists.
Interesting. Would have made for two survival stories. Stratt’s pre launch mission and Grace’s post launch mission, both with flawed heros. More interesting character depth… hard to pull off!
I just finished this book and I loved it, especially the ending. As the pages were running out, I got more and more anxious because I realized that I was NOT going to find out what was happening on Earth, were they at war? was Stratt still alive? etc. But the ending left me in a great place. I think your comments are all valid, the sheer coincidence that him and Rocky were exploring the star at the same time was something that bothered me for a while... but I got over it 😅
It's one of those though things because I desperately want to know what's happening on Earth but I also recognize that it would probably be really hard to write in a satisfying way
@@cankervan7219 He said in an interview that he has ideas for a sequel, but I don't think he's deep into writing it. At least that's the impression I got.
That Grace didn't know about pair production (yet knew lots about cosmic rays, which, spoiler alert, produce cosmic showers in the atmosphere in part due to it) was a real whiplash-moment for me. The only reason he didn't is because Andy wanted to cram an expositional explainer into the dialogue.
Great book. Really enjoyed it. The major problem I had was that every chapter or so there would be a moment of something good happening and then something going wrong. I get that space is very complicated and crazy stuff would happen, but it would just be like, “Success!” and then instantly, “Oh crap!”
Grace is definitely on the spectrum somewhere in this book. He struggles to relate to his peers and has his obsessive interests and what not. I did like how for awhile he has a little friend group though.
I think Stratt kept Grace close to appear more human in front of her subordinates. She knew she appeared cold, amoral and generally frightening. She had to be that way but she also needed something that would balanced it. So, she used him as her spokesperson and basically as her mascot. With his character, his backstory and his "not importantness" he was actually great for that role among all those soldiers, scientists and politicians. He also had not any ties, any side allegiances. His loyalty was only to the world and humanity so she could trust him. Also, she was not a scientist so having someone with his versatile intellect with complete insight into things was valuable. But even with all that I agree that it was sloppy. I agree with all of your criticisms but for me it was Andy Weir being Andy Weir so I waved my hand over it. After Artemis, which had more serious tone (and was good ), I am glad he returned to more cheesy style. It just suites him more.
I think that reasoning totally works except for the scene where he's in the space suit. That's actually the one that made me think of this criticism first and then started bugging me lol. For some reason the science meetings all were fine but then when he started doing astronaut training i just couldn't understand why even Grace as a character would be doing it??
I loved Grace as a character! Sure he had some cringey lines, first one that comes to mind “I’m am Pendulus, something something in my bedsheet toga” Personally, I don’t swear casually so that aspect didn’t bother me in the slightest. Besides a little cringe, I loved his goofiness. The friendship between Rocky and Grace is so well written. The ending SPOILERS when he basically makes a skidding u-turn to go and save his friend and eventually living with him for the rest of his life is suuuuuch a good ending. If you’re looking for Sci-Fi book recommendations, or if anyone else is, Seveneves by Neal Stephenson is my favorite.
I actually didn't mind the not-swearing only because I think swearing is overused, but I think it's somehow how his entire personality was worked together that came off cheesy. That being said, I agree - his and rocky's relationship was just the best!
I absolutely loved this book and it is one of my favourites ever! I do think you have a lot of reasonable points and it was nice to hear a different view!
Yeah I mean it was still a four star book for me! I enjoyed it a lot, but there were just a few things I couldn't look past lol. I must protect Rocky at ALL COSTS
Just finished the book and really don’t think Grace was too unserious. Also, they hammered home the coma gene thing and Stratt straight up said that’s a large reason he was kept around as her 2. She also explained how the drug would specifically affect his memory memory loss like it did. Seems like if those were your two big gripes, you just missed a couple pieces given towards the end of the flashback sequences.
As someone who really enjoyed this book, I took Graces Tone as his perspective, basically what we are hearing in his head, not necessarily what was happening. To your 2nd point, how do we know he was in every meeting? We are only seeing the meetings he was actually in. In fact, we get the meeting at the end, only when he was brought into it and it apparently started early. So, Weir wasn't showing us everything else going on around project Hail Mary, only what Grace saw. Additionally, how do you know there wasn't a 3rd candidate for the other two? Grace was the only one that was needed. As far as the memory loss goes, it was handwaved away by saying that some other country was on the leading edge of interrogation where they use this drug that causes memory loss. That combined w/ the comma could have some complications that we aren't aware of.
Plus, iirc his boss had him genetically tested and he was a good candidate for the space coma thing, so she had the foresight to prep him for the mision in case something went bad
Grace is a grade school teacher turned astronaut. His mind filters his thoughts and words for kids. knowing a ton of teachers The fact that he is corny fits that to a T. He was also the first to discover the reproductive cycle and is the leading expert on astrophage. It makes since that the person growing the fuel is closely tied to the project.
I would agree with most of what she said here. I'd like to add one thing. It's about the way Rocky sensed his environment. It didn't make sense to me, but it could just be because I don't know sonar as well as I think I do. So how could he see through a solid wall? That's my question. If it's loud in your house, you close the door between you and the noise to quiet it. Also, if he could see through the wall, why could he see the object behind the wall? Why not just see through everything? If anyone has an explanation, I'd love to understand.
Yeah from what I understand Sonar can't go through walls, but I assumed Rocky was also perhaps sensing vibrations or things of that nature and not just sound? I don't really know haha
@@Bookborn Hi there! Yeah, I guess it's possible that Rocky just has more behind his "vision" than what was explained. Also, I thought it might make you glad to know that a good part of my motivation to finish this book (I'm a VERY slow reader, so it's hard sometimes) was to watch this video! Thanks for making it!
Glass is transparent yet you see a piece of glass if you hold it in your hand. Same for sound waves. Depending on the inner damping of the material and variations of sound speed across various media, a wall may be completely transparent down to opaque. Same for any object: a mass of sound absorbing material would appear the equivalent of our "black".
Reading Andy Weir is like doing physics homework and listening to a stand-up special while riding a rollercoaster. An enjoyable combination for sure, but I wish his narrative structure was a bit stronger. He doesn't set up situations far enough in advance to maximize emotional payoff. It's just: problem arises, problem is analyzed, problem is solved. I want internal conflicts, which we do get (SPOILER ALERT) when it is revealed he was a coward before the launch, and he later sacrifices his return to Earth to save Rocky, but that conflict lasted for about 20 pages.
Did the conflict even last for 20 pages? It felt like...20 sentences, at most. I thought the coward one was the weirdest one - he is like "ah man I'm gonna make Stratt pay!" and then...it's never addressed again. I don't mind that it's not super serious, his books are super fun, but I think he has the capability of doing more which is why I'd be interested to see him stretch himself a bit.
There were several very fast plot turns that stressed the g-forces of my enjoyment, spot on with this one. I wouldn’t have minded 100 more pages to do these right. Felt slightly over edited. But…. Not enough to sink my love for Rocky! Fist bump!!
An issue I had is that despite the small pool of candidates that could be trained and put into the coma, there would've been no way that they wouldn't have a catalog of backups for Grace. Only 3 for the main crew? No way. In reality we would've had atleat 3 to 6 for each position trained and ready to go.
Honestly, all your points were valid. I really like how you were respectable to both sides, and explained your justifications and thoughts. I personally liked project Hail Mary, the only negative thought I have about it was the lack of visuals for rocky or Rocky’s ship, since project Hail Mary was shown at the beginning of the book, I wasn’t exactly sure why they wouldn’t show Rocky’s ship. It did add a layer of mystery though! But overall, I enjoyed it. Lovely book, and I look forward to more books by Andy!
Grace was trained as the third because it was the most important crew position of the mission. She knew he could do the science but didn’t have the right stuff to be an astronaut. The commander and engineer could have been filled easily by another astronaut.
Just finished the book and wanted to get other views before writing my review on Goodreads. 1000% agree with you on every single point. The so-called jokes are jarring. Screaming and blubbing that he doesn't want to die. You will anyway if you don't go! Love your review.
You are the first critical review of Project Hail Mary I've seen. It's been on my radar, though I have yet to add it to be TBR. You've given me some food for thought.
Spoilers*** So I had seen the Martian movie, but hadn't read the book so I was also pretty taken aback when I realized how silly the character and tone was with that stuff. I was able to adjust to it easier than you were I think, but yeah it was a lot until I just accepted it lol *I also thought they tried to explain the memory loss and recovery with some in world explanation of how it worked, but I honestly can't remember lol*
Since I had never seen the Martian movie, I accepted the upbeat guy very quickly. But just seeing it repeated wasn't as fun, I think lol. Did they explain the memory loss thing? I swear it was just explained as normal memory loss but maybe I'm not remembering...
@@Bookborn I believe they do explain it. spoilers Stratt deliberately causes it, thinking that the people on the mission will just assume something went wrong with the stasis tech
@@jakebishop7822 I have no problem with the memory loss itself, but how it comes back. So I know the loss is explained - that tracks - but the fact that he remembers linearly is really weird haha
Another criticism that I struggled with was the lack of Earth-perspective beyond the flashbacks. I get that is simply not the writing style that was used but part of what helped the Martian to feeling like it had such high stakes was being able to blip back to earth, see NASA and JPL efforts and failures, and have more people to care about. In this book we never even got to see Humanities response to the rocket, their only hope, returning with the Telmeba after 25 or whatever years! Blip back to earth in the present time and remind the readers why we need to care so much! Let us follow his students a bit and whatch the hope fade and despair creep in as the decades pass of hearing nothing from Hail Mary. If there is a movie they need to incorporate this. I just want the feels.
Ooohhh EXCELLENT point. I was sort of sad we never got to see the aftermath. Like sure, we know that Earth SURVIVED but at what cost?? Like they blew up the Arctic and then the sun went back to normal. Now what lol
I agree with a lot of the points here, but I have a note to add about the “Grace is in all meetings” point. First of all, every meeting that we the audience hear about is going to include Grace because they’re his memories. The larger scale stuff of course is going to be handled by large groups, but the planning and recruiting project heads level is handled by a small group close to Stratt to cut down on bureaucracy and wasting time. Much more efficient to get things done at that scale. Grace was the first recruit, and just happened to be lucky enough to write a very specific scientific paper that seemed to fit the criteria of the astrophage. In doing so, he got the first chance to dig in and study them (and to get the first kill) and became the worlds leading expert on astrophage. As the plot centers around that problem, it makes sense. Redell has the plan for scalable breeding? Run it by the expert. Lokken has plans for a better astrophage ship design? Run it by the expert. Chapter 14 starts out with “Who would have thought saving the world could be so boring?” Personally it doesn’t bother me.
Question for all. Gap or am I not getting it? (Spoiler). If Grace was able to breed tauameoba to be nitrogen resistant but they actually only learned to protect themselves in the xenonite than they wouldn’t really be nitrogen resistant when released on Erid and Venus right? So how did the tauameoba avoid the nitrogen when not in Xenonite and seemingly saving the planets.
I just finished the book and the scene where Stratt forces Grace to join essentially a suicide mission against his will. It really went against type when initially given the choice, he said No. His reasoning was more personal, what with his caring for his students and what they would go through in the next couple of decades. Stratt thinks VERY long term, almost to the abstract. Humanity needs to be saved and she literally moved heaven and earth to get the project moving. I found it interesting that she could deal with governments and corporations (often by waving a pardon), but when dealing with a person face to face, isn't something she's good at dealing with. When Grace literally cried and begged her not to send him to his death, she either turned away or winced, probably not used to dealing with strong emotions, right up close and personal. Calling Grace a 'coward', etc, also didn't help my liking her. Not everyone is made to be a selfless hero, but I'm ambivalent over taking away his choice as well as violating him by taking away his memories (even if temporarily). My take anyway...
My interpretation was that the internal reason for his level of access was that he really was the second in charge, but Stratt was so antagonistic toward hierarchies and their attendant politics that the only way he'd ever find out was if something happened to her, which i was honestly kind of expecting given the set up. I expect she was also kinda relying on him to be a bit more of a check on her own actions than he ended up being. Those of us who hate authority and have seen it abused tend to be a little terrified when we find ourselves in positions where we have to wield it. Having someone around who can stand up to us is as comforting as it is practical. You kinda get a moment of the second in command idea when they're all watching the launch, and everybody seems to already know it but him and a number of them are so surprised that they aren't sleeping with each other. Externally it makes sense because it gives us first person exposition without needing any mor PoV charaters.
Great review - I loved this book and def one of the best books I've read. I struggled a lot with Grace's tone whenever it wasn't science related, it just didn't sit right. For example, when he remembers that he was forced into this mission - his first internal monologue is about how much he hates Stratt... and even when he finally starts to head back to Earth he says something along the lines of "I am coming for you Stratt" and "I am going to say so many bad things to you" - I feel like if his character had some growth and acknowledged how this ended up being the greatest experience any human has ever had in the history of humankind, that would've made him just sooo much better.. instead of him being bitter about being forced into this mission
I think it fit his personality really well. To me, it was more like being really mad at a close friend as opposed to outright hatred and contempt for Stratt. She was right to send him and he acknowledges that, but it doesn't mean he was happy about it. Stratt was like that through the whole book. Her execution wasn't always clean or empathetic, but she always got the job done
Some non-sequiturs in the plot, IMHO: -it's not clear how much electronic knowledge eridians have. However Rocky puts a telemetry on the sampling device, and also fixes something on Hail Mary lamenting the low efficiency of its DC system. So they must know something about electricity and radio waves, and once you know about it, you quickly discover relativity (antennas as accelerated charges and the like). Even more implausible is that they don't know quantum mechanics, since at the very beginning Rocky builds models of oxygen and ammonia atoms. -Wasn't the whole point of having two crews to keep them always separate? They couldn't board the same plane yet they were experimenting with astrophages together? -When Grace and Rocky collect the samples of Taumeba, I jumped in the seat at the idea that they were testing it without full hazmat equipment. It was an alien species, it could have caused terrible harm to the two astronauts. It causes damage to the spaceships in the end, but it should have been easily preventable, especially for a trained biologist. -when Rocky fixes the generators of the Hail Mary, he says that with some drops of Astrophage slurry they will run for don't remember how many years. So seems quite dumb to have had them connected to the main tanks in the first place. -flying at an angle in a gravity field, well below orbital velocity, couldn't last for long, at least without some kind of horizontal drag. In the book the description is not that clear, but it seems a bit like the attitude of a forward-flying helicopter. But here they are outside the atmosphere, any thrust in the horizontal direction would quickly accumulate well beyond the 100-200 kts it was claimed it was traveling at. One solution may be a circular motion, with the trust vector of the engines describing a sort of an outward cone. -I was waiting for an explanation of why the other two astronauts didn't survive the induced coma. Had it something to do with the french drug? Last thing, but this is a matter of personal taste, I'd have preferred him to fly back to the Earth and tell us what happens when earthlings see him come back. Also, the idea of having four years to choose between an induced coma and writing scientific papers made me laugh 😂
That dialogue example is gold XD Also ima keep an eye open about the memory loss thing in the comments also. Interested to see what people have to say.
Have you read it yet? I still think it's a super fun and good read. But yeah...some of the dialog...(although I heard it was better in audiobook since the narrator sold it)
Tbh I wouldn't be bothered about Grace being in all those meetings if it was revealed that they knew about the coma-resistant gene way earlier and Grace was chosen as a backup n2 that early for this reason. Or maybe if he wasn't as involved in the early stages of research, but then when the coma-resistant gene was found, he would suddenly get pulled into all the meetings.
Yeah, for the most part I go into a book wanting to go along with the author. It takes repeated "violations" to make me turn on an author (lol, I've done it, I'll admit)
evryone else thought of him as the second in command to stratt also. and they explained he would be given a drug to lose his memory so he wouldn’t freak out when he woke up on the rocket
I know this is a year old video, but I just listened to the book and it was so good! I agree with all your points about the positives, but I too scoffed during the first flashback when Grace made some remark about Californians. A lot of the other commenters are talking about the coma gene, but I honestly think the timing of its reveal made it a poor late book excuse. If I remember correctly, he was already practicing in EVA suits before he had his blood tested. It was also weird to me that Grace wouldn't even want to know he tested positive. If flashback Grace got his test results we could've had the opportunity to explore the conflict of his cowardice and responsibility and we could've had a better ramp up to him telling Stratt no. I think a tweak to the flashback timeline would've made the "secret third backup" reveal feel more earned. In the same vein, Grace's emotional reactions to Yao's and Ilyukna's (audiobook, no idea how they were spelled) corpses never paid off for me. They were introduced so late in the flashback narrative that I didn't actually believe he had strong enough bonds with them to warrant such visceral reactions.
Agreed, agreed, agreed! Really love the idea of him getting test results earlier so we could deal with that earlier in the novel. Overall though, the book was still so much fun.
i dont share many of your gripes, mine was the unclear timeline, how much time passes from the lunch with his friend to launching hail mary? or was this kept vague so that we wouldnt nit pick the sparse design of the hail mary? (i dislike the design of the ship, its sooo basic when alot of problems coulda been solved by building a big boat like the hermes from the martian)
@@petrino The reason they might not have used a Hermes-style ship might be because Project Hail Mary might not take place in the same timeline as The Martian, and thus that design is untested. As stated in the book, Stratt only uses rigorously-tested products, and the Apollo-like centrifuge has *kinda* been done before. (Emphasis on "kinda". I am aware the Apollo missions did not use cables and spin to make a centrifuge, but they did use a similar maneuver with the capsule detaching and turning around.) Also, the Hail Mary centrifuge is much more compact and space/mass efficient than the Hermes centrifuge, though I do not remember and reason for constraints in the book, other than the Hail Mary could likely be made much faster than the Hermes. I couldn't find any specific sources, but it looks like it took around a decade to make the Hermes in The Martian, and Earth just doesn't have that kind of time in Project Hail Mary. Lastly, you said "alot of problems coulda been solved" with the Hermes design, but you only specially named one. Might you go into more specifics?
Yeah, at this point I don't know if reading more space stories about the exact same character will be very fun. I'm very interested to see where his next book goes...
Guns at Dawn! JK. One thing I want to clarify is that a lot of people hated the main character of Artemis because she was essentially Mark Watney from The Martian but a girl. The character was exactly the same in tone and humor and it didn't work at all because it felt forced and has an entirely different tone coming from a female character. She was also bizarrely oversexualized. I would say my overall problem with Weir is that he has made all three of his protagonists essentially the same character. PS- I study neuroscience, the memory loss stuff was outrageous :) But none of that matters here :P This book was great. Listen to the audiobook. I'll gift you my copy. Amaze amaze amaze.
I mean I did say it was good good good. But it also had just a FEW wee problems 😂 I still gave it a four which is pretty high for me, tbh lol Rocky made me love him too much. Ok I hadn't heard that Artemis was the same character as Mark! I'd only heard the bizarrely over sexualized which had me nope out immediately. So then my statement def stands - I think Weird needs to try and stretch himself and try a different character. Because his plots (at least here and in the Martian) are excellent. (Although I thought Mark as a character worked well for the Martian).
I just finished listening to the book today. My main issue was that all of the math/physics/science information he knew was chalked up to “well I’m a science teacher and we know the strangest facts.” I would have liked for Grace to use the colossal digital library more.
I listened to the audiobook read by Ray Porter which confused me no end by putting me in mind of the Bobiverse - the moment bob realised he had a library at his fingertips he disappeared into it. I kept waiting for grace to do that too but no.
I felt my opinion of Hail Mary was fairly unpopular as well. I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent and I enjoyed the science in The Martian, but I honestly felt that Hail Mary had too much science in it. Sometimes the pages of explanation really got to me. So I wasn't a fan of that. And I also felt there were just too many convenient plot points for me. Like you I want to suspend disbelief and I don't always know why I can buy aliens like Rocky but find the circumstances surrounding his ending up in space to be too much. I honestly also felt that it was just too weird that he didn't want to go but then it didn't really change much of anything. I enjoyed the book, but I didn't like it as much as The Martian.
Your last point bothered me a lot. Like why have that be a plot point if it's going to be solved in a single paragraph? He shoves it off but we never get catharsis with it. I guess it was just used as an exciting reveal but I needed more there.
@@BookbornI've recently finished the book I've thought about this a bit and my conclusion so far is that 1. If you lose your memory of self wouldn't that change you as a person? If you suddenly remembered you have murdered someone would you then instantly accept you are a murderer? In a way, Grace is born on that space ship. Also 2. I believe that there's a character arc and personal growth here, where he didn't want to go on the mission because he would die but did it for Rocky and his people. Something related that did bother me was that Grace says he has no friends. I didn't get that impression. The first flashback has him meeting a friend from university which he meets weekly with for instance. Perhaps he thinks he has no friends or that he is bad with people (adults), which isn't true.
Overall I really liked it but my biggest flaw of the book was just how smart the protagonist is. He's a former microbiologist (my field) and highschool teacher and yet able to solve complex physics questions whenever the plot needed him too. Entire problems just seemed to be thrown in to show off how smart the protagonist is/ how much research Andy had done. Almost as if Andy stumbled on something, thought it was cool and wrote an entire plot point around it for the sake of it.
I had a lot of the same issues as you with this book, but one thing you didn’t touch on as much that I just couldn’t get over was Weir’s unwillingness to inspect more of the psychological effects on the main character (a complaint I also have with the Martian). So many of the crushing events get turned into “I was gonna miss him” or “sacrifices have to be made” or something similar just to get us to the next miraculous solution to an urgent problem. The other thing I just like could not stop thinking about was the “solution” of dumping a bunch of extra greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere to slow the effects of the astrophage when the thing that they were trying to do was, ostensibly, going to get the sun working properly again. Wouldn’t that just hasten the existing climate disasters? I was begging for an epilogue where like 200 years later humanity had to utilize their new understanding of xenonite and astrophage and whatever else to develop environments where humanity could survive as the planet became ultimately uninhabitable. At least that makes the discoveries that Grace sent back help in unexpected ways? Idk, maybe I’m just a bit too picky. It’s still enjoyable to read, but there are some definite weird vibes that snuck in along the way
I totally agree with your first criticism. I felt like the corny jokes and dialogue were really distracting, and I almost stopped reading. I didn’t realize this until watching your video, but the broken dialogue with Rocky did save the book! Overall, I loved it, but I totally agree a slightly different characterization would’ve been better!
Yeah I mean it’s for sure such a great book. I’ll never be over Rocky ❤️. I’m just hoping for a slightly different character next book from him!
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This book was great fun, but I also had a few problems with it. I think their mission was too vague, for starters. I mean... they discovered that something was happening (or not happening) in Tau Ceti so let´s just almost destroy the Earth sooner by building an extremely expensive spaceship and sending three people there to...hmmm... do what, exactly? I think it was too optimistic of them to assume that there would be something in Tau Ceti that would not only explain everything but also save Earth. Also Weir´s formula of building suspense ("I´m gonna die!!!! No...I´ll survive. No... I´m really gonna die this time! No...everything is fine" gets repetitive after time. But, as I said, the book is really funny; Whatney is a really good charac.... I mean, Grace, and Rocky rocks!
LOVE this review. subscribing. I am a coma/NDE survivor and so the dialog about comas, coma resistance and whatnot made enough sense for me. I had problems with the flashback characterizations as well.
Regarding the lack of serious reflection on the major earth-side decisions (e.g., ice caps) I'm now realizing I borrowed heavily from the rumination the Three Body problem series forced on similar topics. That series, for all of its dialogue and characterization faults, did a great job at forcing the reader to really confront the morality of big human-species affecting decisions. I guess, in reading Hail Mary, I borrowed from that angst so didn't need this book to spend too much time revisiting the same emotions. It's just hard to capture the feelings of media, countries, and billions of individuals on topics like that with a single-view-point and character driven story like Hail Mary was. Overall, like many, I think I was willing to ignore these flaws just because I enjoyed the overall story/ride SO much.
Yeah, that's totally fair. And I think *trying* to focus on the feelings of all those viewpoints would've watered down the story and not made it what it was - a fast-paced Weir story. I think I just needed a *little* more discussion on the consequences, I couldn't help it 😆 I mean either way, a 4 star is a high rating for me and I told several people they should read it lol. The fun/exciting nature of it for sure outweighs the negative. But, I will be interested to see if Weir branches out for his next book...
Weir himself actually admits he has difficulty with dialogue and characterisation in the interview attached to Project Hail Mary on Audible. I find it interesting that the author knew possible criticisms beforehand but was unable to make the chages required. Do you guys think it was laziness or the book was the book too far along? I really would like to hear some theories.
It irked me that Weir explained the lack of swearing by Grace being a teacher. Don't get me wrong, obviously you can't swear in your classes but that doesn't mean your internal monologue needs to speak like a cartoon character. I've known enough teachers to see how that works out Rocky is bae tho
Rocky is bae bae bae! Yeah I thought it was an interesting character choice to make (perhaps to contrast him with Mark from The Martian and make him seem ~different?) But it felt a little silly. I find most teachers have teacher persona and have different language at home easily lol
My problem with the book was the science. Not because I couldn't understand it, but because the numbers Weir picked seem totally absurd. The temperature and pressure for the aliens means that there was no way in hell this "hard science" scenario would have worked, even with sci-fi material. Weird could have picked 3 atmospheres instead of 20-something, and 120 celsius instead of 300-something. Nothing would have changed in the story, but it would have made the science plausible. The same goes for the weird chain, the structural damages involved and the biology that manages to escape through the toughest material. Yep. That about all the science in the book. And if you understand the science, the numbers involved kill all your suspension of disbelief. So, in my head canon, the numbers are more "hard-science-compatible", and the book is great. Grace was not allowed to be in all the meetings It's just that you aren't told of any meeting that Grace wasn't included. He was included in he important ones for reasons discussed in the story. He was trained to fill any possible vacant position, not just the science teacher - he was trained to be the wildcard, if needed.
I definitely agree on the plot of him being the tertiary position for the science position all along and having to be in every meeting. The way Stratt always had him by her side was just kinda off for me. But literally everything else was amazing. I loved the concepts he had of the Rocky's biology and his species' progression of science given their senses, understanding of nature, etc. Would have been cool to have a little backstory for Rocky and his experience of life before meeting Grace, but he is one of my favorite alien characters now. Love the alien sarcasm. I will say as far as the dialog goes, you HAVE to try the audiobook, probably saved the book for me then since I'm not great with internal dialog. Ray Porter does an incredible job giving a sense of Grace's emotion, and just a stellar reading performance overall. I enjoyed the planetary science and the ideas for practical engineering solutions for the problems that arose. Anyway, you get it, I liked the book. It's a top one I want on my shelf.
I think I've discovered my inner voice isn't great on some humorous characters. Because I've heard a LOT in books like this that the audio narrator helps you hear the voice in a way that makes it less cheesy.
such a gorgeous book. *spoilers below* . . . I see what you're saying about the flashbacks. It was kinda weird and I wish that we had seen a little bit more of a plan in mind for the Grace being the Third backup. I definitely guessed it ahead of time, but it was a Dune situation because we knew where the story *had* to go, so it wasn't that much of a mystery. As to your comment on the morality and humor sometimes clashing, absolutely. Like setting off nukes in the arctic? the reader needs a little bit of time to process that. just a smidge. lay off the humor. Part of me also wishes that he went into a little bit more depth into the language translation process, but I understand that might've bogged down the book a bit if he did too much of it (for most people, not me)
I knew he WOULD get on the ship, but I didn't think it would be forced, so that was a surprise. I literally thought he was going to volunteer because it was the only option. I just feel like the boss (Stratt? I can't remember) saying "I've been planning you as the backup this whole time" was...weird. Totally agree about the translation thing. I actually thought that while reading, but let it go because I realized that he probably didn't want to slow the plot too much. It felt a little hand-wavy and too easy, but those are things I'll accept if I'm enjoying a book haha
As far as Artemis goes, I still think it is a really good book and I do really like the MC Jazz. I don't think the story as a whole was as impactful or powerful to me as his others. I still loved it, I would definitely put it in 3rd out of his main 3. I loved PHM, and The Martian though I would say i liked PHM the most. It also led me to read the bobiverse which is an amazing series and a perfect follow up to PHM.
SPOILERS Honestly I thought Grace was just coping to his situation most of the time. He doesn’t always explicitly state it but it seems quite evident given the situation. Hence the abundance of jokes provided. Regarding explanation why Grace was in every meeting, the explanation Stratt provided he was the back up made enough sense. It would have been weirder as you said they would be 3 people around Stratt the whole time because they would suspect something going on. I do agree the side cast could have been given more depth, though for a sci fi the ideas and how execute it feel more important. Like humanity joining up for a single goal. I am not sure if I would want this book remotely like FL tbh. Joe kinda pacing would clash with this book fast pace energy. I know your talking about characters but I still think would have clashed with the pacing. But yeah side cast ain’t his strength though main cast Stratt, Grace and Rocky were great. The memory loss criticism, yeah I can definitely get that it’s my minor critique. Though yeah it basically works that way for the structure of the novel and a realistic depiction would have probably killed the deliberate pacing of it all. So kinda lose lose situation. Be more accurate to reality and disrupt the pacing or be a bit unrealistic to create this awesome structure. I really enjoy his first person present in this, it was quite immersive to the experience. Felt like you were there in a given situation. Regarding what you loved agree those were awesome. Glad you loved the novel I did audio and physical at the same time it’s funny how they differ slightly. Seeing notes being actually played and rocky voice having a very unique sound design thing going on.
I think I just needed more introspection in his personal thoughts. I definitely think it works as a coping mechanism but it just feels that people won't 100% of the time be joking in their own running inner thoughts, you know? But yeah, I still enjoyed the book a lot!
I'm just so glad I'm not the only one! ❤️ I agree esp with how the MCs of both books sound so alike! Both are great books but I really loved The Martian more. It has the right amount of everything! Happy to discover your channel. I'll be binge watching your other videos!❤️
2 points of clarification. He's coma resistant that's why he's "the third" straat (listened to AB, not sure if that's her name I'm going from my Dutch) and two the drug was the reason he had memory loss it's explained but I agree I also don't like it it's too contrived. On Artimis though. I love it because Jaz is so different, she's flawed in interesting ways. Also if you look at the three books as a AW literature universe it'll give you the true ending the PHM (kinda, it's my head cannon but it made PHM sit well with me in the end gave it a nice bow)
I agree with most of your gripes about the book, except of the why was he allowed to be in every meeting. It seemed to me that Stratt kept him around as a moral counter to herself. Like, he proved himself at the beginning and by demanding he was included, and after that Stratt just saw a friend in him. That's how I saw it. That didn't bother me as much as the 1 dimensional main character and the memory loss.
Ok this is the best explanation I’ve seen of that and I’ll buy it - although some of the training he did still doesn’t make a ton of sense (thinking of the underwater space suit training but maybe at that time she’d already decided he was her third)
It was a classified highly specific type of drug that caused the memory issue, right? I've no doubt something that causes temporary amnesia manifesting in a similar way could be created. The explanation for its use made perfect sense. I thought the tone of the whole book was... Amaze! Agree to disagree, question?
I agree with the points about dialogue, they did feel clunky. And I was getting really worried near the end because if this very humourous book ended with the suicide mission after all I was gonna rate it low, so I was glad it didn't end that way, because like you said the tone of the book was very much like "they struggle to be serious during very significant scenes".
I think the example you showed was very cheesy but that’s an element of all the characters, especially Stratt. She’s supposed to be over the top prissy and demanding and dramatic because she literally has the whole world at her disposal.
The main issue with Artemis was that there were character interactions and they all felt clunky. Chatting with Rocky is meant to be clunky so that works but with real people feels wrong.
She kept him around because she trust him. Her expertise was in administration, not science. Maybe because he taught to kids, his way of explaining was simple and easy to understand. But What makes u think he was at every meeting, he is the story teller, so of course he is at every meeting he attends. I did think the memory loss was weird. As far was why the other crew members didn’t have a “third” back up. I think a lot of people could have taken those spots. Lots of people were trained to fly the space shuttle, not so many would know so much about the astrophage (more than 3 I am sure) but not too many. One of the things that bothered me was how they got the ameba with the 100000 foot chain. The get the Hail Mary set up to keep them in orbit with the weight of the chain on the ship, then drop the chain and they don’t need to adjust the Beatles at all, and someone pick up the amebas and bring it back up. All that weight never bothered the Hail Mary? That’s weird. But threw most of the book I was wondering why they sent a school teacher
Oh I want to listen to this but I haven’t read the book. Now I don’t know if I should read it. Would you recommend it? Does the positive outweigh the negative?
I absolutely still recommend it! I am glad I read it and have already told others to read it. I just had to talk about some of the negatives, but I think the positives outweigh them for sure.
I also enjoyed most of the book, but felt pretty much all characters are underdeveloped and unrealistic. Stratt is a robot, Grace has no social life and only cares about teaching. Those are very one dimensional traits.
He explains the memory loss on grace being drugged by a French intelligence drug. I am more bugged that Rocky's race was able to evolve at all. With us humans, we evolve by mutations. Usually by radiation (alpha, beta, gamma or ultraviolet). It changes our DNA and sometimes we did, or sometimes it bestows a positive trait, like big green eyes, or protection against a disease. How did Rocky's race evolved In a planet with such a thick atmosphere and huge magnetic field. No radiation, no mutations, no fast evolution.
I picked up this book as my Book of the Month pick, a long time ago, and have not yet read it. But I do plan on reading sometime after Halloween. I have read Weir's other books, in fact I loved the Martian but DNFed Artemis. But I look forward to reading this soon.
I would def still recommend it! I enjoyed it a lot, just wasn't the all-out perfection that a lot of people have claimed lol. The Martian was amazing, but I'm glad I skipped Artemis - I heard a lot of not-stellar things about it.
You echoed my opinions on the book almost exactly. All I could think was that the book was so cool but why do all the characters have to be so... goofy? "I bounced from one foot to the other like a little kid while waiting for the results." I just couldn't picture a full grown man researching an alien life form for the sake of mankind doing this. But yes, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
I hated the ending. Once Dr. Grace figured out the reason for the Taumoeba leak, my first thought was f*@k Rocky. Grace, just go back to Earth and be Earth's hero, the leak on Rocky's ship is Rocky's problem, f*@k Rocky. I really wanted to see how life turned out on Earth. Did the world stay together or desend into a horrific world war. I did appreciate that Weir lightly touched on, through his character Stratt, that the world cases of death was not going to be distributed homogeneously throughout the world. My earlier thought, well before the scene of Stratt explaining to Dr. Grace, her predictions of how life on earth was going to devolve, was that the first world, specifically the United States would not just sit back and let it population freeze and starve to death while people living near the equator just went on living. My thought was that the wealthy people (at least those that are sociopaths) of the world would likely just invade the tropics in order to maintain their standards of living. I also enjoyed the part where businesses were still worried about intellectual property rights and profits, while the world was heading towards the apocalypse. (The scene were Stratt was in court asking for a lawsuit to be thrown out.) This scene reminds me of a scene in the book "My Work Is Not Yet Done" by Thomas Ligottii, where the main protagonist of the book briefly talks about how meaningless capitalism can be, by talking about how most companies strive to make as much profit as possible and beat the competition until they are the only company around and the must world bend to them, and all that this company has to offer its consumers, is nothing, in return the consumers must give everything to the company. Much like a group of people producing nothing but profits, a group of people that decides to be bogged down with capitalism and not save the World, is missing the whole point of life. I can't help but to think that Weir wrote in the court room scene as a bun on how certain groups of people continue to fight climate change or how certain groups of people are still fighting the solutions available to end the Covid pandemic. Overall I thought the book was an engaging read, once I got past the fact that the book was primarily written in the 1st person. I personally find a book more engaging when it is primarily written in the 3rd person. I find that the 1st person view point is a bit narcissistic.
lol noooo how could you be so unforgiving to Rocky 😭 But i'll agree that I was super bummed we didn't get to see how Earth fared. I had so many questions. Like, sure, we found out that the Sun returned to it's normal temp - but remember they destroyed the arctic?? Like what global warming hell are they dealing with now? But I understand why Weir didn't do it - I think it would've been really hard to wrap up stuff back on earth if he went back... Honestly, this book had a TON of interesting ideas within it. Intellectual property, the whole arctic thing, how the end of the world would disproportionately affect different communities...he could honestly write another book with the same themes and have it be a super serious book.
I love that not everybody loved the book. I have also mixed feelings about it. It was decent on the whole, and there was a lot I liked about it. But the portrayal of the scientists, I just can't. It was horrible. Also (have not read the martian), but science in this, it felt off, not just the forgetting pills, the whole thing.
It’s funny because Weir is known for his science. At least in the Martian, anyway. But I completely agree it felt off here. I was ok going along with it to be entertained, but it all sort of stances up n
I completely agree with the point about Grace being too cheesy and the dialog feeling corny at times in flashbacks. Stratt came across as a bit of a shallow stereotypical hardass character. To address why she wasn't training anyone else, I think it was because no one else had the coma gene. However, this doesn't explain why she wasn't training anyone else even before they learned about the coma gene...
I am exactly on the same page with you, re: the beginning of the book… In the beginning it just seemed like Mark Watney in a new situation, but I did get over it in the first 50-100 pages. I actually enjoyed a lot of the aspects of the book though that you took issue with. Would recommend this highly to any scifi fan
Counterpoint: Imagine that Hail Mary had been released before The Martian instead of after and then compare both books. Ryland Grace is still essentially the same character as Mark Watney, but in both cases I'd argue that Hail Mary was the better *story* of the two. Andy Weir's limitations as a storyteller apply equally to all of his books regardless of the order in which they were released.
Great point about the tone of the character. I think you nailed it. It drove me crazy how he geeked out on every science discovery. It was kind of cringey. Also the moral question of a scientific authoritarian regime made me wish the book expanded on the issue more. But anyway, I liked your review but I’m a bit more negative on the book that you.
Hello Bookborn, can I say miss Bookborn? I am terrible at these things but just wanted to say, loved the review! Without specifically articulating it to anybody I did have similar misgivings about the story as you but I was brought up on Clarke, Asimov, Niven, etc so maybe it's just modern writers? Lots of modern books just seem a bit off. Loved the book though and like you said the science was mind-blowing and cool and a great alien character. The whole story was very optimistic though, given the problems arising.At the end of the day the book does creep into my top 100 though, such a fun, puzzle tech laden first contact story 4/5.
I loved it, myself. But I definitely think it would've been better targeted to a young-adult audience. I enjoy all kinds of books, even the occasional foray into the cheese territory that permeates young adult novels. Hail Mary definitely felt like it fit that mold better than hard sci-fi, for me
I did the book on audible. The negative imo was some of the flashback midway the book was too much science formulas and stuff i have no idea was. When i wanted instead to learn more about rocky xD The morals and dilemmas you talked about didnt really care much about that. Gotta do what you gotta do^^ also i liked the guy that did the voice for it
Right now I'm reading The Object by Joshua Calvert. Interesting hard science fiction but I wish it had been given the Andy Weir treatment for the characters. They are all flat and kind of dry. There is dialogue but it feels like one person is describing dialogue so the characters are only differentiated by their deeds than by their personalities. I do understand a little about the Grace character. He is the "lovable but unlikely hero" for the story. This may sound mean, but almost like Forest Gump with a knack for science (The original Forest Gump novel had him as a physics savant) . But over all I really enjoyed The Hail Mary Project.. I was hard pressed to find a book I enjoyed as much until I read the The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. Note. When I say read, it usually means listen to. A narrator can make or break a book.
I tend to really enjoy having some ideas and 'moral of the story' thrown at me by the end of a story. PHM didn't do that, at Weir's own admission as well. He stated in the interview he had no moral of the story or grand ideas. He just wanted to talk about science. Great book, definitely the most thrilling I've read. Ultimately doesn't stick with me so much, despite my extremely positive experience with it.
I actually liked this more than The Martian because I thought it was an overall better and more thought provoking story. I agree that the main characters in both books were basically the same person. I thought it was a little weird, but it ultimately didn’t bother me much. If you had read Project Hail Mary first, you probably would have liked the Martian less than you do now because you’d have the same main character complaint. So I think for some people, whichever of these books they read first is the one they will like more.
Somehow I missed this video! I did not read The Martian so everything in Project Hail Mary felt new and I really loved the main character and humor. I wasn't bothered by him being a part of all the meetings. It seemed normal to me! I only gave it 4 stars for different reasons. I was really upset I didn't get to see people's reaction on earth to all of his discoveries. Like, that REALLY bothered me!😅
I'd be super interested to see what you thought of the Martian if you ever read it! I wonder if the first one you read matters! Ok, I was so sad about that too. Like, he saved everyone! What was happening on earth? What did they think of alien life? Did they never try to send someone out to find out??? Did melting the polar ice caps screw everything up when the Sun returned to normal? lol
@@Bookborn Yes! I was SO EXCITED about all the discoveries he was making that I NEEDED to know exactly what he put in those capsul ships. And I NEEDED to know their reaction. lol. It really lowered the end of the book for me. Good point about the polar ice caps! I don't know if I'll get around to the Martian cause I've seen the movie😬
I think it’s set up really nicely for a sequel, I really hope it comes. When Eridians go with Grace back to earth and also to look for intelligent life. Also it will be so amazing to see what happens when people realize he’s still alive
2 points of clarification. 1. The reason Stratt included him in all the meetings was due to his genetic disposition to have high ‘coma tolerance’. This was quite rare and enhanced his potential as a replacement greatly. 2. The reason why his memory recall was unusual was because it wasn’t due to brain injury but was the result of medication - developed by the French secret service to suppress recall - which gradually wore off.
Can you elaborate on point 2? Is it even possible to suppress memory chronologically?
Personally I think the reason Stratt kept grace was as a moral compass. Stratt new people and their abilities. And so she knew she was a well oiled machine to get the job done. She needed someone she could trust to be genuinely good and couldn't be corrupted. Ironically she does to him, what he prevented her from doing the entire way.
Problem for 1, was that he was included for such a long time before they even did the test for the generic marker...
Weird how people seem to don't remember important points in the book
I wouldn't even say he was included in all the meetings. He very clearly was not, but they were first-person flashbacks. It would break narration to switch to a 3rd person omniscient POV
Basically, he was just a part of every meeting that he was a part of
re: why grace was in every meeting
cause he tested positive for having that unique gene trait that allowed him to survive long comas.
re: why he can remember things linearly
because the drug that was used to wipe his mind made him forget the most recent events that happened to him so the first ones to come back were the oldest (but also it just makes senseas a narrative device)
1) He was already around for a long while before they tested for the gene
@@brandonwoohoobecause he was still one of the lead scientists of astrophage. the book is narrated from his perspective
5/5 book for me. Andy is very optimistic in how he sees the human race tackling an issue of this magnitude and I hope he's right about it. I think this is going to be a movie and I can't wait to see Tau Ceti, planet Adrian and Rocky's homeworld on the big screen (albeit he described it as being pitch black). Plus, the vision in my head of Rocky doing jazz hands is adorable and they better include that in the film
I don't like the cast though, Ryan Gosling as MC... He's more of the grumpy sarcastic type, he just doesn't radiate optimism to me.
I can't wait too! There better be ROcky jazz hands!
@@soukaina1113 My first reaction was not positive too. But I heard Andy Weir say Ryan Gosling is very excited about playing a more comedic optimistic role. He says he is sick of being cast in “Ryan Gosling looking moody staring out window” roles, or that is how Andy Weir put it. If he is really invested in the role and wants to bust out of the image he has been typecast into it should be interesting.
i want to see rocky
While reading Chapter 🎶🎶, I envisioned Erid as the Heptapods’ side of the wall in “Arrival.” As long as I see “20 little Eridians bouncing around like idiots…” I’ll be happy, happy, happy.
Grace basically saved the world when he figured out how to farm the Astrophage, and he is one of the only people Stratt trusts to be impartial and scientific about all the decisions because of his reputation. She keeps him around because he clearly has valuable insight, has no allegiances to world powers, and clearly is a much-better "people person". His ability to make friends with almost everyone he meets and willingness to compromise comes in handy for her, and she isn't too proud to see that. That's why I believe he is in every meeting.
I should've clarified: Most of the meetings I'm cool with. Like all the science meetings? Sure. He was the first to do it, and she likes his boldness. But when she was having him practice in the space suit? I literally could not figure out ANY reason he'd be doing that. Why would he even think it was reasonable? That was the scene that really pulled me out.
@@Bookborn she did explain that the reason she had him training in the EVA suit and various other things he shouldn't have had any involvement was because he was always meant to be a backup in case the worst happened
@@Bookborn The eva training was after Stratt knew about Grace being coma resistant. It's out of order in the book because of the memory drug
I choose to ignore the words "both" "and" and "bad" in this title
So you don't hate me too much now, I did still give it a 4 and recommend it 😁
I loved it. The audiobook narration was particularly fantastic. After finishing and thinking about it, I was a little confused about a few things. Like why does Ryland remember being a "crew" with Yáo and Ilyukhina? I was also disappointed that he never played any music for Rocky. It would have been fun to see what he thought of it.
For me the audiobook narration is meh. He’s great when he reads it straight and awful when he voice “acts”
@@FPChris that's a very surprising opinion to me. I was very impressed with the voice acting. Is there an audiobook youd recommend that demonstrates great voice acting?
Or take a picture of a freaking alien?
@@glennchamberlain1737Andy Serkis’s The Hobbit, the Tim Dale Harry Potter series, and a few with Will Wheaton narrating. Sort of cheating but Enders Game Alive and Dune both have casts of narrators, and they’re super well done.
Stratt(?) (the woman in black, literally) literally tells him why she was keeping him around. I won't spoil anything, but the timing of every flashback that Grace experiences completely explains why he was kept around. After finishing the book, I almost started questioning my own sanity, and that Grace was always meant to be THE guy. I still wonder if Stratt goes to sleep with a huge grin on her face, knowing that she pulled this gigantic, galactic master plan off. The White Room scenario, AKA the amnesic hero coming to terms with his past, was so good. I cried at the end of the book. I am giving this book a strong 9. And I"m not giving it a 10 simply because I can't give something a 10 unless it literally fists my bump out. Jazz my hands, Rocky.
Book is good! Good good good!
This is definitely one of my favorites of the year…but that might be partially because I’m a science nerd, haha. It was very similar to the Martian, but I actually found myself liking this book more. The dynamic with Rocky really elevated this one for me, I think. I loved the problem solving scenarios as well as the moral and ethical questions posed.
I can see why you may have been frustrated by the items you mentioned, but for whatever reasons they didn’t really take me out of the story.
A lot of people complain about stories I love too, lol, I think some things just hit us all differently. Rocky was definitely a stand out. I could honestly have a follow up on this with just Rocky x Grace shenanigans lol
I JAZZ HANDS loved the book. It was YES YES YES great. I did want a longer ending and would love a sequel. Fist Bump
Project Hail Mary was one of my favorite books I've read this year. For me, it's one of those rare books where I definitely see the issues, but for some reason still absolutely love the book despite it all and gave it five stars. I agree with all of your criticisms except the one about Grace not being serious enough. I listened to the audiobook and the delivery of Grace's lines and thoughts by the narrator were the perfect balance. In some of the jokes you could hear a sense of anxiety and stress in his voice, which made the tone more serious. So maybe this criticism really depends on your internal voice while reading.
I actually wondered about this while reading and should have mentioned it in the video - I wondered if audio book made it seem less like that. I don't really like audiobooks so I'll never choose to read them, but I could see how it might help here. Either way I still gave it a 4 and would highly recommend it to people - I liked the good parts enough to forgive the bad (for me).
@@Bookborn That's understandable, but also just so you're aware, the PHM audiobook specifically I would say is better than the physical book, because instead of music notes you get the actual sounds, and when Rocky speaks it's through a voice changer that makes him sound alieny 😁
@@Language42 haha that is probably a super fun experience! But I also felt the little music notes were so cute. It endeared me to him still haha
@@Language42 I listened to the audiobook as well, and it was, hands-down, my best audiobook experience ever. Ray Porter did an amazing job on Grace's voice, and the whole Rocky language... just...wow. What a production. I had the same thought about whether @Bookborn would like the audio better, but it sounds like she's pretty sure of her 4 ;) This was a great review. It covered the big bases. Nice job!
The tone of the book is actually really important as it mellows out the intensity of the scientific jargon throughout. I also think that the tone of the central character is what makes the reveal that he refuses to go so effective.
Honestly, I really liked Grace's character in the end, though I'll admit the first chunk of the novel felt a little awkward.
The thing that hurt the novel the most for me was how the world's governments listened to scientists about a massive global problem and came together to solve it is completely hand waived away. In a book about first contact and traveling near the speed of light to other stars, the thing which strained believability most was leaders listening scientists.
yea that kinda sucks how the world be like that
Interesting. Would have made for two survival stories. Stratt’s pre launch mission and Grace’s post launch mission, both with flawed heros. More interesting character depth… hard to pull off!
I just finished this book and I loved it, especially the ending. As the pages were running out, I got more and more anxious because I realized that I was NOT going to find out what was happening on Earth, were they at war? was Stratt still alive? etc. But the ending left me in a great place. I think your comments are all valid, the sheer coincidence that him and Rocky were exploring the star at the same time was something that bothered me for a while... but I got over it 😅
It's one of those though things because I desperately want to know what's happening on Earth but I also recognize that it would probably be really hard to write in a satisfying way
That they were there at the same time was pretty coincidental to me as well, until I realized just how long Rocky had been there... 😯
@@Bookborn I would even like to see a 2nd book about what happened back there but, it's andy weir. He'll continue about the space.
@@cankervan7219 He said in an interview that he has ideas for a sequel, but I don't think he's deep into writing it. At least that's the impression I got.
That Grace didn't know about pair production (yet knew lots about cosmic rays, which, spoiler alert, produce cosmic showers in the atmosphere in part due to it) was a real whiplash-moment for me. The only reason he didn't is because Andy wanted to cram an expositional explainer into the dialogue.
Great book. Really enjoyed it. The major problem I had was that every chapter or so there would be a moment of something good happening and then something going wrong. I get that space is very complicated and crazy stuff would happen, but it would just be like, “Success!” and then instantly, “Oh crap!”
Grace is definitely on the spectrum somewhere in this book. He struggles to relate to his peers and has his obsessive interests and what not. I did like how for awhile he has a little friend group though.
THIS
I think Stratt kept Grace close to appear more human in front of her subordinates. She knew she appeared cold, amoral and generally frightening. She had to be that way but she also needed something that would balanced it. So, she used him as her spokesperson and basically as her mascot. With his character, his backstory and his "not importantness" he was actually great for that role among all those soldiers, scientists and politicians. He also had not any ties, any side allegiances. His loyalty was only to the world and humanity so she could trust him. Also, she was not a scientist so having someone with his versatile intellect with complete insight into things was valuable. But even with all that I agree that it was sloppy.
I agree with all of your criticisms but for me it was Andy Weir being Andy Weir so I waved my hand over it. After Artemis, which had more serious tone (and was good ), I am glad he returned to more cheesy style. It just suites him more.
I think that reasoning totally works except for the scene where he's in the space suit. That's actually the one that made me think of this criticism first and then started bugging me lol. For some reason the science meetings all were fine but then when he started doing astronaut training i just couldn't understand why even Grace as a character would be doing it??
I loved Grace as a character! Sure he had some cringey lines, first one that comes to mind “I’m am Pendulus, something something in my bedsheet toga” Personally, I don’t swear casually so that aspect didn’t bother me in the slightest. Besides a little cringe, I loved his goofiness.
The friendship between Rocky and Grace is so well written. The ending SPOILERS when he basically makes a skidding u-turn to go and save his friend and eventually living with him for the rest of his life is suuuuuch a good ending.
If you’re looking for Sci-Fi book recommendations, or if anyone else is, Seveneves by Neal Stephenson is my favorite.
I actually didn't mind the not-swearing only because I think swearing is overused, but I think it's somehow how his entire personality was worked together that came off cheesy. That being said, I agree - his and rocky's relationship was just the best!
what caused Yáo and Ilyukhina to die question ?
I agree, one of the main unanswered questions.
5/5 for me, only thing I kinda was sad about is that we never got to see how thing worked out on earth, but I get why we didn’t.
I absolutely loved this book and it is one of my favourites ever! I do think you have a lot of reasonable points and it was nice to hear a different view!
Yeah I mean it was still a four star book for me! I enjoyed it a lot, but there were just a few things I couldn't look past lol. I must protect Rocky at ALL COSTS
@@Bookborn yes Rocky is sacred child and we must protect him for Adrian!
Just finished the book and really don’t think Grace was too unserious. Also, they hammered home the coma gene thing and Stratt straight up said that’s a large reason he was kept around as her 2. She also explained how the drug would specifically affect his memory memory loss like it did. Seems like if those were your two big gripes, you just missed a couple pieces given towards the end of the flashback sequences.
He was trained to be the backup because he was one of the few people who could survive the medically induced coma and knew a lot about the Astrophage.
As someone who really enjoyed this book, I took Graces Tone as his perspective, basically what we are hearing in his head, not necessarily what was happening. To your 2nd point, how do we know he was in every meeting? We are only seeing the meetings he was actually in. In fact, we get the meeting at the end, only when he was brought into it and it apparently started early. So, Weir wasn't showing us everything else going on around project Hail Mary, only what Grace saw. Additionally, how do you know there wasn't a 3rd candidate for the other two? Grace was the only one that was needed. As far as the memory loss goes, it was handwaved away by saying that some other country was on the leading edge of interrogation where they use this drug that causes memory loss. That combined w/ the comma could have some complications that we aren't aware of.
Plus, iirc his boss had him genetically tested and he was a good candidate for the space coma thing, so she had the foresight to prep him for the mision in case something went bad
Grace is a grade school teacher turned astronaut. His mind filters his thoughts and words for kids. knowing a ton of teachers The fact that he is corny fits that to a T. He was also the first to discover the reproductive cycle and is the leading expert on astrophage. It makes since that the person growing the fuel is closely tied to the project.
I would agree with most of what she said here. I'd like to add one thing. It's about the way Rocky sensed his environment. It didn't make sense to me, but it could just be because I don't know sonar as well as I think I do.
So how could he see through a solid wall? That's my question. If it's loud in your house, you close the door between you and the noise to quiet it. Also, if he could see through the wall, why could he see the object behind the wall? Why not just see through everything?
If anyone has an explanation, I'd love to understand.
Yeah from what I understand Sonar can't go through walls, but I assumed Rocky was also perhaps sensing vibrations or things of that nature and not just sound? I don't really know haha
@@Bookborn Hi there!
Yeah, I guess it's possible that Rocky just has more behind his "vision" than what was explained.
Also, I thought it might make you glad to know that a good part of my motivation to finish this book (I'm a VERY slow reader, so it's hard sometimes) was to watch this video! Thanks for making it!
Glass is transparent yet you see a piece of glass if you hold it in your hand. Same for sound waves. Depending on the inner damping of the material and variations of sound speed across various media, a wall may be completely transparent down to opaque. Same for any object: a mass of sound absorbing material would appear the equivalent of our "black".
Yeah, even I felt the same way.
The book was just good not extraordinary
Well we weren't told about the meetings he didn't attend, no?
Reading Andy Weir is like doing physics homework and listening to a stand-up special while riding a rollercoaster. An enjoyable combination for sure, but I wish his narrative structure was a bit stronger. He doesn't set up situations far enough in advance to maximize emotional payoff. It's just: problem arises, problem is analyzed, problem is solved.
I want internal conflicts, which we do get (SPOILER ALERT) when it is revealed he was a coward before the launch, and he later sacrifices his return to Earth to save Rocky, but that conflict lasted for about 20 pages.
Did the conflict even last for 20 pages? It felt like...20 sentences, at most. I thought the coward one was the weirdest one - he is like "ah man I'm gonna make Stratt pay!" and then...it's never addressed again. I don't mind that it's not super serious, his books are super fun, but I think he has the capability of doing more which is why I'd be interested to see him stretch himself a bit.
There were several very fast plot turns that stressed the g-forces of my enjoyment, spot on with this one. I wouldn’t have minded 100 more pages to do these right. Felt slightly over edited. But…. Not enough to sink my love for Rocky! Fist bump!!
An issue I had is that despite the small pool of candidates that could be trained and put into the coma, there would've been no way that they wouldn't have a catalog of backups for Grace. Only 3 for the main crew? No way. In reality we would've had atleat 3 to 6 for each position trained and ready to go.
Honestly, all your points were valid. I really like how you were respectable to both sides, and explained your justifications and thoughts. I personally liked project Hail Mary, the only negative thought I have about it was the lack of visuals for rocky or Rocky’s ship, since project Hail Mary was shown at the beginning of the book, I wasn’t exactly sure why they wouldn’t show Rocky’s ship. It did add a layer of mystery though! But overall, I enjoyed it. Lovely book, and I look forward to more books by Andy!
Grace was trained as the third because it was the most important crew position of the mission. She knew he could do the science but didn’t have the right stuff to be an astronaut. The commander and engineer could have been filled easily by another astronaut.
Just finished the book and wanted to get other views before writing my review on Goodreads. 1000% agree with you on every single point.
The so-called jokes are jarring. Screaming and blubbing that he doesn't want to die. You will anyway if you don't go!
Love your review.
It's hard because so much of it's so good! But yeah, something about the tone felt jarring at times. The attitude worked better in The Martian, imo.
You are the first critical review of Project Hail Mary I've seen. It's been on my radar, though I have yet to add it to be TBR. You've given me some food for thought.
I know 😬 But I mean, I still did really like it, but it wasn't the perfection a lot of people were saying it was, imo.
Spoilers***
So I had seen the Martian movie, but hadn't read the book so I was also pretty taken aback when I realized how silly the character and tone was with that stuff. I was able to adjust to it easier than you were I think, but yeah it was a lot until I just accepted it lol
*I also thought they tried to explain the memory loss and recovery with some in world explanation of how it worked, but I honestly can't remember lol*
Since I had never seen the Martian movie, I accepted the upbeat guy very quickly. But just seeing it repeated wasn't as fun, I think lol. Did they explain the memory loss thing? I swear it was just explained as normal memory loss but maybe I'm not remembering...
@@Bookborn I believe they do explain it.
spoilers
Stratt deliberately causes it, thinking that the people on the mission will just assume something went wrong with the stasis tech
@@jakebishop7822 I have no problem with the memory loss itself, but how it comes back. So I know the loss is explained - that tracks - but the fact that he remembers linearly is really weird haha
@@Bookborn I just kinda rolled with it
But ya, it isn't justified
Another criticism that I struggled with was the lack of Earth-perspective beyond the flashbacks. I get that is simply not the writing style that was used but part of what helped the Martian to feeling like it had such high stakes was being able to blip back to earth, see NASA and JPL efforts and failures, and have more people to care about. In this book we never even got to see Humanities response to the rocket, their only hope, returning with the Telmeba after 25 or whatever years! Blip back to earth in the present time and remind the readers why we need to care so much! Let us follow his students a bit and whatch the hope fade and despair creep in as the decades pass of hearing nothing from Hail Mary. If there is a movie they need to incorporate this. I just want the feels.
Ooohhh EXCELLENT point. I was sort of sad we never got to see the aftermath. Like sure, we know that Earth SURVIVED but at what cost?? Like they blew up the Arctic and then the sun went back to normal. Now what lol
I don't see that as a fair criticism of a book. Because you want other things included?
I agree with a lot of the points here, but I have a note to add about the “Grace is in all meetings” point. First of all, every meeting that we the audience hear about is going to include Grace because they’re his memories. The larger scale stuff of course is going to be handled by large groups, but the planning and recruiting project heads level is handled by a small group close to Stratt to cut down on bureaucracy and wasting time. Much more efficient to get things done at that scale. Grace was the first recruit, and just happened to be lucky enough to write a very specific scientific paper that seemed to fit the criteria of the astrophage. In doing so, he got the first chance to dig in and study them (and to get the first kill) and became the worlds leading expert on astrophage. As the plot centers around that problem, it makes sense. Redell has the plan for scalable breeding? Run it by the expert. Lokken has plans for a better astrophage ship design? Run it by the expert. Chapter 14 starts out with “Who would have thought saving the world could be so boring?” Personally it doesn’t bother me.
Question for all. Gap or am I not getting it? (Spoiler). If Grace was able to breed tauameoba to be nitrogen resistant but they actually only learned to protect themselves in the xenonite than they wouldn’t really be nitrogen resistant when released on Erid and Venus right? So how did the tauameoba avoid the nitrogen when not in Xenonite and seemingly saving the planets.
@Bob Smith ah got it. Thanks! Makes more sense.
I just finished the book and the scene where Stratt forces Grace to join essentially a suicide mission against his will. It really went against type when initially given the choice, he said No. His reasoning was more personal, what with his caring for his students and what they would go through in the next couple of decades. Stratt thinks VERY long term, almost to the abstract. Humanity needs to be saved and she literally moved heaven and earth to get the project moving. I found it interesting that she could deal with governments and corporations (often by waving a pardon), but when dealing with a person face to face, isn't something she's good at dealing with. When Grace literally cried and begged her not to send him to his death, she either turned away or winced, probably not used to dealing with strong emotions, right up close and personal.
Calling Grace a 'coward', etc, also didn't help my liking her. Not everyone is made to be a selfless hero, but I'm ambivalent over taking away his choice as well as violating him by taking away his memories (even if temporarily). My take anyway...
My interpretation was that the internal reason for his level of access was that he really was the second in charge, but Stratt was so antagonistic toward hierarchies and their attendant politics that the only way he'd ever find out was if something happened to her, which i was honestly kind of expecting given the set up. I expect she was also kinda relying on him to be a bit more of a check on her own actions than he ended up being. Those of us who hate authority and have seen it abused tend to be a little terrified when we find ourselves in positions where we have to wield it. Having someone around who can stand up to us is as comforting as it is practical. You kinda get a moment of the second in command idea when they're all watching the launch, and everybody seems to already know it but him and a number of them are so surprised that they aren't sleeping with each other. Externally it makes sense because it gives us first person exposition without needing any mor PoV charaters.
The audible reader called it TOW-MEE-BUH
That tracks. I can't pronounce anything right on my own, but at least I know now 😂
Great review - I loved this book and def one of the best books I've read. I struggled a lot with Grace's tone whenever it wasn't science related, it just didn't sit right. For example, when he remembers that he was forced into this mission - his first internal monologue is about how much he hates Stratt... and even when he finally starts to head back to Earth he says something along the lines of "I am coming for you Stratt" and "I am going to say so many bad things to you" - I feel like if his character had some growth and acknowledged how this ended up being the greatest experience any human has ever had in the history of humankind, that would've made him just sooo much better.. instead of him being bitter about being forced into this mission
I think it fit his personality really well. To me, it was more like being really mad at a close friend as opposed to outright hatred and contempt for Stratt. She was right to send him and he acknowledges that, but it doesn't mean he was happy about it.
Stratt was like that through the whole book. Her execution wasn't always clean or empathetic, but she always got the job done
Some non-sequiturs in the plot, IMHO:
-it's not clear how much electronic knowledge eridians have. However Rocky puts a telemetry on the sampling device, and also fixes something on Hail Mary lamenting the low efficiency of its DC system. So they must know something about electricity and radio waves, and once you know about it, you quickly discover relativity (antennas as accelerated charges and the like). Even more implausible is that they don't know quantum mechanics, since at the very beginning Rocky builds models of oxygen and ammonia atoms.
-Wasn't the whole point of having two crews to keep them always separate? They couldn't board the same plane yet they were experimenting with astrophages together?
-When Grace and Rocky collect the samples of Taumeba, I jumped in the seat at the idea that they were testing it without full hazmat equipment. It was an alien species, it could have caused terrible harm to the two astronauts. It causes damage to the spaceships in the end, but it should have been easily preventable, especially for a trained biologist.
-when Rocky fixes the generators of the Hail Mary, he says that with some drops of Astrophage slurry they will run for don't remember how many years. So seems quite dumb to have had them connected to the main tanks in the first place.
-flying at an angle in a gravity field, well below orbital velocity, couldn't last for long, at least without some kind of horizontal drag. In the book the description is not that clear, but it seems a bit like the attitude of a forward-flying helicopter. But here they are outside the atmosphere, any thrust in the horizontal direction would quickly accumulate well beyond the 100-200 kts it was claimed it was traveling at. One solution may be a circular motion, with the trust vector of the engines describing a sort of an outward cone.
-I was waiting for an explanation of why the other two astronauts didn't survive the induced coma. Had it something to do with the french drug?
Last thing, but this is a matter of personal taste, I'd have preferred him to fly back to the Earth and tell us what happens when earthlings see him come back. Also, the idea of having four years to choose between an induced coma and writing scientific papers made me laugh 😂
That dialogue example is gold XD
Also ima keep an eye open about the memory loss thing in the comments also. Interested to see what people have to say.
Have you read it yet? I still think it's a super fun and good read. But yeah...some of the dialog...(although I heard it was better in audiobook since the narrator sold it)
@@Bookborn no, im terrible :( still reading TBI. Slow progress cause of writing (I'm having lots of fun tho!)
Tbh I wouldn't be bothered about Grace being in all those meetings if it was revealed that they knew about the coma-resistant gene way earlier and Grace was chosen as a backup n2 that early for this reason. Or maybe if he wasn't as involved in the early stages of research, but then when the coma-resistant gene was found, he would suddenly get pulled into all the meetings.
"I *want* to suspend disbelief" "I'm willing to go along for the ride"
Yeah, for the most part I go into a book wanting to go along with the author. It takes repeated "violations" to make me turn on an author (lol, I've done it, I'll admit)
evryone else thought of him as the second in command to stratt also. and they explained he would be given a drug to lose his memory so he wouldn’t freak out when he woke up on the rocket
i dont care about any flaws in this book because of Rocky
rocky is amaze amaze amaze!!!
Rocky is indeed amaze amaze amaze
Grace left Rocky alone after Rocky fell asleep.
I enjoyed this book. Any recommendations for others like it?
Have you read his other book, The Martian? That's a great place to start. Otherwise I'd say either Dark Matter or Recursion by Blake Crouch!
@@Bookborn yes, I read The Martian and liked it. Tried Artemis but am not getting hooked. I'll try your other recommendations. Thank you!
I listened to it on Audible and the actor sells the dialogue so well that it actually made Grace's Flanders-like personality work.
I know this is a year old video, but I just listened to the book and it was so good! I agree with all your points about the positives, but I too scoffed during the first flashback when Grace made some remark about Californians. A lot of the other commenters are talking about the coma gene, but I honestly think the timing of its reveal made it a poor late book excuse. If I remember correctly, he was already practicing in EVA suits before he had his blood tested. It was also weird to me that Grace wouldn't even want to know he tested positive. If flashback Grace got his test results we could've had the opportunity to explore the conflict of his cowardice and responsibility and we could've had a better ramp up to him telling Stratt no. I think a tweak to the flashback timeline would've made the "secret third backup" reveal feel more earned. In the same vein, Grace's emotional reactions to Yao's and Ilyukna's (audiobook, no idea how they were spelled) corpses never paid off for me. They were introduced so late in the flashback narrative that I didn't actually believe he had strong enough bonds with them to warrant such visceral reactions.
Agreed, agreed, agreed! Really love the idea of him getting test results earlier so we could deal with that earlier in the novel. Overall though, the book was still so much fun.
i dont share many of your gripes, mine was the unclear timeline, how much time passes from the lunch with his friend to launching hail mary? or was this kept vague so that we wouldnt nit pick the sparse design of the hail mary? (i dislike the design of the ship, its sooo basic when alot of problems coulda been solved by building a big boat like the hermes from the martian)
What issues would a Hermes-like design have fixed?
@@Elektrokardiogramm the need for the apollo-style centrifuge?
@@petrino The reason they might not have used a Hermes-style ship might be because Project Hail Mary might not take place in the same timeline as The Martian, and thus that design is untested.
As stated in the book, Stratt only uses rigorously-tested products, and the Apollo-like centrifuge has *kinda* been done before. (Emphasis on "kinda". I am aware the Apollo missions did not use cables and spin to make a centrifuge, but they did use a similar maneuver with the capsule detaching and turning around.)
Also, the Hail Mary centrifuge is much more compact and space/mass efficient than the Hermes centrifuge, though I do not remember and reason for constraints in the book, other than the Hail Mary could likely be made much faster than the Hermes. I couldn't find any specific sources, but it looks like it took around a decade to make the Hermes in The Martian, and Earth just doesn't have that kind of time in Project Hail Mary.
Lastly, you said "alot of problems coulda been solved" with the Hermes design, but you only specially named one. Might you go into more specifics?
I absolutely agree. I feel like Weir can only write one book in different ways. It's unfortunate, I LOVE The Martian...but only once.
Yeah, at this point I don't know if reading more space stories about the exact same character will be very fun. I'm very interested to see where his next book goes...
He did write another book that was totaly different but nobody read it so he went back to what was successful.
Guns at Dawn!
JK. One thing I want to clarify is that a lot of people hated the main character of Artemis because she was essentially Mark Watney from The Martian but a girl. The character was exactly the same in tone and humor and it didn't work at all because it felt forced and has an entirely different tone coming from a female character. She was also bizarrely oversexualized. I would say my overall problem with Weir is that he has made all three of his protagonists essentially the same character. PS- I study neuroscience, the memory loss stuff was outrageous :)
But none of that matters here :P This book was great. Listen to the audiobook. I'll gift you my copy. Amaze amaze amaze.
I mean I did say it was good good good. But it also had just a FEW wee problems 😂 I still gave it a four which is pretty high for me, tbh lol Rocky made me love him too much.
Ok I hadn't heard that Artemis was the same character as Mark! I'd only heard the bizarrely over sexualized which had me nope out immediately. So then my statement def stands - I think Weird needs to try and stretch himself and try a different character. Because his plots (at least here and in the Martian) are excellent. (Although I thought Mark as a character worked well for the Martian).
I just finished listening to the book today. My main issue was that all of the math/physics/science information he knew was chalked up to “well I’m a science teacher and we know the strangest facts.” I would have liked for Grace to use the colossal digital library more.
I listened to the audiobook read by Ray Porter which confused me no end by putting me in mind of the Bobiverse - the moment bob realised he had a library at his fingertips he disappeared into it. I kept waiting for grace to do that too but no.
I felt my opinion of Hail Mary was fairly unpopular as well. I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent and I enjoyed the science in The Martian, but I honestly felt that Hail Mary had too much science in it. Sometimes the pages of explanation really got to me. So I wasn't a fan of that. And I also felt there were just too many convenient plot points for me. Like you I want to suspend disbelief and I don't always know why I can buy aliens like Rocky but find the circumstances surrounding his ending up in space to be too much. I honestly also felt that it was just too weird that he didn't want to go but then it didn't really change much of anything. I enjoyed the book, but I didn't like it as much as The Martian.
Your last point bothered me a lot. Like why have that be a plot point if it's going to be solved in a single paragraph? He shoves it off but we never get catharsis with it. I guess it was just used as an exciting reveal but I needed more there.
@@BookbornI've recently finished the book I've thought about this a bit and my conclusion so far is that 1. If you lose your memory of self wouldn't that change you as a person? If you suddenly remembered you have murdered someone would you then instantly accept you are a murderer? In a way, Grace is born on that space ship. Also 2. I believe that there's a character arc and personal growth here, where he didn't want to go on the mission because he would die but did it for Rocky and his people.
Something related that did bother me was that Grace says he has no friends. I didn't get that impression. The first flashback has him meeting a friend from university which he meets weekly with for instance. Perhaps he thinks he has no friends or that he is bad with people (adults), which isn't true.
Overall I really liked it but my biggest flaw of the book was just how smart the protagonist is. He's a former microbiologist (my field) and highschool teacher and yet able to solve complex physics questions whenever the plot needed him too. Entire problems just seemed to be thrown in to show off how smart the protagonist is/ how much research Andy had done. Almost as if Andy stumbled on something, thought it was cool and wrote an entire plot point around it for the sake of it.
That's a fair criticism. I'm always biased for super smart protagonists though - It's a trope I tend to like 😂
I had a lot of the same issues as you with this book, but one thing you didn’t touch on as much that I just couldn’t get over was Weir’s unwillingness to inspect more of the psychological effects on the main character (a complaint I also have with the Martian). So many of the crushing events get turned into “I was gonna miss him” or “sacrifices have to be made” or something similar just to get us to the next miraculous solution to an urgent problem. The other thing I just like could not stop thinking about was the “solution” of dumping a bunch of extra greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere to slow the effects of the astrophage when the thing that they were trying to do was, ostensibly, going to get the sun working properly again. Wouldn’t that just hasten the existing climate disasters? I was begging for an epilogue where like 200 years later humanity had to utilize their new understanding of xenonite and astrophage and whatever else to develop environments where humanity could survive as the planet became ultimately uninhabitable. At least that makes the discoveries that Grace sent back help in unexpected ways? Idk, maybe I’m just a bit too picky. It’s still enjoyable to read, but there are some definite weird vibes that snuck in along the way
I totally agree with your first criticism. I felt like the corny jokes and dialogue were really distracting, and I almost stopped reading. I didn’t realize this until watching your video, but the broken dialogue with Rocky did save the book! Overall, I loved it, but I totally agree a slightly different characterization would’ve been better!
Yeah I mean it’s for sure such a great book. I’ll never be over Rocky ❤️. I’m just hoping for a slightly different character next book from him!
This book was great fun, but I also had a few problems with it. I think their mission was too vague, for starters. I mean... they discovered that something was happening (or not happening) in Tau Ceti so let´s just almost destroy the Earth sooner by building an extremely expensive spaceship and sending three people there to...hmmm... do what, exactly? I think it was too optimistic of them to assume that there would be something in Tau Ceti that would not only explain everything but also save Earth. Also Weir´s formula of building suspense ("I´m gonna die!!!! No...I´ll survive. No... I´m really gonna die this time! No...everything is fine" gets repetitive after time. But, as I said, the book is really funny; Whatney is a really good charac.... I mean, Grace, and Rocky rocks!
LOVE this review. subscribing. I am a coma/NDE survivor and so the dialog about comas, coma resistance and whatnot made enough sense for me. I had problems with the flashback characterizations as well.
Regarding the lack of serious reflection on the major earth-side decisions (e.g., ice caps) I'm now realizing I borrowed heavily from the rumination the Three Body problem series forced on similar topics. That series, for all of its dialogue and characterization faults, did a great job at forcing the reader to really confront the morality of big human-species affecting decisions. I guess, in reading Hail Mary, I borrowed from that angst so didn't need this book to spend too much time revisiting the same emotions. It's just hard to capture the feelings of media, countries, and billions of individuals on topics like that with a single-view-point and character driven story like Hail Mary was. Overall, like many, I think I was willing to ignore these flaws just because I enjoyed the overall story/ride SO much.
Yeah, that's totally fair. And I think *trying* to focus on the feelings of all those viewpoints would've watered down the story and not made it what it was - a fast-paced Weir story. I think I just needed a *little* more discussion on the consequences, I couldn't help it 😆 I mean either way, a 4 star is a high rating for me and I told several people they should read it lol. The fun/exciting nature of it for sure outweighs the negative. But, I will be interested to see if Weir branches out for his next book...
Weir himself actually admits he has difficulty with dialogue and characterisation in the interview attached to Project Hail Mary on Audible. I find it interesting that the author knew possible criticisms beforehand but was unable to make the chages required. Do you guys think it was laziness or the book was the book too far along? I really would like to hear some theories.
It irked me that Weir explained the lack of swearing by Grace being a teacher. Don't get me wrong, obviously you can't swear in your classes but that doesn't mean your internal monologue needs to speak like a cartoon character. I've known enough teachers to see how that works out
Rocky is bae tho
Rocky is bae bae bae!
Yeah I thought it was an interesting character choice to make (perhaps to contrast him with Mark from The Martian and make him seem ~different?) But it felt a little silly. I find most teachers have teacher persona and have different language at home easily lol
The ending was dumb and nonsensical
My problem with the book was the science. Not because I couldn't understand it, but because the numbers Weir picked seem totally absurd. The temperature and pressure for the aliens means that there was no way in hell this "hard science" scenario would have worked, even with sci-fi material. Weird could have picked 3 atmospheres instead of 20-something, and 120 celsius instead of 300-something. Nothing would have changed in the story, but it would have made the science plausible. The same goes for the weird chain, the structural damages involved and the biology that manages to escape through the toughest material. Yep. That about all the science in the book. And if you understand the science, the numbers involved kill all your suspension of disbelief.
So, in my head canon, the numbers are more "hard-science-compatible", and the book is great.
Grace was not allowed to be in all the meetings It's just that you aren't told of any meeting that Grace wasn't included. He was included in he important ones for reasons discussed in the story. He was trained to fill any possible vacant position, not just the science teacher - he was trained to be the wildcard, if needed.
I definitely agree on the plot of him being the tertiary position for the science position all along and having to be in every meeting.
The way Stratt always had him by her side was just kinda off for me.
But literally everything else was amazing.
I loved the concepts he had of the Rocky's biology and his species' progression of science given their senses, understanding of nature, etc. Would have been cool to have a little backstory for Rocky and his experience of life before meeting Grace, but he is one of my favorite alien characters now. Love the alien sarcasm.
I will say as far as the dialog goes, you HAVE to try the audiobook, probably saved the book for me then since I'm not great with internal dialog. Ray Porter does an incredible job giving a sense of Grace's emotion, and just a stellar reading performance overall.
I enjoyed the planetary science and the ideas for practical engineering solutions for the problems that arose.
Anyway, you get it, I liked the book. It's a top one I want on my shelf.
I think I've discovered my inner voice isn't great on some humorous characters. Because I've heard a LOT in books like this that the audio narrator helps you hear the voice in a way that makes it less cheesy.
such a gorgeous book.
*spoilers below*
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I see what you're saying about the flashbacks. It was kinda weird and I wish that we had seen a little bit more of a plan in mind for the Grace being the Third backup. I definitely guessed it ahead of time, but it was a Dune situation because we knew where the story *had* to go, so it wasn't that much of a mystery.
As to your comment on the morality and humor sometimes clashing, absolutely. Like setting off nukes in the arctic? the reader needs a little bit of time to process that. just a smidge. lay off the humor.
Part of me also wishes that he went into a little bit more depth into the language translation process, but I understand that might've bogged down the book a bit if he did too much of it (for most people, not me)
I knew he WOULD get on the ship, but I didn't think it would be forced, so that was a surprise. I literally thought he was going to volunteer because it was the only option. I just feel like the boss (Stratt? I can't remember) saying "I've been planning you as the backup this whole time" was...weird.
Totally agree about the translation thing. I actually thought that while reading, but let it go because I realized that he probably didn't want to slow the plot too much. It felt a little hand-wavy and too easy, but those are things I'll accept if I'm enjoying a book haha
🤣 Yeah, when they decided to melt all the ice on Antarctica with nukes, I think he should have spent more than one paragraph to discuss the aftermath.
Grace was let in not because he was a middle school teacher - he was a trained exobiologist - a very select field.
As far as Artemis goes, I still think it is a really good book and I do really like the MC Jazz. I don't think the story as a whole was as impactful or powerful to me as his others. I still loved it, I would definitely put it in 3rd out of his main 3. I loved PHM, and The Martian though I would say i liked PHM the most. It also led me to read the bobiverse which is an amazing series and a perfect follow up to PHM.
Ig im weird in a way i dont mind corny dialouge as long as it adds to an interesting plotline thats why the beginning was so compelling for me
SPOILERS
Honestly I thought Grace was just coping to his situation most of the time. He doesn’t always explicitly state it but it seems quite evident given the situation. Hence the abundance of jokes provided. Regarding explanation why Grace was in every meeting, the explanation Stratt provided he was the back up made enough sense. It would have been weirder as you said they would be 3 people around Stratt the whole time because they would suspect something going on. I do agree the side cast could have been given more depth, though for a sci fi the ideas and how execute it feel more important. Like humanity joining up for a single goal. I am not sure if I would want this book remotely like FL tbh. Joe kinda pacing would clash with this book fast pace energy. I know your talking about characters but I still think would have clashed with the pacing. But yeah side cast ain’t his strength though main cast Stratt, Grace and Rocky were great. The memory loss criticism, yeah I can definitely get that it’s my minor critique. Though yeah it basically works that way for the structure of the novel and a realistic depiction would have probably killed the deliberate pacing of it all. So kinda lose lose situation. Be more accurate to reality and disrupt the pacing or be a bit unrealistic to create this awesome structure. I really enjoy his first person present in this, it was quite immersive to the experience. Felt like you were there in a given situation.
Regarding what you loved agree those were awesome.
Glad you loved the novel I did audio and physical at the same time it’s funny how they differ slightly. Seeing notes being actually played and rocky voice having a very unique sound design thing going on.
I think I just needed more introspection in his personal thoughts. I definitely think it works as a coping mechanism but it just feels that people won't 100% of the time be joking in their own running inner thoughts, you know? But yeah, I still enjoyed the book a lot!
I'm just so glad I'm not the only one! ❤️ I agree esp with how the MCs of both books sound so alike! Both are great books but I really loved The Martian more. It has the right amount of everything!
Happy to discover your channel. I'll be binge watching your other videos!❤️
2 points of clarification. He's coma resistant that's why he's "the third" straat (listened to AB, not sure if that's her name I'm going from my Dutch) and two the drug was the reason he had memory loss it's explained but I agree I also don't like it it's too contrived.
On Artimis though. I love it because Jaz is so different, she's flawed in interesting ways. Also if you look at the three books as a AW literature universe it'll give you the true ending the PHM (kinda, it's my head cannon but it made PHM sit well with me in the end gave it a nice bow)
I agree with most of your gripes about the book, except of the why was he allowed to be in every meeting. It seemed to me that Stratt kept him around as a moral counter to herself. Like, he proved himself at the beginning and by demanding he was included, and after that Stratt just saw a friend in him.
That's how I saw it. That didn't bother me as much as the 1 dimensional main character and the memory loss.
Ok this is the best explanation I’ve seen of that and I’ll buy it - although some of the training he did still doesn’t make a ton of sense (thinking of the underwater space suit training but maybe at that time she’d already decided he was her third)
It was a classified highly specific type of drug that caused the memory issue, right? I've no doubt something that causes temporary amnesia manifesting in a similar way could be created. The explanation for its use made perfect sense. I thought the tone of the whole book was... Amaze! Agree to disagree, question?
I agree with the points about dialogue, they did feel clunky. And I was getting really worried near the end because if this very humourous book ended with the suicide mission after all I was gonna rate it low, so I was glad it didn't end that way, because like you said the tone of the book was very much like "they struggle to be serious during very significant scenes".
I think the example you showed was very cheesy but that’s an element of all the characters, especially Stratt. She’s supposed to be over the top prissy and demanding and dramatic because she literally has the whole world at her disposal.
The main issue with Artemis was that there were character interactions and they all felt clunky. Chatting with Rocky is meant to be clunky so that works but with real people feels wrong.
She kept him around because she trust him. Her expertise was in administration, not science. Maybe because he taught to kids, his way of explaining was simple and easy to understand. But What makes u think he was at every meeting, he is the story teller, so of course he is at every meeting he attends. I did think the memory loss was weird. As far was why the other crew members didn’t have a “third” back up. I think a lot of people could have taken those spots. Lots of people were trained to fly the space shuttle, not so many would know so much about the astrophage (more than 3 I am sure) but not too many.
One of the things that bothered me was how they got the ameba with the 100000 foot chain. The get the Hail Mary set up to keep them in orbit with the weight of the chain on the ship, then drop the chain and they don’t need to adjust the Beatles at all, and someone pick up the amebas and bring it back up. All that weight never bothered the Hail Mary? That’s weird.
But threw most of the book I was wondering why they sent a school teacher
Oh I want to listen to this but I haven’t read the book. Now I don’t know if I should read it. Would you recommend it? Does the positive outweigh the negative?
I absolutely still recommend it! I am glad I read it and have already told others to read it. I just had to talk about some of the negatives, but I think the positives outweigh them for sure.
I also enjoyed most of the book, but felt pretty much all characters are underdeveloped and unrealistic. Stratt is a robot, Grace has no social life and only cares about teaching. Those are very one dimensional traits.
He explains the memory loss on grace being drugged by a French intelligence drug. I am more bugged that Rocky's race was able to evolve at all. With us humans, we evolve by mutations. Usually by radiation (alpha, beta, gamma or ultraviolet). It changes our DNA and sometimes we did, or sometimes it bestows a positive trait, like big green eyes, or protection against a disease. How did Rocky's race evolved In a planet with such a thick atmosphere and huge magnetic field. No radiation, no mutations, no fast evolution.
Does it need to be fast?
@@stambo1983 no, but it needs to be there. Could've been some other way.
I picked up this book as my Book of the Month pick, a long time ago, and have not yet read it. But I do plan on reading sometime after Halloween. I have read Weir's other books, in fact I loved the Martian but DNFed Artemis. But I look forward to reading this soon.
I would def still recommend it! I enjoyed it a lot, just wasn't the all-out perfection that a lot of people have claimed lol. The Martian was amazing, but I'm glad I skipped Artemis - I heard a lot of not-stellar things about it.
You echoed my opinions on the book almost exactly. All I could think was that the book was so cool but why do all the characters have to be so... goofy? "I bounced from one foot to the other like a little kid while waiting for the results." I just couldn't picture a full grown man researching an alien life form for the sake of mankind doing this. But yes, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
I hated the ending.
Once Dr. Grace figured out the reason for the Taumoeba leak, my first thought was f*@k Rocky. Grace, just go back to Earth and be Earth's hero, the leak on Rocky's ship is Rocky's problem, f*@k Rocky.
I really wanted to see how life turned out on Earth. Did the world stay together or desend into a horrific world war.
I did appreciate that Weir lightly touched on, through his character Stratt, that the world cases of death was not going to be distributed homogeneously throughout the world. My earlier thought, well before the scene of Stratt explaining to Dr. Grace, her predictions of how life on earth was going to devolve, was that the first world, specifically the United States would not just sit back and let it population freeze and starve to death while people living near the equator just went on living. My thought was that the wealthy people (at least those that are sociopaths) of the world would likely just invade the tropics in order to maintain their standards of living.
I also enjoyed the part where businesses were still worried about intellectual property rights and profits, while the world was heading towards the apocalypse. (The scene were Stratt was in court asking for a lawsuit to be thrown out.) This scene reminds me of a scene in the book "My Work Is Not Yet Done" by Thomas Ligottii, where the main protagonist of the book briefly talks about how meaningless capitalism can be, by talking about how most companies strive to make as much profit as possible and beat the competition until they are the only company around and the must world bend to them, and all that this company has to offer its consumers, is nothing, in return the consumers must give everything to the company. Much like a group of people producing nothing but profits, a group of people that decides to be bogged down with capitalism and not save the World, is missing the whole point of life. I can't help but to think that Weir wrote in the court room scene as a bun on how certain groups of people continue to fight climate change or how certain groups of people are still fighting the solutions available to end the Covid pandemic.
Overall I thought the book was an engaging read, once I got past the fact that the book was primarily written in the 1st person. I personally find a book more engaging when it is primarily written in the 3rd person. I find that the 1st person view point is a bit narcissistic.
lol noooo how could you be so unforgiving to Rocky 😭 But i'll agree that I was super bummed we didn't get to see how Earth fared. I had so many questions. Like, sure, we found out that the Sun returned to it's normal temp - but remember they destroyed the arctic?? Like what global warming hell are they dealing with now? But I understand why Weir didn't do it - I think it would've been really hard to wrap up stuff back on earth if he went back...
Honestly, this book had a TON of interesting ideas within it. Intellectual property, the whole arctic thing, how the end of the world would disproportionately affect different communities...he could honestly write another book with the same themes and have it be a super serious book.
I love that not everybody loved the book. I have also mixed feelings about it. It was decent on the whole, and there was a lot I liked about it. But the portrayal of the scientists, I just can't. It was horrible. Also (have not read the martian), but science in this, it felt off, not just the forgetting pills, the whole thing.
It’s funny because Weir is known for his science. At least in the Martian, anyway. But I completely agree it felt off here. I was ok going along with it to be entertained, but it all sort of stances up n
I completely agree with the point about Grace being too cheesy and the dialog feeling corny at times in flashbacks. Stratt came across as a bit of a shallow stereotypical hardass character.
To address why she wasn't training anyone else, I think it was because no one else had the coma gene. However, this doesn't explain why she wasn't training anyone else even before they learned about the coma gene...
I am exactly on the same page with you, re: the beginning of the book… In the beginning it just seemed like Mark Watney in a new situation, but I did get over it in the first 50-100 pages. I actually enjoyed a lot of the aspects of the book though that you took issue with. Would recommend this highly to any scifi fan
So you recommend The Martian?
Counterpoint: Imagine that Hail Mary had been released before The Martian instead of after and then compare both books. Ryland Grace is still essentially the same character as Mark Watney, but in both cases I'd argue that Hail Mary was the better *story* of the two. Andy Weir's limitations as a storyteller apply equally to all of his books regardless of the order in which they were released.
Great point about the tone of the character. I think you nailed it. It drove me crazy how he geeked out on every science discovery. It was kind of cringey. Also the moral question of a scientific authoritarian regime made me wish the book expanded on the issue more. But anyway, I liked your review but I’m a bit more negative on the book that you.
Hello Bookborn, can I say miss Bookborn? I am terrible at these things but just wanted to say, loved the review! Without specifically articulating it to anybody I did have similar misgivings about the story as you but I was brought up on Clarke, Asimov, Niven, etc so maybe it's just modern writers? Lots of modern books just seem a bit off. Loved the book though and like you said the science was mind-blowing and cool and a great alien character. The whole story was very optimistic though, given the problems arising.At the end of the day the book does creep into my top 100 though, such a fun, puzzle tech laden first contact story 4/5.
I loved it, myself. But I definitely think it would've been better targeted to a young-adult audience. I enjoy all kinds of books, even the occasional foray into the cheese territory that permeates young adult novels. Hail Mary definitely felt like it fit that mold better than hard sci-fi, for me
Yeah, and like I still super super enjoyed the book! Weir is a fun writer, I just think the tone fit the martian better for me.
I did the book on audible. The negative imo was some of the flashback midway the book was too much science formulas and stuff i have no idea was. When i wanted instead to learn more about rocky xD The morals and dilemmas you talked about didnt really care much about that. Gotta do what you gotta do^^ also i liked the guy that did the voice for it
Right now I'm reading The Object by Joshua Calvert. Interesting hard science fiction but I wish it had been given the Andy Weir treatment for the characters. They are all flat and kind of dry. There is dialogue but it feels like one person is describing dialogue so the characters are only differentiated by their deeds than by their personalities.
I do understand a little about the Grace character. He is the "lovable but unlikely hero" for the story. This may sound mean, but almost like Forest Gump with a knack for science (The original Forest Gump novel had him as a physics savant) . But over all I really enjoyed The Hail Mary Project.. I was hard pressed to find a book I enjoyed as much until I read the The Dog Stars by Peter Heller.
Note. When I say read, it usually means listen to. A narrator can make or break a book.
I tend to really enjoy having some ideas and 'moral of the story' thrown at me by the end of a story. PHM didn't do that, at Weir's own admission as well. He stated in the interview he had no moral of the story or grand ideas. He just wanted to talk about science. Great book, definitely the most thrilling I've read. Ultimately doesn't stick with me so much, despite my extremely positive experience with it.
I actually liked this more than The Martian because I thought it was an overall better and more thought provoking story. I agree that the main characters in both books were basically the same person. I thought it was a little weird, but it ultimately didn’t bother me much. If you had read Project Hail Mary first, you probably would have liked the Martian less than you do now because you’d have the same main character complaint. So I think for some people, whichever of these books they read first is the one they will like more.
Somehow I missed this video! I did not read The Martian so everything in Project Hail Mary felt new and I really loved the main character and humor.
I wasn't bothered by him being a part of all the meetings. It seemed normal to me!
I only gave it 4 stars for different reasons. I was really upset I didn't get to see people's reaction on earth to all of his discoveries. Like, that REALLY bothered me!😅
I'd be super interested to see what you thought of the Martian if you ever read it! I wonder if the first one you read matters!
Ok, I was so sad about that too. Like, he saved everyone! What was happening on earth? What did they think of alien life? Did they never try to send someone out to find out??? Did melting the polar ice caps screw everything up when the Sun returned to normal? lol
@@Bookborn Yes! I was SO EXCITED about all the discoveries he was making that I NEEDED to know exactly what he put in those capsul ships. And I NEEDED to know their reaction. lol. It really lowered the end of the book for me. Good point about the polar ice caps!
I don't know if I'll get around to the Martian cause I've seen the movie😬
I think it’s set up really nicely for a sequel, I really hope it comes. When Eridians go with Grace back to earth and also to look for intelligent life. Also it will be so amazing to see what happens when people realize he’s still alive