Read: Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir

The Story

The first pages give me a thrilling déjà vu into my teenage days of computer gaming:
– The protagonist wakes up.
– In an unknown place.
– There are only a few things to be seen.
– He has no idea where he is.
– He has no idea who he is.

– So he starts solving puzzles.
– Takes hints that are presented.
– With the scarce things that are around.

So does our hero here. He is puzzling his unknown environment together, but skilled, and within a few pages, after realizing himself that he feels like in a computer game, has the most parts together. This linear game goes on round after round, present time and retrospective in exchange, for about the first quarter of the book: There is some interesting but unknown fact to the mission, but by “wanting to get the information, but not too hard”, he finally remembers, and the story goes on. Not sure if amnesia really works that way, induced by whatever reason. But maybe brainpower can make this possible.

The science is heavenly interesting, the problems hit the protagonist like a gatling gun, he is able to tackle them all. The characters meanwhile, even the main characters, feel somewhat flat. Part of that seems at least to me derived from a lot of clicheé, in a very consistent way:

Commander Yáo had a German beer, Engineer Ilyukhina had a distressingly large tumbler of vodka, and Science Specialist DuBois had a glass of 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon that he had poured ten minutes in advance to ensure it had time to breathe. (p.308)

Well, the Commander is not a Bavarian, but don't they say Chinese have a knack for Germany?

There has to be liquor somewhere. I can't imagine Ilyukhina going on a suicide mission without insisting on some booze. I can't imagine her going across the street without some booze, honestly.

So what we learn about the dedicated chief engineer of the mission to save earth is that she is female, russian and loves booze. And yes, somewhere it is mentioned that she loves to laugh. (p. 422)

Science & Technology

Weir has a reputation, and when I watched “The Martian” I had to agree. That also means, that I am very sensitive to understand the science here – it's not fiction, right? Here are some thoughts that came into my scientifically untrained mind:

How can earth's gravity add to a centrifugal's force vector?

I could be in a centrifuge. It would have to be pretty big. But with Earth’s gravity providing 1 g, you could have these rooms at an angle running around a track or on the end of a long solid arm or something. Set that spinning, and the aggregate centripetal force plus Earth’s gravity could be 15 meters per second per second. (p.20)

I do not understand this. This thing rotates, and if is located on earth, on which axis must the centrifuge rotate, so that the 1g adds to it?

What happens to the vast amount of energy when one of the little dots gets killed?

When using light as propellent, the author correctly states that the energy storage must be exceptional. Still, when destroying the hull, nothing of that seems present. Same when it gets eaten by other lifeforms. The story tells that the energy is stored in neutrinos, but how could a biological system contain neutrinos …?

Specialists

The plot is an example of a global crisis story, where the best of the best in each area collaborate to stop doomsday. Being the best in two total different areas in the modern world of science and engineering is not very likely. A specialist in microbiology nags the overall project manager about the problem to operate a lab in zero gravity. There are for sure specialists that are experts in zero-g laboratories, the ones in the ISS, and those people are for sure more competent than a project manager's gut feeling.

Musical Communication

Ryland plays alien language in his MIDI player app. Is well temperament universal? Not sure about that. But Johann Sebastian was a genius, it might be that it is universal indeed.

Amount of Necromass

The new life, growing exponentially, feeds from carbon compounds of planets. It is stated that this new life will soon deflect so much energy that it will threaten life on earth. But to have that effect on the massive energy production of our sun, the biomass has to be massive as well. How should the planets deliver enough carbon?

Evolution

Weir has scientists who he can consult in various fields. Maybe there was consultancy about evolutionary science, but especially the one solution of a scientific problem involving evolution seems especially unlikely to me. Having a new very peculiar species evolve in a few weeks into accepting a former toxic environment, and with that evolve it into a new problematic feature to drive the story.

Maybe all these questions have a reasonable answer, or on the other hand, they are necessary for the interesting plot. Other Sci-Fi authors sure are handled more relaxed, but “The Martian” set a standard. On the other hand, the latter book's storyline is a rather tiny neat one compared to “Project Hail Mary”, the latter could not work without some seemingly far-fetched assumptions.
Or call it sheer luck.

The Peer

I did not read “The Martian” (yet), but I know and like the movie very well. The parallels are obvious: a lonesome hero, as a first-person narrator, somewhat lost or being forgotten, fights his way through obstacles with “science”. This is literally said by the protagonist in each story. Of course, the task to solve could not be more different.

So, the story is about science, but it also tells a lot about society. Therefore, it came pretty automatic for me that I started to compare the book to those I ready from Stanisław Lem. Each and every book I read from this author fascinated me, and although Lem is a bit more on the social than the science side, they both write great stories.

So, is this story as timeless as, for example, „His Master's Voice“ (I read the German translation)?
Not quite, in my humble opinion.
Weir embeds his story in our current reality, and that includes several clicheé characters that are bound to current fashion. For example, there is the conspiracy theory:

“My dad says it's a government conspiracy,” said Tamora. (p. 66)

or

“You guys know about climate change, right? How our CO₂ emissions have caused a lot of problems in the environment?”
“My dad says that’s not real,” said Tamora. (p. 67)

You may like that reference to modern politics or not, it's mostly a matter of taste. I prefere Lem's style, but I can't rule out that I just did not recognise his references because they were made during my childhood or earlier.

Anyway, the climate seems to be a big topic in the author's mind

He shrugged. “It's hard to find two climatologists who agree on the color of an orange. It is, unfortunately, an inexact field. There is a lot of uncertainty and – if I'm being honest – a lot of guesswork.” (p. 233)

Isn't that a conspiracy theory, because science is sure about the man-made climate change?

In the end the story speeds up quite a lot, in science, action and the final few pages introduce an element, other authors fill whole books or even series of books: Describing an alien society.

In my opinion, this was not a good idea. In a couple of sentences, Weir describes the alien society as an anarchist's utopia:

They don't have a government, per se, but all the important entities agreed to do whatever it takes … (p.470)

It would be an interesting journey to describe this alien society, maybe even its history, in a really thoughtful and consistent way, after one specimen got so much place in this book.
Maybe Andy Weir, or another author, continues this in journey in that way.

I just know that I will go for “The Martian”, I am really curious how it is composed, in comparison to the movie.