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Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary

Space OperaHard Sci-Fi
Pages
476
Published
2021
Language
English

Synopsis

A man wakes alone aboard a spacecraft, light-years from home, with no memory of his name or why he is there. As his past returns in fragments, he reconstructs the mission: Earth’s sun is being drained by a fast-spreading microorganism called Astrophage, and he has been sent to a distant star that has somehow resisted it, humanity’s last attempt to understand the threat before civilization freezes. Alone with the problem, he works it the way a scientist would — observation, hypothesis, trial and error — until he discovers he is not alone in the system. What follows pairs that scientific puzzle-solving with an unlikely partnership across an enormous gulf of biology and language. The novel keeps its stakes planetary and its method intimate: one mind, limited tools, and the slow, satisfying mechanics of figuring things out.

Prose complexity
4/10
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Readers say (4)
How did it read?75% Fast
How dense was it?100% Moderate

Genres

Space Opera Hard Sci-Fi Science Fiction Fantasy Thriller Adventure

About the author

A
Andy Weir

Born in 1972 in Davis, California and raised in Livermore, Andy Weir is the son of a Lawrence Livermore physicist and an electrical engineer. He began working as a programmer at fifteen for Sandia National Laboratories, studied computer science at UC San Diego without graduating, and spent roughly twenty-five years as a software engineer at companies including AOL, Palm, MobileIron, and Blizzard, where he worked on Warcraft II. He wrote science fiction as a hobby for years, publishing free on hi...

Characters

Ryland GraceProtagonist

A scientist who wakes alone on a spacecraft with no memory of his mission.

Commander YáoSupporting

The mission’s commander during its preparation on Earth.

Olesya IlyukhinaSupporting

A cosmonaut crewmate trained for the mission.

Eva StrattSupporting

The ruthless official who assembled the mission.

All characters in Project Hail Mary

Frequently asked questions

  • Is Project Hail Mary connected to The Martian?

    No. It is a standalone novel, though it shares the same hard-science, problem-solving spirit as The Martian.

  • What is Astrophage?

    Astrophage is a microorganism that consumes a star’s energy. Its spread is dimming Earth’s sun and threatens a global extinction, which is the crisis driving the mission.

  • Who or what is Rocky?
  • Is there a Project Hail Mary movie?

    Yes. A film adaptation starring Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, is set for release on March 20, 2026.

  • What does the title ‘Hail Mary’ mean?

    It refers to a desperate, last-chance effort — borrowed from the long, unlikely ‘Hail Mary’ pass in American football. The mission is humanity’s final gamble for survival.

  • How realistic is the science?

    Weir grounds much of it in real astronomy and physics — the target star Tau Ceti is real, for instance — while inventing speculative elements like Astrophage to drive the story.

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