I loved Andy
Weir's first novel, The Martian (the one that was adapted into a terrific Matt
Damon movie). I didn't think it would be possible to top it, but Weir manages it
in Project Hail Mary.
On a spaceship far from home, Ryland Grace is on a
mission to discover why Earth's sun is dimming – a mission that is humanity's only
hope. There's an
alien encounter like no other, page-turning tension, and wonderful characters to
root for.
I just wish
I'd been able to tell the friend who gifted me the book how much I enjoyed it –
but sadly, he died before I even opened the present. I can't tell him about it or urge him to read it, too, but at least I can recommend it to you.
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through…
I
should say upfront that the author’s a friend of mine – but I’m featuring Dark
Horizon here because it’s an incredibly good read. James’ thrillers are not
only gripping but have an added dimension that doesn’t always make it to the
pages of other thrillers: three-dimensional characters.
Heroes and villains are
not just cut and pasted into the ‘good guy’ and ‘bad guy’ roles; they have
histories, families, and reasons for doing what they do. That’s why you have to
know what happens next – and becausethis is a stand-alone novel,
it’s a great place to start if you’ve not come across this author before.
A fatal crash on a rain-slick road and a brutal murder in an English village set off a deadly chain of events, leading from stormy skies over the Mediterranean Sea to an explosive confrontation on a remote airstrip in North Africa...
Only a handful of people know the reason why Kate Hood left the military in disgrace; now a contract pilot for a private jet company, she's looking for a second chance and a better life.
But to keep her secrets, she must take a last-minute assignment to fly a…
Alexandra
Harris's non-fiction book is a story of how the weather has been observed,
noted, illustrated, and written about through a thousand years of history.
It
illustrates how the importance of weather and landscape changed through time,
and how that influenced the way in which the land and weather was recorded and
written about – or not written about, as was the case for hundreds of years.
People, towns, events were important enough to be recorded, either in fact or
fiction; the landscape and the weather, not so much.
It's utterly
absorbing, and will make you look at classics from Beowulf to Wuthering Heights
and beyond in a very different way.
On a world where it's natural to fly, what happens when you can't? When a plague kills half the Drax population and leaves the hatchlings of the survivors with a terrible deformity - no wings - suspicion and prejudice follow. Continuously harassed by raids from their traditional enemies, the Koth, the Drax are looking for someone - anyone - to blame. Zarda, an apprentice Fate-seer, is new to her role and unsure of her own abilities, but the death of her teacher sees her summoned by the Drax Prime, Kalis, when his heir, Dru, emerges from his shell without wings. A vision that Dru will one day defeat the Koth is enough to keep him and the other wingless hatchlings alive - for a time. Half-trained, clumsy, and full of self-doubt, Zarda must train Dru to fulfil the destiny she has foreseen for him. Efforts to fight prejudice and superstition are certain to lead to death for some and exile for others; while Zarda's own journey to understanding her role in events may lead her to abandon all tradition in order to protect her people's future.
