Book cover of Project Hail Mary

Book description

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…

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Why read it?

47 authors picked Project Hail Mary as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Here's this coerced to go on a one-way mission with two others and they both are dead when he wakes up in his space ship. And it's all about this man alone overcoming every obstacle one could imagine. His persistence, the way he solves one issue after another, was fun and entertaining. The story is clever and smart.

I was already a huge fan of "The Martian," so it came as no real surprise that "Project Hail Mary" was awesome; I liked the character of Ryland Grace, but I *loved* Rocky. And listening to the audiobook this past summer was a double treat, because I was able to share this gem with my wife and daughter -- we now quote the book (Rocky, in particular) to each other.

And since the trailers look like the movie is going to be loyal to the source material (always a must for me), we're all looking forward to that, too.

If…

I am not usually a big science fiction fan. But I love Andy Weir’s novels because they are filled with a lot of real science and real optimism that scientists can solve seemingly intractable technical problems. We need that optimism at a time when many politicians are proposing policies strongly opposed to scientific findings. For my taste, Project Hail Mary is not filled with quite as much witty prose as his first novel, The Martian, but it more than compensates with an entertaining, imaginative, intricate, scientifically detailed plot. Two worlds, sixteen light-years apart, and their very different intelligent species are…

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Book cover of The Yamanaka Factors

The Yamanaka Factors by Jed Henson,

Fall 2028. Mickey Cooper, an elderly homeless man, receives an incredible proposition from a rogue pharmaceutical company: “Be our secret guinea pig for our new drug, and we’ll pay you life-changing money, which you’ll be able to enjoy because if (cough) when the treatment works, two months from now your…

Science teacher Ryland Grace wakes up on alone on a space ship and finds his job is to save the Earth from an interstellar, sun-eating virus called Astrophage. This over-the-top space adventure takes an amazing turn as we find out how the Earth got endangered and all the problems Grace will now have to solve. Luckily he won’t be alone for long, as he meets up with Rocky, a sentient ammonia-breathing rock of an alien trying to save his own species from the same virus eating his own home star. Grace and Rocky make contact by jazz hands, then figure…

I don't read a lot of sci-fi but this had it all: it was funny, the plot was crisp, clear and original, the characters were perfectly drawn and it made me cry twice which no sci-fi has ever done. I was fully immersed in the world created and found myself worrying about the predicament of the hero when I wasn't reading. Strongly recommend it, even if you don't usually read sci-fi!

I am NOT a science fiction reader, but I just kept seeing recommendations for this book. I started listening to it in the car on vacation and was hooked immediately. (The audiobook is especially good). While I still wouldn't couldn't consider myself a sci-fi reader in general, I will definitely read anything else by Andy Weir.

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Book cover of Broken Code

Broken Code by Monica Chase,

If the future can be edited—who decides what gets erased? Broken Code is a high-stakes biotech conspiracy thriller where power isn’t seized—it’s engineered.

Harper “Brass” Brasfield, a Memphis attorney barely holding her life together, stumbles onto a case that exposes a disturbing experiment: behavior-altering gene edits designed to control who…

This is a science fiction book. Except that it's not. A great combination of understandable science and human emotions.
Not my usual reading material, but I was hooked within a few pages.

I’m not a sci fi buff at all, but The Martian was a great read. Andy Weir has surpassed even this with Project Hail Mary. It’s tense, fascinating, quirky and highly appealing.

Weir covers the technical aspects of his books in an engaging way - you feel as though you’re learning something, not being preached to. He makes it fun - and he really knows his stuff. This is probably the most enjoyable sci fi book I’ve read since The Time Machine.

This was my Audiobook listen through. I think Andy's work lends itself to visual and audio mediums more than others. The scale and especially the character Rocky shined through on the audiobook.

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Book cover of We Have Always Been Here

We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen,

Misanthropic psychologist Dr. Grace Park is placed on the Deucalion, a survey ship headed to an icy planet in an unexplored galaxy. Her purpose is to observe the thirteen human crew members aboard the ship—all specialists in their own fields—as they assess the colonization potential of the planet, Eos. But…

This book was awesome! It had characters I empathized with, a plot that kept me on the edge of my seat, seriousness, humor. And, most of all, friendship and courage.

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Book cover of The Yamanaka Factors

The Yamanaka Factors by Jed Henson,

Fall 2028. Mickey Cooper, an elderly homeless man, receives an incredible proposition from a rogue pharmaceutical company: “Be our secret guinea pig for our new drug, and we’ll pay you life-changing money, which you’ll be able to enjoy because if (cough) when the treatment works, two months from now your…

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