Rating:		4/5	Sci-Fi

Project Hail Mary

by Andy Weir

Although I don’t read a lot of science fiction, this book intrigued me because it had universally great reviews and is also written by the same author that created The Martian which turned into a movie of the same name starring Matt Damon. The movie is well worth seeing if you haven’t.

The premise of the story is impending extinction of Earth due to an unexplained loss of sunlight which is exponentially getting worse. As a result a group of scientists are formed to identify the cause and come up with a solution.

This involves a space travel mission to another star system to identify a solution that can be deployed in our solar system to save the earth. The mission goes largely as anticipated up to the arrival at the star but from that point onwards a series of unexpected events takes you on a gripping battle against time to save the Earth.

The story resolves around a flawed hero, friendship from the most unexpected source and sacrifice and redemption. One aspect that I loved about the book is that it come across as entirely plausible with many of the story elements based on science and physics. As I got drawn further into the story, at no point did I ever think to myself, this could never happen.

This is a book that is well written and flows along at a perfect pace. I thoroughly enjoyed it and although I have only given it four stars, I think it really deserves four and a half. Highly recommended especially if you like science fiction, but I think anyone who enjoys general fiction would love this book too.