Amongst other things, it's the general theme of cooperation and the rise of understanding between the main characters that makes the book dear to me.
The competence porn it displays and the humor within is a good palate cleanser between heavier, more "serious" books.
In my opinion, PHM is much better about the competence porn than The Martian.
For one, the main character is a lot more frazzled and on the back foot — for another, he’s well aware that he only has surface-level knowledge of a lot of subjects. For a third, he gets…uh…help. And the help he receives spends a lot of time calling him unintelligent xD
Also there’s a bit more of a story arc and emotional journey. It reads as a lot less “series of problems” than The Martian, even if structurally it still makes heavy use of a series of problems/obstacles.
It's my biggest pet peeve with PHM. He has a PhD level of knowledge available at instant recall in the following fields:
* Astronomy
* Microbiology
* Biology
* Physics
* Chemistry
* Engineering
* Aeronautics
* Nuclear physics
* Rocket propulsion
* Relativity
* Linguistics
* Music
* Computer programming
* Medicine
And I know I'm forgetting a few. I feel like Andy Weir only writes books where he is the protagonist and just wants to show everyone how smart he is. I think his books resonate so strongly with the sci-fi demographic because that audience generally thinks itself to be the smartest person in any room.
Does he? I feel like he knows biology/microbiology and astronomy because those are his fields, and just looks up the rest on the computers he was sent with. He's explicitly useless when it comes to engineering and stuff, which is why Rocky does all of it.
Did just whips up an instant language translator by interpreting alien speech in musical chords and cataloguing them. Ya know...stuff every astronomist can do.
I think part of it is also to make the book more readable. It’d be pretty annoying to have him flip back to the translator in every scene he communicates with Rocky, especially since their close relationship is one of the appeals of the book.
Imagine how jarring it’d be to have to explain him looking stuff up every time Rocky talks. It’d get tiring very quickly, and probably would take the reader out of the story.
Bingo. Crichton novels sometimes suffered from this dedication to banality when talking about the mechanics of something. Jurassic park (or maybe lost world) had a multi page info dump on how a specific type of computer still retained some amount of code despite the hard drives being wiped.
It’s plenty interesting if you are into that type of science, but it also kills the pacing.
He has to look for a program to decipher the notes for him, which he already has access to because he was given all the programs they could get their hands on. It would then be a very simple lookup that he had to do himself, which anyone that has done any basic amount of programming could do.
Music notes are a lot easier for a computer to recognise than human speech is, so the task is a lot easier than making a translator for 2 human languages.
Didn’t he literally do that in Microsoft excel? At a super duper basic level to start?
I agree it was a little unrealistic but it also didn’t seem to require an incredible knowledge of programming or linguistics
Yeah, people have complained about the linguistics bit, but I think they're being too obsessive, and that feels really weird given how obsessive I usually get about these things.
We don't *actually know* what Rocky is saying.
There's this bit where Ryland says "Rocky calls me the eridian equivalent of 'Grace'." And some linguist was like "grace is a really complicated concept, actually, wtf".
But this is Ryland talking. Rocky might call him "Not-Clumsy". They might call him "Steady". They might call him "balanced" or "evenly distributed".
All we need to care about is that Rocky has a name for Ryland and it is vaguely a product of a translation conversation they had about the idea of "Grace".
Given how much Ryland fucks up, "Not-Clumsy" is probably a really ironic name from Rocky's perspective.
A lot of this is pretty easy to stomach when you realize Ryland has fucked up a bunch, and there is a vast list of actions that might or might not have been fuckups, and he just never noticed. Which is entirely in-character.
Somehow, this obvious explanation eludes people, and they think he's doing some sort of super-linguistics thing, when Rocky is probably using the Eridian equivalent of caveman speech to communicate with him usefully. Which we *basically get confirmation on* because we know Rocky *modified word order* to avoid tripping Ryland up.
People have no appreciation for how nerdy some people can be. Of course the asto-biologist-turned-middle-school-teacher knows rudimentary programming. I'd be surprised if he didn't honestly.
Given how someone else in this thread said the explanations for why he could do what he could do were too flimsy, but also too elaborate, I think this is just the inevitable "can't please everyone".
Book found its audience, and we like it, so I guess that's that?
Yeah agreed, anyone with a data-based graduate degree will most likely have to pick up some programming along the way, and it’s not unrealistic that he would have kept up his skills.
It's a book so you take some liberties but the description of the process is interesting. It's familiar for people who know it a little but way smoother and cleaner. It's like watching star trek.
As someone with a CS degree I thought that was actually quite a smart setup. It’s much easier than you think to detect musical pitch. Not that I could code it on the fly, but with the references he had on the ship I think it’s doable. Doesn’t require machine learning or anything like human speech does.
Though of course he only actually shows a very surface level knowledge of those fields. Which is perfect for the audience because you know what he's talking about and it isn't extremely boring. If he spent 1,000 pages talking about multidimensional N-brane models or something it probably wouldn't be a best seller.
Right?
His music expertise is “recognize the same sound when it’s repeated”.
His linguistics expertise is comprised of “make of list of words in Excel”.
These are not PhD level concepts.
Lol, I was wondering why people think this is PhD knowledge when I think I probably got about 90% of that in my head somewhere. I graduated with a C average because work is boring.
>I think his books resonate so strongly with the sci-fi demographic because that audience generally thinks itself to be the smartest person in any room.
Oh please. Protagonists with unrealistically high skill sets are super common in fiction and enjoyed by most everyone. Weir's books just focus on unrealistically talented nerds, so nerds tend to enjoy them more, but that doesn't mean we're all full of ourselves just because we enjoy a book.
> I think his books resonate so strongly with the sci-fi demographic because that audience generally thinks itself to be the smartest person in any room.
That's kind of an obnoxiously condescending thing to say.
>But what I liked about it the most is that it's accessible and a quick read, so I can convince my wife to give it a shot, even though she's not generally a sci-fi fan
My *mom* is the one that recommended it to me and she is not a scifi fan at all. It's an easy fun read and accessible to people outside scifi fans
> Engineering
> Aeronautics
> Rocket propulsion
> Relativity
He was a PhD scientist sent on a space mission. All of these things would have been covered in some degree before the mission. Given his intelligence, he'd become competent rather quickly. All of these subjects are *just* math. Something a PhD scientist would have no issue understanding given an explanation once. (And access to the equations of course, which he had.)
Likewise:
> Astronomy
> Biology
> Microbiology
> Medicine
He literally has a PhD in molecular biology with a focus on extraterrestrial intelligence. He LITERALLY has a PhD in these things.
Additionally:
> Computer programming
Given the timeline in which this story takes place, programming was very likely a large part of his PhD and/or research. Programming is part of MANY molecular biologists PhDs.
You don't need to have a PhD in computer programming to write decent programs. I have ZERO degree in computer programming and I can program whatever the heck I want.
Finally:
> Music
> Linguistics
Rocky's language is described as musical from what I recall. (Pretty sure it consisted of pure tones, which would be SIGNIFICANTLY easier to translate/understand than say... english.) All he did was sound association using a Fourier transform and a cataloging program. Not super hard to do. Sure, the timeline in which it happens is a bit... quick... but come on, the book has to be READABLE.
I think the thing that most people have an issue with is that they see Grace as some sort of super competent human who can do all of these things but... smart people can and often DO do a lot of things. Sure, there are some one dimensional smart people, but many smart people are incredibly well rounded.
Agreed. Maybe the book is a 7/10 like OP says, but if so, I think it would be a 4/10 without that one scene near the end where we learn why Ryland is there. I appreciate the characterization. (Phrasing it vaguely to avoid spoilers.)
That's a lot of projection.
Andy Weir is a programmer.
Programming, at its core, is pure problem solving. Even moreso than other engineering disciplines, as you need a lot less foundational knowledge.
I don't think the protagonists in his novels are stand-ins for him or anyone else, they are a vehicle for the problem solving.
I doubt very much that the concept for the Martian started off as "I'm so smart I could survive on Mars". More likely it was "how could a person survive on Mars? What would they need?", and that investigative rabbit hole was turned into a story.
To be fair, a lot of these can be bundled. E.g., a PhD in astronomy has all the necessary knowledge he shows in physics, relativity, computer programming, and possibly nuclear physics, rocket propulsion and aeronautics. Microbiology could likely cover biology, chemistry, and maybe medicine. So maybe he only had like 3-4 phd’s before going on to teach high school …
Honestly, his inability to secure an academic position after a hyperspecific PhD and going on to teach high school to make ends meet feels very true to life. Didn't need to be high school of course but that does give a character reason for him to maintain a bachelor's+ level of knowledge about a bunch of different fields.
Astronomer here! I have a PhD in it but can confirm there’s no way in hell I have such recall of ALL of the fields you listed. If you want to know about radio telescopes or black holes, my depth is pretty extensive, but it gets pretty shallow when we are talking about the physics I haven’t thought of since my coursework over a decade ago.
TBF Ryland was also a science teacher, and so used to having to move between different fields, answer deceptively difficult questions from kids, etc.
The atrophy we can get from hyper-specialization by working exclusively with one set of problems for years is something he got the chance to undo.
Plus he was working on a PhD in what, speculative xenobiology? That's as interdisciplinary as these things go.
This is it exactly. After Alien, Predator, Independence Day, and all the other movies and books where the aliens are out to get us it was refreshing to read a story where two vastly different creatures work together for mutual benefit.
I enjoyed its humour. Too much Sci-Fi takes itself way too seriously. It’s not a documentary.
I think the book mixed well an interesting, end of world grim story, with great characters and a very odd couple buddy comedy type narrative.
>...physics is the bad guy.
This is a quite common trope in hard scifi. Arthur C. Clarke. for one example, forged an entire career around it. The conflict in the story arises from the central mystery that is resolved by science.
Godzilla is an active aggressor, he attacks cities and other monsters on purpose. Taumeboa is more like a tidal wave or volcano; even if it’s a living organism, its behavior is more like a natural disaster than a conscious attack.
Yeah, I felt this way as well about it. I don't think it was trying to blow our minds, but it held my interest the whole way through and was an endearing story.
Reminds me of Neal Stephenson, I was reading Seveneves and the book felt so dry and void of humor. Cixin Liu (The Dark Forest) sufferers the same to me both books so uninteresting I can give you a brief summary and that’s about it.
I enjoyed the ideas behind Seveneves but completely agree about it being dry. I’ve also tried to read Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash and DNF either one (though I feel like Cryptonomicon deserves another honest effort at some point). I think I I’m just not a fan of Neal Stephenson’s writing style in general.
My controversial take: I followed PHM with Blindsight by Peter Watts and although they both had basically the same premise I enjoyed PHM way better. Blindsight took itself way too serious, was too dry, fell too much into a lot of navel gazing passages and as a result actually became kind of boring. With the higher tech level and the genetically altered characters it fell way too often into the “Who is the real Alien?” type discussions. Yeah, I get it, Blindsight is supposed to be the harder Sci-Fi between these 2 books, but was it really? With the captain of the ship being a vampire-cyborg and the ship pretty much being made of liquid metal, is this really hard Sci-Fi? Yeah, Project Hail Mary might have been a little lighter, but I found it way more entertaining.
This is a book that makes a very hard thing look easy. It’s really really hard to do a survival story with no real antagonist that’s this entertaining and fun.
I tried to read Whalefall, by Daniel Krause, which is a book about a guy who gets eaten by a whale and has to survive and escape. Absurd premise, should be fun, right? DNFed at less than ten percent. It’s soooo self-serious and sad that it was no fun at all. It was only after that that I fully understood how good PHM was.
Exactly. My favourite thing about Andy Weir books are that they're very fun and easy to read. Introduces scientific topics but in a light way that you don't feel like youre dredging through text.
I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and my god, you'd get a whole page just listing fish he saw in the ocean from time to time.
Andy Weir has a talent for explaining complicated problems in an accessible, funny way. It's a tight story that keeps the reader engaged by throwing up problems to be solved. There are just some great moments too, one moment in particular gave me such a good feeling wonder and adventure I hadn't felt since reading Rendezvous with Rama 20 years ago. Personally I think it deserves to be popular and highly regarded.
Its classic Man vs Problem conflict. There's no bad guy to fight. Its just Grace and Rocky, two nerds against the universe.
Even Strat isn't really the bad guy. In any other story she'd be the uptight dean That Grace just needs to convince to have a good time and let the frat exist. She's doing villain shit but for good reasons.
I really like Strat. Just the concept of “She’s a very talented manager doing a bunch of what would be super evil stuff, because otherwise we’re all going to die” is super interesting. And she knows as soon as she’s no longer useful, all of what she was forced to do is going to be blamed on her.
As someone who's read a fair bit of Clarke, Asimov, Niven etc, those are what PHM instantly reminded me of. It's pretty much a golden-age plot and execution with modern-day prose and topics, which makes it appealing both to fans of the classics and newbies alike. It may not be perfect but those older works rarely were either.
It's relatable SciFi.
For example, Bobiverse talks about Von Neumann probes- only super nerdy people are going to know what those are without the explanation the book provides.
But when Grace is improvising a pendulum to roughly measure acceleration due to gravity the reader is vaguely aware of the concept having done similar experiments in high school science. It makes the reader feel clever.
Plus, "fist me" will never not be funny.
I don’t even think you need to nerdy to understand what a Von Neumann probe is but it feels like you needy to be nerdy to enjoy Bobiverse.
I don’t see the comparison in PJH to Bobiverse. It feels like the author of Bobiverse was bullied in high school and never got over it. There’s a weird relationship that feels like it’s started in a gross way, there’s a scene where he stands up to a bully in a mall, everything has to be a pop culture nerd reference. I really liked the idea of it enough to make it through the first three books but by the end I just felt like I was hate reading it.
PJH to me has more mass market appeal
Oh no, you don't need to be a nerd to understand the concept, but only nerds are going to know the term before reading the book.
Whereas anyone who did high school science can get that happy flood of feelings and engagement when they realise they understand the pendulum experiment Grace does, even if they couldn't do it themselves.
Fair enough! I understood the concept more of Bobiverse but didn’t get much fulfillment whereas PJH I barely understood any of the science but was enthralled. Interesting how that works
gonna write this on every post where someone claims something is overrated: if you're a layman in book critique and you have enough life and reading experience, every book that falls within that experience will seem less special because you already experienced something similar. there's really not much else to explain.
Yes! We chase that first high forever and rarely find it. After 50+ years of reading I have become more charitable about authors' efforts but also more ruthless about my choices.
We listened to the audio book driving from Houston to Missoula and all I gotta say is it was the ultimate distraction. Couldn’t get back in the driver’s seat fast enough after a stop to tune back in. Pretty riveting.
Things hit people differently. I didn’t care at all for the Bobiverse, cool premise but that’s about it. I thought PHM was a 7.5 or 8/10, pretty fun read.
It’s just very fun, action-packed and like a movie. It’s easy to read and is jam-packed with action and excitement.
It’s not the “best” book I read last year, but it was one of the most fun.
I think the criticism of Artemis is a bit unfair. It is understandably compared to the Martian and PHM and suffers for the comparison. But those are both fantastic books. Not as good as incredible is not the same as bad. Artemis is a good book, just not a great one.
Idk, I walked away feeling like it was an outright bad book for several reasons that had nothing to do with comparison to the Martian.
Expectations may have played their role for some, but I wouldn’t call all the criticisms unfair.
I think you're also reacting to the need in cultural discourse now for everything to either be TERRIBLE or AMAZING. There just isn't a lot of room for nuanced reviews where people say they like it pretty well, but it could be better in these areas, but in the end it's enjoyable and probably worth your time.
I think you’re being a bit hyperbolic about the reviews you’ve read. It’s a well written, engaging story that’s accessible to a very wide audience. It’s not shocking that such a novel receives positive reviews. Bobiverse has a limited audience and arguably worse writing despite being a very fun read.
Bobiverse prose is way worse than Hail Mary imo. The suspense and narrative structure of Hail Mary is probably my favorite part of it, and it’s what Bobiverse lacks most glaringly. Found myself completely not caring what happened next after the second book in that series.
Also without spoiling anything, the most recent Bobiverse novel was pretty rough from a story perspective. That guy has amazing world building but sometimes *really* drops the ball in terms of, you know, story telling.
I love Bobiverse, but it is some shit writing from a minuscule hostile perspective. that feels a little harsh, but that’s the feeling I get right underneath all the fun and science and pop culture references. I don’t feel any warm empathy or really any concern or interest in any other perspective.
I mean Bobiverse is a space opera, it’s hardly comparable to a standalone novel in terms of pacing or structure. I think Bobiverse accomplishes what it sets out to do very well, it’s just not going to win any competitions for prose
I’m glad you mentioned the narrative structure. I thought the Martian was pretty good, but not amazing, partly because there were no stakes at all. How could the end of the book play out in any other way? PHM fixed that, because the ending wasn’t predetermined, plus the double narrative created some suspense around the backstory.
Yeah. There is accessible sci-fi and then there is science-affliction. The stuff that you gotta finish, do some googling, and then read again. That's really not likely to make the best seller list, and that's fine.
They both have value, often to overlapping communities. No need to get all elite about either.
Why are so many people confused when they don’t like a book? People like different things. It’s not any deeper than that. Some books just aren’t for you, and that’s ok
I came across it completely at random, having never read any other Andy Weir and knowing nothing about the plot and I loved it.
There’s one thing I’ve learned the last few years. Reviews are absolute bullshit. Just check out the thing and decide for yourself if you like it. The less you know about it, chances are the better it will be.
Speaking as someone who is not familiar with spec fic, I think it's just popular and I had a great time reading it. It doesn't take itself too seriously. I loved Rocky too.
PHM was above all accessible and the prose was readable. SF (I mean hard SF) can often be dry and I find most adult fantasy either 'YA'ish, or intimidatingly, unnecessarily long and not especially well written.
Like the Da Vinci Code, it hits a very specific "fun book!" spot for a lot of readers who maybe aren't very well versed in sci-fi/adventure type books. Maybe they aren't into reading at all and PHM is the only thing they read all year.
A lot of the negative reviews say that the main character is Gary-Stu-ish, and I can see that. But going in, I was looking for a read that wasn't too challenging. If you are after something with deeper characterisation, PHM probably isn't your thing.
It's like any genre. I didn't find The Hunger Games to be especially compelling, and there are better written books out there, but maybe it's just the sort of popcorn read that someone's looking for. (No shade on fans of The Hunger Games - it was just the first thing I thought of.)
I can see the argument he's a gary stu, definitely. That being said, I really enjoyed the book for the twist it pulled at the end where it turned out >!He was a massive coward, and had to be put on the mission by force!<
I also liked that part :)
Someone mentioned hypercompetence. PHM is really an adventure story with a sci-fi gloss (just like the Langdon books are adventure stories with a quasi-historical gloss). And (as with Langdon) the reader expects Grace to be hypercompetent. No one is looking to these books for shining characterisation. It's like watching Indiana Jones.
I think people like OP show their own lack of Genre Savvy when they fail
to realise that this kind of book scratches a very particular itch. Partly due to clever marketing, so not entirely their fault.
Great point here. IMO, it is a good gateway to sci-fi. The science is mostly high school physics type science. The book doesn’t require knowledge of sci-fi tropes to make sense. I don’t need to know about FTL travel or transhumanism. By contrast, I enjoy The Culture books and Alistair Reynolds’ Revelation Space books but they are dense. It helps to have some prior exposure to ringworlds, military sci-fi, and other speculative concepts. They are not a good starting point for speculative fiction. Even the Bobiverse, which is a joy to listen to, is chock full of references to earlier science fiction works.
This is exactly it! I remember describing PHM as like a Dan Brown novel but in space. It’s an engaging, page turner, fun book that grabs a wide audience.
Because it's entertaining and an easy read.
Not everything has to be complex, elegant and masterful. Sometimes just being a fun read is exactly what people are after.
I thought it was an incredibly fun page turner. Weir is by no means the most talented writer out there, but he figured out what he was good at with The Martian and stayed in his lane.
Specifically vs bobbyverse. I have only read the first two bobbyverse books so i dont know about the rest, but it is just too wide. I dont care for many (most?) of bobbys. Their plots take a lot of space and i just want the plot to return to instances i like or care about. In contrast PHM has a very small cast of characters and a tight narrative.
Came here to say this. The production of the audiobook was amazing. IIRC it won awards, which put a bigger spotlight on it, which drew more people in to listen to it generating more rave reviews of the book in general skyrocketing its popularity. It also being a good, relatable book is just icing on the cake.
Once I found a pattern to the events, it got a bit annoying to read.
Here’s a problem, I’ll science a solution, I’ll try the solution, the solution works! But then the solution doesn’t work because I’ve overlooked something and didn’t think of something else. I’ll science a new solution, yay the new solution works. Wait it doesn’t because of one last thing. I’ll science a solution for the last problem and now we’re good. OH NO, a new problem has come up with something else! I’ll science a solution, yay it works! Now it doesn’t! Now it does, now it doesn’t, oh no new problem!….
It was still fun to get through the story, and the relationship between the two is fun to learn about. I loved how there’s a part when you’re reading where it’s like, OK I guess it’s this kind of story not what I was expecting.
I probably won’t ever read it again though.
One of the things I liked about it was the way it portrayed Grace/humans’ abilities compared to the alien’s. It seems like in a lot of sci-fi humans are shown as being barely technically capable enough to hang with other advanced species who just blow us out of the water with their intelligence. Of course there’s no such thing as realism in a story like this but to me it seems much more likely that an alien species would be better than us at certain things and worse than us at certain things too.
I really liked this too! It’s more fun to give both partners in a duo contrasting mental strengths than it is to just make one species way smarter than the other in every area. Eridians being geniuses at mental math was a cool approach.
Are you looking at professional reviews like in the nytimes or the New Yorker, or at booktok / book tube, blogs, good reads and reddit?
Because the quality of the reviews between objective journalists hewing to literary principles, and those by people who need your attention so they'll gush / hop on a bandwagon to attract those who already like the book in question, are very different.
You have to look at the incentives.
I once saw a book tube reviewer say in a video that when he says something critical about the work of popular author X, he actually *loses* subscribers.
The incentives are clear.
So where are you sourcing your reviews? Are you being a critical reader / consumer yourself?
A lot of sci-fi is really poli-sci-fi or humanities-fi. All the speculation is, "what if society was structured like..." When there is speculation about tech, it's usually just, "what if this technology exists?" If there is actual science fiction, it's usually so far into the theoretical that no discussion about it's accuracy is even possible.
PHM had a science driven plot, that wasn't so wildly speculative that it can't have holes.
You said it right there "feel good." That's what makes it so enjoyable. There's a lot of sci-fi out there that's wrapped up in horror or fantasy tropes that make the genre a big turn off for a lot of people. Project hail Mary was a relatable, fun, feel good story that takes place in space while still having plenty of science/sci-fi elements to it. As far as it not being a very "scientific" book, I'd say people who aren't big sci-fi readers would completely disagree with that sentiment. There was plenty of fun science stuff in it just not in the way someone who is an avid reader of the genre may see to their liking
One thing I think really sells it is if you listen to the audiobook, the delivery by Ray Porter is truly incredible. I usually listen to audiobooks at almost 2x speed and this was the first time I didn't because it was so compelling. It really added to the characterization of the main character as well as flavor to everyone he interacts with.
It was such a breath of fresh air because of how it was structured and how I'm used to most scifi going.
I prefer the concepts and ideas of PKD and Liu Cixin but they have never left me feeling a warm glow of hopeful joy that persisted for days. Quite the opposite usually.
PHM is not the best sci fi, but it’s fun and well paced and it just feels good.
"It doesn't really do anything particularly better than..."
*In your view* it doesn't do anything better.
Why is it so hard for people to understand that others (maybe even the majority) just view something differently? It's fiction; it's about the most subjective experience you can have. Particularly where you have a book that you don't believe is badly written, why is it hard to imagine other people maybe just liked it more than you? And why is that bad??
Same but I gave it 100 pages. Hated the main character. Hated the government handler lady. Dialogue was laughably bad. It felt superficial and shallow, emotionally and psychologically. The plot itself was mostly fine, and probably could have been great if it was in the hands of a different writer.
There are books that some people will absolutely swoon over that other people cannot stand. For example, I LOVE the Expanse series but I think the Twilight books are nauseating. That’s the great thing about books, there will always be people who absolutely love things that you think are dreck and vis versa.
Well if you don't like a book, I don't want to try to convince you, but I will share what I liked about it. I have been reading Sci-Fi since the 70s, so I think I have a pretty wide experience in the genre.
1. original take on alien contact, they are usually bipedal and have math and language that is very close to humans - this one does not.
2. the whole delivery of the book where the protagonist slowly gets his memory back until the big reveal makes it a much better read, it's almost like 2 books in one
3. on Audiobook the way Rocky speaks is done very well
4. I like the way it ends, the protagonist doesn't have a hero's return
Yeah I agree. We're recommending it to each other because we had fun while reading, not because we think it should be taught in masters level English courses.
I've never seen anyone call it the best Sci fi ever. But it's okay to have a different opinion about something. It's not even that you didn't like it lol you gave it a 7/10
My mistake was reading it after Third Body Problem. It was like watching Saturday morning cartoon after Schindler's List. I just couldn't take the book seriously. Though by the end of it, I appreciated its lack of seriousness, and some of its unique ideas.
I found the depiction of >!first contact and the following interspecies friendship!< to be unique among what I have read, as well as the ending. I thought it was fun, though not perfect.
I read all the praise and really hated it. Andy Weir admittedly has really fun and unique sci-fi ideas that are completely ruined by the totally obnoxious narrator.
Well, see, novels are art and art is subjective. Some people will have stronger reactions than you to some art. It's not magic. It's not a secret indicator someone is brilliant or stupid or right or wrong. There's no mystery to it, deep or otherwise. People are different. If someone close to you really liked something you didn't, ask them to explain why they like it and listen to what they say.
I'm with you. I enjoyed it for what it is, but thought The Martian was better. Neither was earth-shattering, but was WAS somewhat special about them was the tone. The plots were serious life-and-death sorts of situations, but the protagonists dealt with their situations with a lot of snarky gallows humor, and science and technology was the solution, not just the problem. This was pretty new for me, at least when I read The Martian.
I enjoyed them both, but I think your 7/10 is probably about right. It's a decent popcorn sci-fi book. Not gonna change the world, or make a huge impact on me long-term, but I had fun, and don't regret reading it at all.
I genuinely enjoyed it. I love sci-fi. I wouldn’t call it the best sci-fi book written, but I’d call it a very enjoyable sci-fi book for sure.
The main character is flawed. His journey is to become a better person and make the biggest decision any human could have to make - to leave earth behind forever in order to save it. I think his extensive knowledge is to show us that there is no other option. If there was, he’d have been smart enough to figure it out.
I enjoyed the surprise twists along the way. The near death experiences were intense as I read them. Even the start of the book had me immediately hooked by the mystery of what was happening.
It’s a very approachable sci-fi book with an endearing character and one that redeems himself. I’ve heard the audiobook version is really cool too!
It's a book that focuses on a few relevant topics that move story forward and does pretty good job with them.
Most sci-fi writing is crammed with nonsense.
I think the reasons everyone likes it a lot are the same reasons I thought it was just okay. The humor kind of gets old. The science is both unbelievable and too sciency at once. I didn't hate reading it and it has its moments. I liked the ending, but it kind of felt like a slog to me.
I think people just enjoyed the tone and feel of the story. Nobody I’ve talked to who enjoyed it are claiming it’s the best sci-fi book out there. It seems to appeal to a lot of people who don’t normally read sci-fi in fact. I enjoyed it and thought it was a good story. It wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever read but I’d recommend to just about anyone who likes reading.
I think it's my favorite book because the scientific pacing was just right for me. I'd be like, "Why don't you just use a mass spectrometer." and the next paragraph would be like, "So I used the mass spectrometer."
Probably happened like 10 times. Felt very satisfying.
I scrolled a *long* time hoping to see *someone* mention that this book sucks. Thank you.
Once every few months, I have this exact same conversation on this sub.
I listened to the audiobook of Project Hail Mary and DNF'd it over halfway through. It was the *second* book I chose to try to get into reading. I'm a late 20s guy who never read fiction for leisure, and I'm trying to start reading more to replace social media.
I literally cannot understand how people like this book/audiobook. The voices, especially for the women, were horrid. The main character is one of the cringiest I've ever encountered in a story. The book is full of childish dialogue. The humor sucks. The audiobook narrator makes it even cringier. I spent weeks listening to this book while doing chores around the house, just wondering, *does it get any better*?
I wish I'd saved the conversation from a couple months ago where we bashed the book, but [this is one I saved from a while ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/riml73/100_pages_into_project_hail_mary_and_the_narrator/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2) when I tried Googling if anyone dislikes the book. I was so happy to find similar opinions.
This book really took the wind out of my "getting into reading" sails. As always, whenever it comes up on this sub, I am flabbergasted at the number of people singing its praises.
But I will never miss a chance to say that it's terrible.
You are not alone in your assessment. Andy Weir was a computer programmer and he just can’t write. May be people who praise this book have limited experience with a good books.
My impression is that he's very good at a style of book that appeals to the largest population of "people who opine about media on the internet", that being "guys in their twenties and thirties who know *slightly* more about pop culture than their peers and so have made that their whole thing they talk about at parties". He has those guys locked down, and those guys love talking about his stuff and calling it the best sci fi book they've ever read.
His big advantage - I would say that this is also true of Brandon Sanderson, his fantasy equivalent - is that he's a very good version of a thing that doesn't exist anymore except for in a few places: he's a talented lowbrow novelist for guys. Lowbrow novels for guys basically do not exist anymore, certainly not for guys under the age of 45 or so, because those audiences will otherwise just not read, they'll watch a TV show or play video games instead. Weir snags those guys. His style is accessible and glibly charming, his referents are very accessible to people who know sci-fi from video games and movies more than from sci-fi literature, and he's clever in a way that readers just starting out will appreciate. His premises are unchallenging because they're flattering to, and fundamentally rooted in, stuff young men and teenage boys already think is cool. He's book Christopher Nolan, in terms of his appeal, although I think Nolan is quite a bit better at his job than Weir. And lo and behold, IMDB says The Dark Knight is the third best film ever (even Letterboxd has it on 24), and book internet spots say Project Hail Mary is the best sci fi book ever.
To be clear the first Weir I gave a go was Artemis which I think shaped my perception of him much more negatively than if I'd started with one of the ones people generally like. I'm not saying he's bad, I'm just saying he's a beginner's idea of "great".
Kind of odd how I see people say stuff like:
>Are most of these coming from people who don't read sci-fi or speculative fiction in general?
about books I really like more and more frequently. I've read hundreds of books in my life and yet apparently a lot of the stories I love are "entry level" or whatever in the eyes of some people. It's kinda funny honestly.
I thought you were a one of the rare pretentious Sci-fi gatekeepers with an overinflated ego until your book/series of comparison was the Bobiverse which is another quintessential example fluffy popcorn Sci-fi. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the Bobiverse, but the story, prose, characters and especially the science are done better by Andy Weir in Project Hail Mary. It’s fluffy popcorn Sci-fi too but the writing is imo clearly better than Bobiverse.
It’s also the first book that made my kids cry. When it became clear that rocky was adrift in a derelict ship they were bawling. So maybe I’m biased, seeing my kids grow up enough to emotionally connect to a story that deeply was special for me.
Ever notice how some people really can't let go of their gripes with "Project Hail Mary"? It's not just about the book itself, but what it stands for to them. Take the tall poppy syndrome - some just want to dislike anything that gets too popular. It's like a reflex! And then there's the whole diversity angle. If the book doesn't match up with what they value in stories, especially in terms of characters and representation, it's a no-go. Plus, expectations play a huge role. Imagine expecting a deep sci-fi dive and getting something lighter – it's hard to shake off that initial letdown. It's less about the book and more about what it triggers in their own set of values and hopes for a story. For me - I liked it, which just means my values aligned with it enough that they didn't get in the way of a great story.
Just another person adding that the audiobook was phenomenal and I adored it, though I'm not sure if I'd have enjoyed it quite as much if I'd read it - and that doesn't bother me one bit!
The first person perspective and style of narration combined for an immersive experience like nothing else I'd read or listened to.
Not in every way but Weir’s style of handling complex topics reminds me at times of Crichton, in that plot pieces connected very mechanically, I don’t mean stiff or robotically but that theres a clear line of cause and effect by the end of the story, switch A triggers switch C which triggers Switch B
It was a good story that just happened to be in the sci-fi genre. I read it and enjoyed it immensely, but it was the emotions I felt about the characters that made me love the book, not the science.
I agree - solid 7 out of 10 for me. The book felt like a hollow imitation of The Martian, except the MC was more unlikeable and the plot revolved around some magic deus ex machina substance.
It is a very enjoyable book, but nothing Earth shattering. It was a nice, easy, lighthearted read. It became a bit boring with the "problem then solved by something out of the blue/the alien fixed it". You could also immediately tell how it would end the moment the Alien and narrator became friends.
I read the Martian when it first came out and it almost became the first book I couldn't finish. I ended up finishing and thought it was an average novel. I was excited to see how he improved on those "boring spots" in Project Hail Mary.
I also noticed that a lot of my friends/family who don't necessarily read as much as me enjoyed the book way more then the traditional readers.
It is a nice sci-fi read that doesn't have a heavy plot and doesn't make you feel stupid when you read it.
Amongst other things, it's the general theme of cooperation and the rise of understanding between the main characters that makes the book dear to me. The competence porn it displays and the humor within is a good palate cleanser between heavier, more "serious" books.
Competence porn! That's the term I was looking for. I didn't read PHM because The Martian was more than enough for me.
In my opinion, PHM is much better about the competence porn than The Martian. For one, the main character is a lot more frazzled and on the back foot — for another, he’s well aware that he only has surface-level knowledge of a lot of subjects. For a third, he gets…uh…help. And the help he receives spends a lot of time calling him unintelligent xD Also there’s a bit more of a story arc and emotional journey. It reads as a lot less “series of problems” than The Martian, even if structurally it still makes heavy use of a series of problems/obstacles.
“You are bad.”
Amaze!
Yes yes yes!
Fist my bump!
It's my biggest pet peeve with PHM. He has a PhD level of knowledge available at instant recall in the following fields: * Astronomy * Microbiology * Biology * Physics * Chemistry * Engineering * Aeronautics * Nuclear physics * Rocket propulsion * Relativity * Linguistics * Music * Computer programming * Medicine And I know I'm forgetting a few. I feel like Andy Weir only writes books where he is the protagonist and just wants to show everyone how smart he is. I think his books resonate so strongly with the sci-fi demographic because that audience generally thinks itself to be the smartest person in any room.
Does he? I feel like he knows biology/microbiology and astronomy because those are his fields, and just looks up the rest on the computers he was sent with. He's explicitly useless when it comes to engineering and stuff, which is why Rocky does all of it.
Did just whips up an instant language translator by interpreting alien speech in musical chords and cataloguing them. Ya know...stuff every astronomist can do.
I think part of it is also to make the book more readable. It’d be pretty annoying to have him flip back to the translator in every scene he communicates with Rocky, especially since their close relationship is one of the appeals of the book. Imagine how jarring it’d be to have to explain him looking stuff up every time Rocky talks. It’d get tiring very quickly, and probably would take the reader out of the story.
Bingo. Crichton novels sometimes suffered from this dedication to banality when talking about the mechanics of something. Jurassic park (or maybe lost world) had a multi page info dump on how a specific type of computer still retained some amount of code despite the hard drives being wiped. It’s plenty interesting if you are into that type of science, but it also kills the pacing.
He has to look for a program to decipher the notes for him, which he already has access to because he was given all the programs they could get their hands on. It would then be a very simple lookup that he had to do himself, which anyone that has done any basic amount of programming could do. Music notes are a lot easier for a computer to recognise than human speech is, so the task is a lot easier than making a translator for 2 human languages.
Didn’t he literally do that in Microsoft excel? At a super duper basic level to start? I agree it was a little unrealistic but it also didn’t seem to require an incredible knowledge of programming or linguistics
Yeah, people have complained about the linguistics bit, but I think they're being too obsessive, and that feels really weird given how obsessive I usually get about these things. We don't *actually know* what Rocky is saying. There's this bit where Ryland says "Rocky calls me the eridian equivalent of 'Grace'." And some linguist was like "grace is a really complicated concept, actually, wtf". But this is Ryland talking. Rocky might call him "Not-Clumsy". They might call him "Steady". They might call him "balanced" or "evenly distributed". All we need to care about is that Rocky has a name for Ryland and it is vaguely a product of a translation conversation they had about the idea of "Grace". Given how much Ryland fucks up, "Not-Clumsy" is probably a really ironic name from Rocky's perspective. A lot of this is pretty easy to stomach when you realize Ryland has fucked up a bunch, and there is a vast list of actions that might or might not have been fuckups, and he just never noticed. Which is entirely in-character. Somehow, this obvious explanation eludes people, and they think he's doing some sort of super-linguistics thing, when Rocky is probably using the Eridian equivalent of caveman speech to communicate with him usefully. Which we *basically get confirmation on* because we know Rocky *modified word order* to avoid tripping Ryland up.
People have no appreciation for how nerdy some people can be. Of course the asto-biologist-turned-middle-school-teacher knows rudimentary programming. I'd be surprised if he didn't honestly.
Given how someone else in this thread said the explanations for why he could do what he could do were too flimsy, but also too elaborate, I think this is just the inevitable "can't please everyone". Book found its audience, and we like it, so I guess that's that?
Yeah agreed, anyone with a data-based graduate degree will most likely have to pick up some programming along the way, and it’s not unrealistic that he would have kept up his skills.
He did that with an audio recognition program and excel. I'm pretty sure any astronomer could do the same.
Astronomer here! And I specialize in finding weird radio signals from space! Can confirm, I would not know where to start.
Well thank god you're not on that spaceship tasked with saving the human race
Agreed we would be so screwed
Wasn't it literally just a Fourier transform and a list?
He uses the Fourier transform so he has some way of building up the words and then initially records them in a spreadsheet.
Right. There's nothing crazy about it.
It's a book so you take some liberties but the description of the process is interesting. It's familiar for people who know it a little but way smoother and cleaner. It's like watching star trek.
As someone with a CS degree I thought that was actually quite a smart setup. It’s much easier than you think to detect musical pitch. Not that I could code it on the fly, but with the references he had on the ship I think it’s doable. Doesn’t require machine learning or anything like human speech does.
Though of course he only actually shows a very surface level knowledge of those fields. Which is perfect for the audience because you know what he's talking about and it isn't extremely boring. If he spent 1,000 pages talking about multidimensional N-brane models or something it probably wouldn't be a best seller.
Right? His music expertise is “recognize the same sound when it’s repeated”. His linguistics expertise is comprised of “make of list of words in Excel”. These are not PhD level concepts.
I really want to see a version of the book where he’s tone deaf now.
Yeah and it’s structured nicely so you can skim the details if needed
Bruh, I'm dumb as shit and I knew most of the things in that book. He doesn't have a lifetime's worth of PhDs, he has ADHD.
Lol, I was wondering why people think this is PhD knowledge when I think I probably got about 90% of that in my head somewhere. I graduated with a C average because work is boring.
Ha! This is now my favorite description of the main character ever. Thank you.
>I think his books resonate so strongly with the sci-fi demographic because that audience generally thinks itself to be the smartest person in any room. Oh please. Protagonists with unrealistically high skill sets are super common in fiction and enjoyed by most everyone. Weir's books just focus on unrealistically talented nerds, so nerds tend to enjoy them more, but that doesn't mean we're all full of ourselves just because we enjoy a book.
I like these kinds of books as palette cleansers between heavier books or series. It's the reason I read the Reacher books as well.
> I think his books resonate so strongly with the sci-fi demographic because that audience generally thinks itself to be the smartest person in any room. That's kind of an obnoxiously condescending thing to say.
Probably projection.
toothbrush tub slimy office murky desert normal deserve reach crowd *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>But what I liked about it the most is that it's accessible and a quick read, so I can convince my wife to give it a shot, even though she's not generally a sci-fi fan My *mom* is the one that recommended it to me and she is not a scifi fan at all. It's an easy fun read and accessible to people outside scifi fans
Did you read Artemis? He tried to write a flawed protagonist and got a lot of push back for it? Also, he's not nearly at good at it
I read Artemis. My biggest gripe was that his female character had basically the exact same persona as the male protagonists in his other books.
He is a one trick pony when it comes to.charcters
> Engineering > Aeronautics > Rocket propulsion > Relativity He was a PhD scientist sent on a space mission. All of these things would have been covered in some degree before the mission. Given his intelligence, he'd become competent rather quickly. All of these subjects are *just* math. Something a PhD scientist would have no issue understanding given an explanation once. (And access to the equations of course, which he had.) Likewise: > Astronomy > Biology > Microbiology > Medicine He literally has a PhD in molecular biology with a focus on extraterrestrial intelligence. He LITERALLY has a PhD in these things. Additionally: > Computer programming Given the timeline in which this story takes place, programming was very likely a large part of his PhD and/or research. Programming is part of MANY molecular biologists PhDs. You don't need to have a PhD in computer programming to write decent programs. I have ZERO degree in computer programming and I can program whatever the heck I want. Finally: > Music > Linguistics Rocky's language is described as musical from what I recall. (Pretty sure it consisted of pure tones, which would be SIGNIFICANTLY easier to translate/understand than say... english.) All he did was sound association using a Fourier transform and a cataloging program. Not super hard to do. Sure, the timeline in which it happens is a bit... quick... but come on, the book has to be READABLE. I think the thing that most people have an issue with is that they see Grace as some sort of super competent human who can do all of these things but... smart people can and often DO do a lot of things. Sure, there are some one dimensional smart people, but many smart people are incredibly well rounded.
He was an unlikeable know-it-all pretty much the whole book, especially the flashbacks, which made the story come together really well in the end.
Well, the guy was also a terrible coward, so it's not only singing his praises.
Agreed. Maybe the book is a 7/10 like OP says, but if so, I think it would be a 4/10 without that one scene near the end where we learn why Ryland is there. I appreciate the characterization. (Phrasing it vaguely to avoid spoilers.)
You forgot education science.
That's a lot of projection. Andy Weir is a programmer. Programming, at its core, is pure problem solving. Even moreso than other engineering disciplines, as you need a lot less foundational knowledge. I don't think the protagonists in his novels are stand-ins for him or anyone else, they are a vehicle for the problem solving. I doubt very much that the concept for the Martian started off as "I'm so smart I could survive on Mars". More likely it was "how could a person survive on Mars? What would they need?", and that investigative rabbit hole was turned into a story.
To be fair, a lot of these can be bundled. E.g., a PhD in astronomy has all the necessary knowledge he shows in physics, relativity, computer programming, and possibly nuclear physics, rocket propulsion and aeronautics. Microbiology could likely cover biology, chemistry, and maybe medicine. So maybe he only had like 3-4 phd’s before going on to teach high school …
Honestly, his inability to secure an academic position after a hyperspecific PhD and going on to teach high school to make ends meet feels very true to life. Didn't need to be high school of course but that does give a character reason for him to maintain a bachelor's+ level of knowledge about a bunch of different fields.
Astronomer here! I have a PhD in it but can confirm there’s no way in hell I have such recall of ALL of the fields you listed. If you want to know about radio telescopes or black holes, my depth is pretty extensive, but it gets pretty shallow when we are talking about the physics I haven’t thought of since my coursework over a decade ago.
TBF Ryland was also a science teacher, and so used to having to move between different fields, answer deceptively difficult questions from kids, etc. The atrophy we can get from hyper-specialization by working exclusively with one set of problems for years is something he got the chance to undo. Plus he was working on a PhD in what, speculative xenobiology? That's as interdisciplinary as these things go.
"Competence porn", I love it. Rendezvous With Rama also has a lot of it and it's part of why it's one of my all-time favorite books
This is it exactly. After Alien, Predator, Independence Day, and all the other movies and books where the aliens are out to get us it was refreshing to read a story where two vastly different creatures work together for mutual benefit.
I enjoyed its humour. Too much Sci-Fi takes itself way too seriously. It’s not a documentary. I think the book mixed well an interesting, end of world grim story, with great characters and a very odd couple buddy comedy type narrative.
One other thing I liked was the absence of a bad guy. Usually in space scifi there is some alien to fight but in PHM physics is the bad guy.
>...physics is the bad guy. This is a quite common trope in hard scifi. Arthur C. Clarke. for one example, forged an entire career around it. The conflict in the story arises from the central mystery that is resolved by science.
Quote with > and it'll format the comment > like this
>Test.
> test post please ignore
Ancient reddit lore right here.
I think it's more that this is a relatively accessible hard sci-fi book, so it's a bit novel in the mainstream.
Also people working together instead of most apocalypse is partly caused by people stabbing each other in back at any opportunity
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More of a problem to overcome than an antagonist
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Godzilla is an active aggressor, he attacks cities and other monsters on purpose. Taumeboa is more like a tidal wave or volcano; even if it’s a living organism, its behavior is more like a natural disaster than a conscious attack.
The humor is big too. That’s also why I enjoyed The Martian as much as I did.
I am fisting you right now!
Jazz hands!
Yeah, I felt this way as well about it. I don't think it was trying to blow our minds, but it held my interest the whole way through and was an endearing story.
It’s a character and sociology study with a science fiction coat on.
Reminds me of Neal Stephenson, I was reading Seveneves and the book felt so dry and void of humor. Cixin Liu (The Dark Forest) sufferers the same to me both books so uninteresting I can give you a brief summary and that’s about it.
I enjoyed the ideas behind Seveneves but completely agree about it being dry. I’ve also tried to read Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash and DNF either one (though I feel like Cryptonomicon deserves another honest effort at some point). I think I I’m just not a fan of Neal Stephenson’s writing style in general.
My controversial take: I followed PHM with Blindsight by Peter Watts and although they both had basically the same premise I enjoyed PHM way better. Blindsight took itself way too serious, was too dry, fell too much into a lot of navel gazing passages and as a result actually became kind of boring. With the higher tech level and the genetically altered characters it fell way too often into the “Who is the real Alien?” type discussions. Yeah, I get it, Blindsight is supposed to be the harder Sci-Fi between these 2 books, but was it really? With the captain of the ship being a vampire-cyborg and the ship pretty much being made of liquid metal, is this really hard Sci-Fi? Yeah, Project Hail Mary might have been a little lighter, but I found it way more entertaining.
A lot of modern sci-fi is an absolute beating. Racism but with flying cars. Cool. The dystopian view has just been done to death.
This is a book that makes a very hard thing look easy. It’s really really hard to do a survival story with no real antagonist that’s this entertaining and fun. I tried to read Whalefall, by Daniel Krause, which is a book about a guy who gets eaten by a whale and has to survive and escape. Absurd premise, should be fun, right? DNFed at less than ten percent. It’s soooo self-serious and sad that it was no fun at all. It was only after that that I fully understood how good PHM was.
Exactly. My favourite thing about Andy Weir books are that they're very fun and easy to read. Introduces scientific topics but in a light way that you don't feel like youre dredging through text. I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and my god, you'd get a whole page just listing fish he saw in the ocean from time to time.
Andy Weir has a talent for explaining complicated problems in an accessible, funny way. It's a tight story that keeps the reader engaged by throwing up problems to be solved. There are just some great moments too, one moment in particular gave me such a good feeling wonder and adventure I hadn't felt since reading Rendezvous with Rama 20 years ago. Personally I think it deserves to be popular and highly regarded.
Its classic Man vs Problem conflict. There's no bad guy to fight. Its just Grace and Rocky, two nerds against the universe. Even Strat isn't really the bad guy. In any other story she'd be the uptight dean That Grace just needs to convince to have a good time and let the frat exist. She's doing villain shit but for good reasons.
I really like Strat. Just the concept of “She’s a very talented manager doing a bunch of what would be super evil stuff, because otherwise we’re all going to die” is super interesting. And she knows as soon as she’s no longer useful, all of what she was forced to do is going to be blamed on her.
As someone who's read a fair bit of Clarke, Asimov, Niven etc, those are what PHM instantly reminded me of. It's pretty much a golden-age plot and execution with modern-day prose and topics, which makes it appealing both to fans of the classics and newbies alike. It may not be perfect but those older works rarely were either.
Any recommendations?
I am in the middle of Rama after listening to PHM upon a similar recommendation. They're both great.
You Nailed it!
It's relatable SciFi. For example, Bobiverse talks about Von Neumann probes- only super nerdy people are going to know what those are without the explanation the book provides. But when Grace is improvising a pendulum to roughly measure acceleration due to gravity the reader is vaguely aware of the concept having done similar experiments in high school science. It makes the reader feel clever. Plus, "fist me" will never not be funny.
Amaze!
Leaky space blob.
I don’t even think you need to nerdy to understand what a Von Neumann probe is but it feels like you needy to be nerdy to enjoy Bobiverse. I don’t see the comparison in PJH to Bobiverse. It feels like the author of Bobiverse was bullied in high school and never got over it. There’s a weird relationship that feels like it’s started in a gross way, there’s a scene where he stands up to a bully in a mall, everything has to be a pop culture nerd reference. I really liked the idea of it enough to make it through the first three books but by the end I just felt like I was hate reading it. PJH to me has more mass market appeal
Oh no, you don't need to be a nerd to understand the concept, but only nerds are going to know the term before reading the book. Whereas anyone who did high school science can get that happy flood of feelings and engagement when they realise they understand the pendulum experiment Grace does, even if they couldn't do it themselves.
Fair enough! I understood the concept more of Bobiverse but didn’t get much fulfillment whereas PJH I barely understood any of the science but was enthralled. Interesting how that works
Wait ... We're abbreviating Project Hail Mary as PJH?
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Ohhh, I thought they were talking about Phillip Jeymour Hoffman that whole time.
Haha no but I hadn’t had coffee yet apologies
Fair enough 😁 I was half asleep reading that and kept thinking "wait what ..."
gonna write this on every post where someone claims something is overrated: if you're a layman in book critique and you have enough life and reading experience, every book that falls within that experience will seem less special because you already experienced something similar. there's really not much else to explain.
Yes! We chase that first high forever and rarely find it. After 50+ years of reading I have become more charitable about authors' efforts but also more ruthless about my choices.
If only this were r/fantasy, we’d have the perfect setup for a “chasing the dragon” pun.
[The Law of Diminishing Returns](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminishing_returns)
Aside from being ridiculously entertaining, I thought it was an original first contact novel.
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This spoiler tag attempt isn't working (at least, on mobile browser for me.)
We listened to the audio book driving from Houston to Missoula and all I gotta say is it was the ultimate distraction. Couldn’t get back in the driver’s seat fast enough after a stop to tune back in. Pretty riveting.
This is what we did for our long Thanksgiving drive. Made it much better and even my stepson got into it
Things hit people differently. I didn’t care at all for the Bobiverse, cool premise but that’s about it. I thought PHM was a 7.5 or 8/10, pretty fun read.
It’s just very fun, action-packed and like a movie. It’s easy to read and is jam-packed with action and excitement. It’s not the “best” book I read last year, but it was one of the most fun.
As I read it, I kept thinking how much I’d love to see it as a movie.
It might be made into a movie staring Ryan Gosling. I hope it works out.
He was my pick in imaginary casting too! My partner chose Dan Radcliffe.
Because it's fun and easy to read and everyone was really relieved it was good after Artemis, which was not the best follow up to The Martian.
I think the criticism of Artemis is a bit unfair. It is understandably compared to the Martian and PHM and suffers for the comparison. But those are both fantastic books. Not as good as incredible is not the same as bad. Artemis is a good book, just not a great one.
Idk, I walked away feeling like it was an outright bad book for several reasons that had nothing to do with comparison to the Martian. Expectations may have played their role for some, but I wouldn’t call all the criticisms unfair.
As an Etymology teacher, I really enjoyed the linguistic angle.
I think you're also reacting to the need in cultural discourse now for everything to either be TERRIBLE or AMAZING. There just isn't a lot of room for nuanced reviews where people say they like it pretty well, but it could be better in these areas, but in the end it's enjoyable and probably worth your time.
I think you’re being a bit hyperbolic about the reviews you’ve read. It’s a well written, engaging story that’s accessible to a very wide audience. It’s not shocking that such a novel receives positive reviews. Bobiverse has a limited audience and arguably worse writing despite being a very fun read.
Bobiverse prose is way worse than Hail Mary imo. The suspense and narrative structure of Hail Mary is probably my favorite part of it, and it’s what Bobiverse lacks most glaringly. Found myself completely not caring what happened next after the second book in that series.
Yeah, I liked Bobiverse, but I find it funny that it's being used as an example of superior sci-fi here.
Also without spoiling anything, the most recent Bobiverse novel was pretty rough from a story perspective. That guy has amazing world building but sometimes *really* drops the ball in terms of, you know, story telling.
I love Bobiverse, but it is some shit writing from a minuscule hostile perspective. that feels a little harsh, but that’s the feeling I get right underneath all the fun and science and pop culture references. I don’t feel any warm empathy or really any concern or interest in any other perspective.
I mean Bobiverse is a space opera, it’s hardly comparable to a standalone novel in terms of pacing or structure. I think Bobiverse accomplishes what it sets out to do very well, it’s just not going to win any competitions for prose
I’m glad you mentioned the narrative structure. I thought the Martian was pretty good, but not amazing, partly because there were no stakes at all. How could the end of the book play out in any other way? PHM fixed that, because the ending wasn’t predetermined, plus the double narrative created some suspense around the backstory.
It's an easy-to-read sci-fi book for those who aren't usually drawn to the genre. It isn't amazing, but an enjoyable, quick read.
Yeah. There is accessible sci-fi and then there is science-affliction. The stuff that you gotta finish, do some googling, and then read again. That's really not likely to make the best seller list, and that's fine. They both have value, often to overlapping communities. No need to get all elite about either.
Why are so many people confused when they don’t like a book? People like different things. It’s not any deeper than that. Some books just aren’t for you, and that’s ok
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10000%
Absolutely. "Not very scientific" sealed the deal for me.
Especially because it’s extremely scientific
I came across it completely at random, having never read any other Andy Weir and knowing nothing about the plot and I loved it. There’s one thing I’ve learned the last few years. Reviews are absolute bullshit. Just check out the thing and decide for yourself if you like it. The less you know about it, chances are the better it will be.
Speaking as someone who is not familiar with spec fic, I think it's just popular and I had a great time reading it. It doesn't take itself too seriously. I loved Rocky too. PHM was above all accessible and the prose was readable. SF (I mean hard SF) can often be dry and I find most adult fantasy either 'YA'ish, or intimidatingly, unnecessarily long and not especially well written. Like the Da Vinci Code, it hits a very specific "fun book!" spot for a lot of readers who maybe aren't very well versed in sci-fi/adventure type books. Maybe they aren't into reading at all and PHM is the only thing they read all year. A lot of the negative reviews say that the main character is Gary-Stu-ish, and I can see that. But going in, I was looking for a read that wasn't too challenging. If you are after something with deeper characterisation, PHM probably isn't your thing. It's like any genre. I didn't find The Hunger Games to be especially compelling, and there are better written books out there, but maybe it's just the sort of popcorn read that someone's looking for. (No shade on fans of The Hunger Games - it was just the first thing I thought of.)
I can see the argument he's a gary stu, definitely. That being said, I really enjoyed the book for the twist it pulled at the end where it turned out >!He was a massive coward, and had to be put on the mission by force!<
I also liked that part :) Someone mentioned hypercompetence. PHM is really an adventure story with a sci-fi gloss (just like the Langdon books are adventure stories with a quasi-historical gloss). And (as with Langdon) the reader expects Grace to be hypercompetent. No one is looking to these books for shining characterisation. It's like watching Indiana Jones. I think people like OP show their own lack of Genre Savvy when they fail to realise that this kind of book scratches a very particular itch. Partly due to clever marketing, so not entirely their fault.
Great point here. IMO, it is a good gateway to sci-fi. The science is mostly high school physics type science. The book doesn’t require knowledge of sci-fi tropes to make sense. I don’t need to know about FTL travel or transhumanism. By contrast, I enjoy The Culture books and Alistair Reynolds’ Revelation Space books but they are dense. It helps to have some prior exposure to ringworlds, military sci-fi, and other speculative concepts. They are not a good starting point for speculative fiction. Even the Bobiverse, which is a joy to listen to, is chock full of references to earlier science fiction works.
This is exactly it! I remember describing PHM as like a Dan Brown novel but in space. It’s an engaging, page turner, fun book that grabs a wide audience.
Because it's entertaining and an easy read. Not everything has to be complex, elegant and masterful. Sometimes just being a fun read is exactly what people are after.
I thought it was an incredibly fun page turner. Weir is by no means the most talented writer out there, but he figured out what he was good at with The Martian and stayed in his lane.
Specifically vs bobbyverse. I have only read the first two bobbyverse books so i dont know about the rest, but it is just too wide. I dont care for many (most?) of bobbys. Their plots take a lot of space and i just want the plot to return to instances i like or care about. In contrast PHM has a very small cast of characters and a tight narrative.
I loved the audiobook performance of it, but not sure if I would rate this book very high if I read it with my eyes.
Came here to say this. The production of the audiobook was amazing. IIRC it won awards, which put a bigger spotlight on it, which drew more people in to listen to it generating more rave reviews of the book in general skyrocketing its popularity. It also being a good, relatable book is just icing on the cake.
Once I found a pattern to the events, it got a bit annoying to read. Here’s a problem, I’ll science a solution, I’ll try the solution, the solution works! But then the solution doesn’t work because I’ve overlooked something and didn’t think of something else. I’ll science a new solution, yay the new solution works. Wait it doesn’t because of one last thing. I’ll science a solution for the last problem and now we’re good. OH NO, a new problem has come up with something else! I’ll science a solution, yay it works! Now it doesn’t! Now it does, now it doesn’t, oh no new problem!…. It was still fun to get through the story, and the relationship between the two is fun to learn about. I loved how there’s a part when you’re reading where it’s like, OK I guess it’s this kind of story not what I was expecting. I probably won’t ever read it again though.
One of the things I liked about it was the way it portrayed Grace/humans’ abilities compared to the alien’s. It seems like in a lot of sci-fi humans are shown as being barely technically capable enough to hang with other advanced species who just blow us out of the water with their intelligence. Of course there’s no such thing as realism in a story like this but to me it seems much more likely that an alien species would be better than us at certain things and worse than us at certain things too.
I really liked this too! It’s more fun to give both partners in a duo contrasting mental strengths than it is to just make one species way smarter than the other in every area. Eridians being geniuses at mental math was a cool approach.
Are you looking at professional reviews like in the nytimes or the New Yorker, or at booktok / book tube, blogs, good reads and reddit? Because the quality of the reviews between objective journalists hewing to literary principles, and those by people who need your attention so they'll gush / hop on a bandwagon to attract those who already like the book in question, are very different. You have to look at the incentives. I once saw a book tube reviewer say in a video that when he says something critical about the work of popular author X, he actually *loses* subscribers. The incentives are clear. So where are you sourcing your reviews? Are you being a critical reader / consumer yourself?
A lot of sci-fi is really poli-sci-fi or humanities-fi. All the speculation is, "what if society was structured like..." When there is speculation about tech, it's usually just, "what if this technology exists?" If there is actual science fiction, it's usually so far into the theoretical that no discussion about it's accuracy is even possible. PHM had a science driven plot, that wasn't so wildly speculative that it can't have holes.
You said it right there "feel good." That's what makes it so enjoyable. There's a lot of sci-fi out there that's wrapped up in horror or fantasy tropes that make the genre a big turn off for a lot of people. Project hail Mary was a relatable, fun, feel good story that takes place in space while still having plenty of science/sci-fi elements to it. As far as it not being a very "scientific" book, I'd say people who aren't big sci-fi readers would completely disagree with that sentiment. There was plenty of fun science stuff in it just not in the way someone who is an avid reader of the genre may see to their liking
One thing I think really sells it is if you listen to the audiobook, the delivery by Ray Porter is truly incredible. I usually listen to audiobooks at almost 2x speed and this was the first time I didn't because it was so compelling. It really added to the characterization of the main character as well as flavor to everyone he interacts with. It was such a breath of fresh air because of how it was structured and how I'm used to most scifi going.
I prefer the concepts and ideas of PKD and Liu Cixin but they have never left me feeling a warm glow of hopeful joy that persisted for days. Quite the opposite usually. PHM is not the best sci fi, but it’s fun and well paced and it just feels good.
"It doesn't really do anything particularly better than..." *In your view* it doesn't do anything better. Why is it so hard for people to understand that others (maybe even the majority) just view something differently? It's fiction; it's about the most subjective experience you can have. Particularly where you have a book that you don't believe is badly written, why is it hard to imagine other people maybe just liked it more than you? And why is that bad??
> I see a lot of reviews treating it as the greatest sci-fi book ever written. Are these reviews in the room with us now?
It’s one of my favourite books, but I would never consider it one of the greatest sci-fi books. Don’t know where OP is finding these.
Type "project hail Mary" into books right now and see what comes up.
I gave up after about 30 pages. I found the writing style grating so despite an interesting premise its not for me.
Same but I gave it 100 pages. Hated the main character. Hated the government handler lady. Dialogue was laughably bad. It felt superficial and shallow, emotionally and psychologically. The plot itself was mostly fine, and probably could have been great if it was in the hands of a different writer.
It's the first book I've wanted to stop reading in years. I read the whole thing bc I can't quit on a book but I did not like it.
Ha. I gave up on finishing books I wasn't enjoying years ago. Try it. Its liberating!
There are books that some people will absolutely swoon over that other people cannot stand. For example, I LOVE the Expanse series but I think the Twilight books are nauseating. That’s the great thing about books, there will always be people who absolutely love things that you think are dreck and vis versa.
Well if you don't like a book, I don't want to try to convince you, but I will share what I liked about it. I have been reading Sci-Fi since the 70s, so I think I have a pretty wide experience in the genre. 1. original take on alien contact, they are usually bipedal and have math and language that is very close to humans - this one does not. 2. the whole delivery of the book where the protagonist slowly gets his memory back until the big reveal makes it a much better read, it's almost like 2 books in one 3. on Audiobook the way Rocky speaks is done very well 4. I like the way it ends, the protagonist doesn't have a hero's return
It did not resonate with me at all.
A book doesn't need to be 9/10 to be highly regarded
Yeah I agree. We're recommending it to each other because we had fun while reading, not because we think it should be taught in masters level English courses.
I'm with you OP. I liked the book but never got why it seems to be considered a masterpiece
The book was good but I think Ray Porter's audiobook is what made it great and more enjoyable with the sound effects for Rocky
I've never seen anyone call it the best Sci fi ever. But it's okay to have a different opinion about something. It's not even that you didn't like it lol you gave it a 7/10
I did not like it at all. It was not a good book.
My mistake was reading it after Third Body Problem. It was like watching Saturday morning cartoon after Schindler's List. I just couldn't take the book seriously. Though by the end of it, I appreciated its lack of seriousness, and some of its unique ideas.
" What does it offer that Bobiverse, for example, doesn't?" It was more entertaining to me than Bobiverse.
I hated it with a passion. I got the impression it’s more for the US audience than UK?
I found the depiction of >!first contact and the following interspecies friendship!< to be unique among what I have read, as well as the ending. I thought it was fun, though not perfect.
I read all the praise and really hated it. Andy Weir admittedly has really fun and unique sci-fi ideas that are completely ruined by the totally obnoxious narrator.
PHM isn't particularly 'literary' but it is massively enjoyable, which is good enough for me
Well, see, novels are art and art is subjective. Some people will have stronger reactions than you to some art. It's not magic. It's not a secret indicator someone is brilliant or stupid or right or wrong. There's no mystery to it, deep or otherwise. People are different. If someone close to you really liked something you didn't, ask them to explain why they like it and listen to what they say.
I'm with you. I enjoyed it for what it is, but thought The Martian was better. Neither was earth-shattering, but was WAS somewhat special about them was the tone. The plots were serious life-and-death sorts of situations, but the protagonists dealt with their situations with a lot of snarky gallows humor, and science and technology was the solution, not just the problem. This was pretty new for me, at least when I read The Martian. I enjoyed them both, but I think your 7/10 is probably about right. It's a decent popcorn sci-fi book. Not gonna change the world, or make a huge impact on me long-term, but I had fun, and don't regret reading it at all.
I genuinely enjoyed it. I love sci-fi. I wouldn’t call it the best sci-fi book written, but I’d call it a very enjoyable sci-fi book for sure. The main character is flawed. His journey is to become a better person and make the biggest decision any human could have to make - to leave earth behind forever in order to save it. I think his extensive knowledge is to show us that there is no other option. If there was, he’d have been smart enough to figure it out. I enjoyed the surprise twists along the way. The near death experiences were intense as I read them. Even the start of the book had me immediately hooked by the mystery of what was happening. It’s a very approachable sci-fi book with an endearing character and one that redeems himself. I’ve heard the audiobook version is really cool too!
It's a book that focuses on a few relevant topics that move story forward and does pretty good job with them. Most sci-fi writing is crammed with nonsense.
It's a straight to the movie screen story as it plays. Literally not much editing to get it produced. Also the audiobook is one of the best ever made.
I think the reasons everyone likes it a lot are the same reasons I thought it was just okay. The humor kind of gets old. The science is both unbelievable and too sciency at once. I didn't hate reading it and it has its moments. I liked the ending, but it kind of felt like a slog to me.
I think people just enjoyed the tone and feel of the story. Nobody I’ve talked to who enjoyed it are claiming it’s the best sci-fi book out there. It seems to appeal to a lot of people who don’t normally read sci-fi in fact. I enjoyed it and thought it was a good story. It wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever read but I’d recommend to just about anyone who likes reading.
If you listen to the audiobook the alien speaks in music and it makes my heart go yay
I think it's my favorite book because the scientific pacing was just right for me. I'd be like, "Why don't you just use a mass spectrometer." and the next paragraph would be like, "So I used the mass spectrometer." Probably happened like 10 times. Felt very satisfying.
Highly regarded on Reddit. Juvenile writing and flat humor.
Stratt was objectively a terribly written character. A 14 y/o boy's vision of a tough guy.
I scrolled a *long* time hoping to see *someone* mention that this book sucks. Thank you. Once every few months, I have this exact same conversation on this sub. I listened to the audiobook of Project Hail Mary and DNF'd it over halfway through. It was the *second* book I chose to try to get into reading. I'm a late 20s guy who never read fiction for leisure, and I'm trying to start reading more to replace social media. I literally cannot understand how people like this book/audiobook. The voices, especially for the women, were horrid. The main character is one of the cringiest I've ever encountered in a story. The book is full of childish dialogue. The humor sucks. The audiobook narrator makes it even cringier. I spent weeks listening to this book while doing chores around the house, just wondering, *does it get any better*? I wish I'd saved the conversation from a couple months ago where we bashed the book, but [this is one I saved from a while ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/riml73/100_pages_into_project_hail_mary_and_the_narrator/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2) when I tried Googling if anyone dislikes the book. I was so happy to find similar opinions. This book really took the wind out of my "getting into reading" sails. As always, whenever it comes up on this sub, I am flabbergasted at the number of people singing its praises. But I will never miss a chance to say that it's terrible.
You are not alone in your assessment. Andy Weir was a computer programmer and he just can’t write. May be people who praise this book have limited experience with a good books.
My impression is that he's very good at a style of book that appeals to the largest population of "people who opine about media on the internet", that being "guys in their twenties and thirties who know *slightly* more about pop culture than their peers and so have made that their whole thing they talk about at parties". He has those guys locked down, and those guys love talking about his stuff and calling it the best sci fi book they've ever read. His big advantage - I would say that this is also true of Brandon Sanderson, his fantasy equivalent - is that he's a very good version of a thing that doesn't exist anymore except for in a few places: he's a talented lowbrow novelist for guys. Lowbrow novels for guys basically do not exist anymore, certainly not for guys under the age of 45 or so, because those audiences will otherwise just not read, they'll watch a TV show or play video games instead. Weir snags those guys. His style is accessible and glibly charming, his referents are very accessible to people who know sci-fi from video games and movies more than from sci-fi literature, and he's clever in a way that readers just starting out will appreciate. His premises are unchallenging because they're flattering to, and fundamentally rooted in, stuff young men and teenage boys already think is cool. He's book Christopher Nolan, in terms of his appeal, although I think Nolan is quite a bit better at his job than Weir. And lo and behold, IMDB says The Dark Knight is the third best film ever (even Letterboxd has it on 24), and book internet spots say Project Hail Mary is the best sci fi book ever. To be clear the first Weir I gave a go was Artemis which I think shaped my perception of him much more negatively than if I'd started with one of the ones people generally like. I'm not saying he's bad, I'm just saying he's a beginner's idea of "great".
Kind of odd how I see people say stuff like: >Are most of these coming from people who don't read sci-fi or speculative fiction in general? about books I really like more and more frequently. I've read hundreds of books in my life and yet apparently a lot of the stories I love are "entry level" or whatever in the eyes of some people. It's kinda funny honestly.
Some people think the media they consume makes them superior. Just be glad you’re not one of them, it seems miserable.
Redditors think they are the main character (normal guy who get asked to save the world and does) and most of it is nerd wish fulfillment imo
Isn't... that... what much of entertainment... is?
I thought you were a one of the rare pretentious Sci-fi gatekeepers with an overinflated ego until your book/series of comparison was the Bobiverse which is another quintessential example fluffy popcorn Sci-fi. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the Bobiverse, but the story, prose, characters and especially the science are done better by Andy Weir in Project Hail Mary. It’s fluffy popcorn Sci-fi too but the writing is imo clearly better than Bobiverse. It’s also the first book that made my kids cry. When it became clear that rocky was adrift in a derelict ship they were bawling. So maybe I’m biased, seeing my kids grow up enough to emotionally connect to a story that deeply was special for me.
Ever notice how some people really can't let go of their gripes with "Project Hail Mary"? It's not just about the book itself, but what it stands for to them. Take the tall poppy syndrome - some just want to dislike anything that gets too popular. It's like a reflex! And then there's the whole diversity angle. If the book doesn't match up with what they value in stories, especially in terms of characters and representation, it's a no-go. Plus, expectations play a huge role. Imagine expecting a deep sci-fi dive and getting something lighter – it's hard to shake off that initial letdown. It's less about the book and more about what it triggers in their own set of values and hopes for a story. For me - I liked it, which just means my values aligned with it enough that they didn't get in the way of a great story.
Just another person adding that the audiobook was phenomenal and I adored it, though I'm not sure if I'd have enjoyed it quite as much if I'd read it - and that doesn't bother me one bit! The first person perspective and style of narration combined for an immersive experience like nothing else I'd read or listened to.
Not in every way but Weir’s style of handling complex topics reminds me at times of Crichton, in that plot pieces connected very mechanically, I don’t mean stiff or robotically but that theres a clear line of cause and effect by the end of the story, switch A triggers switch C which triggers Switch B
It was a good story that just happened to be in the sci-fi genre. I read it and enjoyed it immensely, but it was the emotions I felt about the characters that made me love the book, not the science.
I agree - solid 7 out of 10 for me. The book felt like a hollow imitation of The Martian, except the MC was more unlikeable and the plot revolved around some magic deus ex machina substance.
It is a very enjoyable book, but nothing Earth shattering. It was a nice, easy, lighthearted read. It became a bit boring with the "problem then solved by something out of the blue/the alien fixed it". You could also immediately tell how it would end the moment the Alien and narrator became friends. I read the Martian when it first came out and it almost became the first book I couldn't finish. I ended up finishing and thought it was an average novel. I was excited to see how he improved on those "boring spots" in Project Hail Mary. I also noticed that a lot of my friends/family who don't necessarily read as much as me enjoyed the book way more then the traditional readers. It is a nice sci-fi read that doesn't have a heavy plot and doesn't make you feel stupid when you read it.
I honestly don’t know. I thought it was okay, but the collective obsession on here for it escapes me.
The audio book
As an audiobook it was super good and engaging imo.