One of my favourite sci-fi books of all time. I managed to have nothing spoiled and was stunned by the direction the book went in. Loved it.

I listened to it on a long drive recently, and really enjoyed the audiobook version. The voice actor did a good job, and I liked the chords with the alien voice. The last 20% we were listening on the edge of our seats.

And then, a few weeks later, it's... fine. I like to call books like this "Good Time Fun". It probably won't be remembered in 100 years like other more timeless works, but it's a heck of a lot of fun if you just go along for the ride.

Another commenter suggested Young Adult, and that's exactly what it feels like. There's challenges, strong emotions, a bit of a a twist or two (pretty easy to see coming), clever creativity, Science To The Rescue, and Friendship Conquers Everything! You know, Good Time Fun!

John, Paul, George, Ringo and Jazz Hands

The real story wasn’t what was in the book it was the 🎵🎶🎵🎶🎶🎵 that we made along the way

I am unsure if it is possible to write about meeting an alien species and not have sixteen people and their cousin not poo poo the whole thing. That said, I loved the way Mr. Weir had me rooting for the alien main character more than the human. Fun Sci-fi read. Somewhat Scooby-Doo, but I expect that with Weir and am totally ok with it. There is nothing wrong with feeling good about a science fiction book.

I noticed that Andy Weir’s publisher has made a deal to make the English language version of the audiobook of this an “Audible Exclusive”. Pretty gross. It means you can only buy it from Audible, and you can’t even get it from a public library.

Uh, such a tease! I was scrolling through Lemmy when I came across this article. As the first half of the cover image entered my screen I got all hyped seeing Andy Weir's name, thinking it's a new book announcement. Then I realized it's Hail Mary.

Great book. I think Weir's genre of choice is: slightly self deprecating, really smart specialist is left alone in the face of great adversity and works to overcome it using science and creative thinking. And you know what? I'm a fan of that genre.

After being mostly disappointed by Artemis and The Martian I was quite wary of this one. Perhaps my expectations were more reasonable this time around, but I think it was also a better book. Considering how those other books were trying their hardest to stay within a reasonable level of scientific accuracy and plausibility I was completely surprised that there turned out to be an alien in this one. An intelligent sentient species no less. He also just kind of showed up out of nowhere and I was in disbelief that that was the direction the story was going for a bit.

Like someone else mentioned I did find the book to be a bit too much "for all ages" kind of thing. Like it was intentionally written so that it could some day be a PG movie for both kids and adults. There is nothing wrong with this of course it is just not my usual thing. I did find it a bit eye rolling at times how great this supposed average teacher was at any kind of science and alien communication. Rocky was clearly the best character in my opinion. If he wasn't there to offset the whole lone savior idea like The Martian I don't think I would have enjoyed this book.

The science bits were a bit too sciencey and not enough fictiony for my tastes, but I don't think it is Weir's style to try and make up his own fictional science. Almost all of the science was just real science and math. I think the only thing that was pretty much entirely made up was the idea that something like astrophage and its neutrino harvesting amoeba could exist. I did like the details given for everything Ryland and Rocky were doing.

I kind of wish he actually managed to get back to Earth. It felt like a bit of a cop out for us to never fully see the impact to Earth. We know that at least somebody survived, but I wanted to see the scale of the damage. Anyway I liked this book more than I expected and I'll more than likely read whatever book Weir publishes next.

I enjoyed the concept of the book. I didn’t like being constantly reminded that Ryland Grace was a teacher as if I couldn’t remember that between chapters. There was way too much of this beating me over the head with simple science and reminders of things that happened earlier that it took me out of enjoying the story.

I read the three body problem trilogy at about the same time, it was so nice to have collaboration between aliens in hail Mary as opposed to the dark forest universe.

I thought it was great sci Fi, and I'm excited for Andy Weir's next. Love his sense of realism.

Waste of time. Protagonist was paper-thin shallow, no character development, the "I'm a coward" twist at the end was uninteresting because it didn't contribute to character development. Oh, and the protagonist and MC yucking it up together 2 days after learning each others' languages because of course 21st century American humor is universal.

I enjoyed this one, a bit less than the martian but more than Artemis. Like the other two, it is a book that's easy to read and a page turner, his humor resonates pretty well with me. However having read three books from Andy Weir, they all feel very much the same and I get a little bit of "one trick pony" vibe from his books because they're so similar.

Project Hail Mary is such a better book than Artemis.

The theory that he was under pressure to publish his 2nd book after the success of The Martian, so he just put out Artemis may hold water. Lol

The science was all over the place. It's like the author know things exist, but doesn't grasp high-school level science. And yet, he has to insist on putting numbers and citing things all over the book.

Really, nobody between the smartest people on Earth anticipated that they would find a predator? The idea that a food network is what keeps the population of most species stable isn't even high-school level, we teach it to younger children. That's way to much contempt to the book characters and to the reader. And also, could the author skip a single chapter without pretending that mitochondria is some kind of primordial organelle? Everybody knows the thing multiplies in an atmosphere, and yet nobody at all imagined the all-purpose lab needed an atmospheric sampler? And also, was there no physicist on the team or low temperature freezers were out of stock?

The book starts as a very good one. Enticing to read. But by the time it gets to the climax those things have accumulated so much that it isn't interesting anymore.

I found it entertaining but a bit shallow in terms of dialog. It felt aimed at the younger crowd. Don’t get me wrong it was most definitely a fun read.

OMG i love that book

I have only one thing to say about this book: "Good good good!" ;)

One of the best books i have ever read

Absolutely love the book and read it a few times already. It's fast paced and engaging. I enjoy the sciency parts as much as the relationship building between the two characters. It has a very straightforward narrative and does not try to be more than it is. It's nothing deep, but straight up good entertainment. I went in expecting as much so I was not disappointed.

I enjoyed it. One thing that bothered me is that there was no need to evolve the predator organism in the ship and send the already evolved organism back. People back on earth would be perfectly capable of figuring that out and solving that problem. He should just have sent the organism sample immediately when he had it available. Delaying it put the entire mission in a great risk for no reason at all.

I absolutely love every book Andy weir writes. This one has to be my favorite of them so far.

The multiple mysteries going on at once, and both unique problems and way of solving them lead to a book that was hard to put down at some times. I especially loved the concept of his friend he meets. Would be interesting if he did a follow up novel where we learn some of the results from the data he sent back to eath

I loved that they wanted to use Excel because of how battle tested it is. I use a lot of "newer" programming languages and libraries in my work but having something stable and reliable really has its place.

This was a major disappointment for me after the brilliant Martian and The Egg. I just can’t stand the writing style that’s like someone is describing what happens on a movie screen (Harry Potter is the same). While the tech and the alien were good ideas, almost every single action is predictable like a movie that’s stitched together from cliches until the very end that had a good twist.

Honestly this book has a special place in my heart. I recently started reading again and Artemis was one of the first books I read once I found out about Libby.

While that book was alright, it got me reading regularly again. And then after a couple more books, I read PHM, and I was hooked on reading.

Loved this book, loved the whole premise. Recommended it to my wife who wasn’t a big sci-fi reader and it put her on a sci-fi kick. Especially loved that she pronounced “astrophage” as if it were derogatory towards alien homosexuals.

It's always a great read with Andy Weir's books. It's like listening to a science communicator trying to explain a science concept and why we should care. In this case you need to care because we are rooting for rocky!

Sometimes I wish I can be a fly in the room whenever Ryland and Rocky are interacting.

Started reading few hours ago. Still in a room ~~without a view~~ with 2 robotic arms. That's my weekend I guess.

HDIL MDRY

This book is weird and silly and contrived and takes a lot of liberties and I absolutely loved it.