by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
First, I have to cry a bit into my beer because of how young Andy Weir is compared to me. Ugh. I’m an Old. But I just finished reading his novel Project Hail Mary and I thought it was really, really good.
It took a bit to get into it, but once I did, I read it fairly quickly. It’s a novel that would be very, very easy to film. And it is yet another piece of content that not only helps me be a better storyteller but also inspires me to think seriously about putting a plot on a concept I’ve had for 15 years or so now. Something about how he handled the concept of one person saving the world triggered my synapses.
But, I do have a few quibbles with the novel.
There was no sex in the novel, not even suggested outside of a conversation so lulz, it could easily be a YA novel, or be for the same type audience. There’s nothing wrong with that — I’m not dinging him for the lack of sex — but I am making note of it.
Second, he has a far, far more optimistic opinion of the human condition than I do. Even just getting Americans to go along with saving the world — even if it was beyond a shadow of a doubt that that is what was going on — would take up a third of any novel on a similar subject I might write.
And the third act was really, really good. And, yet, I did not get the catharsis that maybe I might have gotten had things gone another way. But I suppose because he did that with The Martian, he wanted to go a different direction.
But I was very pleased with Project Hail Mary, especially as a fan of scifi.
