Hello visitors and friends and welcome to this week’s post about the books I read. In last week’s Reading Roundup I wrote that I had almost finished a book. I didn’t finish it in time to write about it, after all reading should be savoured and not rushed!

So, here it is…

The book was Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, the third book I have read by this author. This is the blurb:

“Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission – and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crew mates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realises that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that’s been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it’s up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance.

Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian – while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.”

The book took a lot of concentration and effort for me to read, mainly because of the tons of science or “science” in it! Anyway, I wrote a response on Goodreads:

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As I finished this book I felt very satisfied and positive. After all, I had managed to read something with a huge amount of science when my own knowledge of this huge subject area is minuscule! OK, I skipped a lot and, of course this book is science *fiction* so much of it could be complete nonsense for all I know. However, I really enjoyed the whole thing and I am glad that I chose the book.

Then I read a few of the reviews on here. Loads are very positive and reflect my own responses, but many others are much more negative. One of these latter reviews was very detailed and explanatory and I began to understand this person’s objections, such as the lack of characterisation beyond stereotypes, the swift language acquisition of both the “hero” and a the alien, and the rather repetitive series of disasters and solutions throughout the book. It was very similar to The Martian too.

But, I read the book at a very low point in my week and finished it feeling uplifted. So, for that reason, and others (I loved the alien, even if “he” did look like a spider), I give this book four stars.

View all my reviews

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Once again, I am only a few hundred pages from the end of another book. However, I am definitely not going to rush this one as it is part of one of my most favourite series of all time! This book must be savoured until the final explosion! More about this next week.

Happy Reading to you all.

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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