Above: "Project Hail Mary," - Andrew Weir - 496 pages.
"Project Hail Mary," which can be read quickly, is a fascinating, hypothetical account about first contact with an alien species. The novel contains a hopeful vision about interstellar cooperation.
I completed reading this book today.
Ryland Grace wakes up from cryogenic sleep, with no memory, in a space craft well outside of earth's solar system. His two companions are dead. Over time, Grace pieces together why he is there.
Earth crisis. A strange phenomenon, an opaque arch of unknown origin, reaches from the sun to Venus. The phenomenon coincides with a diminishing solar output that, at current rates, would render the earth uninhabitable, due to cold temperatures, within the next twenty to thirty years.
Scientists, led by high school teacher Grace (Grace a specialist in understanding Venus atmosphere), learn, on sending an unmanned probe to Venus, that a heretofore undiscovered, microscopic, life form that taps energy from the surface of the sun, then cycles to Venus to reproduce in Venus' high CO2 environment. Scientists discover that the phenomenon of weakening star energy affects all but one nearby star, Tau Ceti, which is twelve light years of the sun. Grace learns how to replicate conditions on earth where the samples collected in the Venus atmosphere can be reproduced.
The story turns on Ryland's recovering memory of a space mission to Tau Ceti to determine what is different about that star, hoping that this knowledge could be used to save the earth. What? Mission to another star? What propulsion? Scientists on earth discover that newly discovered microbe, which is named astrophage, can be used as a propellent to enable a space ship to reach near light speed. The energy potential of astrophage would have tremendous potential to solve problems on earth were the diminishing sun problem to be solved.
On the space ship, Grace's memory returns. He is on a mission to save the earth.
Near Tau Ceti, as Grace recovers much of his memory, his ship rendezvouses with an alien ship. Via sound signaling (the aliens have no sight, only sonar) Grace meets an alien, also a sole survivor of his spaceship. Since the alien comes from the Eridani star system, Grace names the new species an "Eridian." The alien resembles a dog-sized five-legged spider with a stone-like carapace.
Grace and the alien, who he names Rocky, learn to communicate. Rocky is an engineer in his culture and Ryland is a scientist. Together they use their combined knowledge to solve the existential problem for their respective planets. How they get that knowledge, and whether they succeed in saving their respective worlds will not be revealed in this review.
The author's knowledge of physics, engineering, mechanics and outer space is replete throughout the discovery process.
"Project Hail Mary," which can be read quickly, is a fascinating, hypothetical account about first contact with an alien species. The novel contains a hopeful vision about interstellar cooperation.