Other Books: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir 4+ stars and a heart

[Karin]

So, almost as good as The Martian--more than 4 stars, but not something I would round up to 5, but not because Weir doesn't write well, this is partly just personal likes and dislikes combined with what I am willing to suspend my disbelief on--this totally deserves an over 4 star average rating I have zero GR friends who have rated this who have given less than 4 stars on this--amaze!

One of my favourite things in this entire book is the friendship Ryland Grace forges, plus the humour that Weir inserts into his fairly intense novels. There is a lot of great, real science mixed in with the expected made up stuff in scifi that is part of the fun of reading scifi--fiction is part of the genre's name. And I will say that not all of the things that wouldn't stand up IRL did not ruin the book for me--it was part of the comedic elements, and when reading Weir it's good to remember that even though he writes edge-of-your seat stuff there is more humour than just quips, etc, but right down to some of the characters in the book.

One of the things I appreciated is that none of his characters used Far Too Much foul language--a little is believable, and if there was some, which there probably was, it didn't make an impact on me.

Overall, a "fun" adventure where scientist is far from home (but there are two timelines so we get filled on what led up to this) desperately trying to save Earth from death. Not a new premise, so it took some good writing to push this up to 4+ stars from me.