BOOK REVIEW: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir has quite a lot going for it. The book jacket has blurbs from giants in science fiction and fantasy like Brandon Sanderson, George R.R. Martin and Blake Crouch. Barack Obama included the book in his list of summer 2021 reads. Weir is most well-known for his blockbuster debut novel The Martian which became a blockbuster film directed by Oscar-winner Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon. His “thing” is realistically depicting hands-on science and engineering ingenuity to survive realistic, life-threatening situations. The premise behind Project Hail Mary is eye-catching (if surprisingly far-fetched for an author whose previous work has leaned so heavily on verisimilitude as a selling point). A newly discovered bacteria called astrophage somehow is causing the luminosity of the Sun to diminish at a slow but exponentially increasing rate which will lead to the extinction of all life on Earth within a few decades. Project Hail Mary is humanity’s attempt to investigate and fix the problem, but when the book begins all the reader knows is that something has gone horribly wrong and the main character has woken up alone in a spaceship (named Hail Mary) after spending years of interstellar travel at relativistic speeds in an induced coma leaving him with no memory of where he is or why. Unsurprisingly, Ryan Gosling is attached to a possible film adapation of Project Hail Mary by the producers and screenwriter of The Martian. (No word yet whether director Ridley Scott is interested in helming his second Weir adaptation.)

The structure of the story in Project Hail Mary is brilliant; it is told in two linear time-frames near simultaneously. The reader slowly learns that the main character’s name is Ryland Grace and that he was a junior high school science teacher. Because of Grace’s amnesia, the reader gets little drips of Grace’s life prior to the Hail Mary while he’s adjusting to the situation he wakes up to. Slowly he remembers that he’s there to try to save the world by discovering why Tau Ceti is the only local star near ours which has not experienced a reduction in luminosity in recent decades. Project Hail Mary was intended to be a one-way scientific mission with three scientific experts to investigate the phenomenon and discover a solution for the astrophage infestation harming the Sun and send it in four quadruple redundant “information life boats” back to Earth. So the two timelines of the story follow Grace trying to complete his mission in the future and remembering the past when he was involved in the preparation and design of the Hail Mary, along with the amazingly dictatorial leader of Project Hail Mary Eva Stratt (who would be perfectly cast by Emily Blunt or Tilda Swinton in the inevitable film adaptation). Ryland Grace is supposed to be white, American, under 40 and average looking. I had someone like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tobey Maguire or Topher Grace is who came to mind as I was reading. Ryan Gosling would probably be great.

There’s an incredible and incredibly surprising development about one-third of the way into Project Hail Mary that I don’t want to spoil in this review. Suffice it to say that it moves the plot in a whole different direction and switches the book from scientific thriller to something else in addition. Without revealing anything more I can say that this development is an amazingly positive aspect of the story. It provides another example for Weir to show he is able to deploy his scientific chops to describe a scientifically complicated scenario and raises the emotional stakes of the story.

The reader learns some shocking things about Ryland as the earlier time frame unspools in his memory that causes us to question our identification with him as the main character. However, another plot twist very near the end of the book provides Grace with a dilemma that allows him to redeem himself to the reader and results in a very surprising ending (which I suspect will not survive the Hollywood film adaptation). Overall, I think that Project Hail Mary is at least as enjoyable and exciting as The Martian, and is almost certainly a better (written)  book. I look forward to reading more from Weir, and I strongly agree with President Obama’s recommendation to include Project Hail Mary on your summer reading list.

Title: Project Hail Mary.
Author: Andy Weir.
Format: Hardcover.
Length: 476 pages.
Publisher: Ballantine Books.
Date Published: May 4, 2021.
Date Read: July 21, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Artemis by Andy Weir

If you were expecting Artemis to be some follow-on of  the story in Andy Weir's breakthrough debut novel, The Martian except that it is set on the Moon I can disabuse you of that notion right away. The Martian was a pretty good book which was made into a fantastic movie, with an amazing cast (Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Michael Pena, Jeff Daniels and Chiwetel Ejiofor) and talented director (Ridley Scott).

Artemis is a very different book, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. And I could see that it is very possible that it could be made into a fantastic movie (or television series). The main character of Artemis is Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara, an emigre from Saudi Arabia who lives in Artemis, the first "city" on the moon (consisting of five pressurized domes with several subterranean levels where roughly 2,000 people work and live). Jazz moved to Artemis with her father at age 6 and is now something of a petty criminal and ne'er-do well who ostensibly is a porter transporting items around Artemis but is actually one of the premier smugglers of contraband items in the city.

Jazz has a friend back on Earth whom she has never met named Kelvin who acts as her supplier. Kelvin happens to work at KSC (Kenyan Space Center) which is the entity that is responsible for the fact there is a budding civilization on the moon. One of the highlights of the book for me was the unspooling of the details of the relationship between Kelvin and Jazz (as told via email correspondence). Another highlight was the diversity of the cast of characters that we come into contact with as the story unfolds. They are all shapes and sizes and colors.

Jazz has a number of curious relationships with other people on Artemis, such as her Dad, who she stopped living with around age 16 (and who obviously disapproves of her near-criminal lifestyle), her ex-boyfriend Dale and Artemis' sole police officer, Rudy. Since the city is essentially a very small town, Jazz is even familiar with the "town mayor," Administrator Fidelis Ngugi, a Black woman who happens to be the most important person on the moon.

The plot of Artemis revolves around a technological advancement which could upend Artemis' economic equilibrium and provides Jazz with an opportunity to make a LOT of money. But, as usual, if something looks too good to be true, it often is and Jazz finds this out when her erstwhile business partner shows up dead. At this point the story jumps into overdrive and gets very exciting as Jazz is on the run for her life while she tries to figure out the mystery of who will kill to make a killing on the future development of the Moon.

Overall, this book is another example of Weir's breezy, very readable writing style set in a near-future setting based around future space exploration which is chock full of science and engineering details that will appeal to most hard science fiction aficionados.

Title: Artemis.
Author: Andy Weir.
Paperback: 322 pages.
Publisher: Crown/Archetype.
Date Published: November 14, 2017.
Date Read: December 31, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A- (3.41/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B.
WRITING: A-.

2015 HUGO AWARDS: The Puppy Slates Are Overwhelmingly Rejected!

The 2015 Hugo Awards were given out on Saturday evening in Spokane Washington and the results were eye-opening, to say the least. Because of the Puppy kerfuffle (where two different cohorts of "fans" successfully coordinated efforts to place on the final Hugo ballot works and people using criteria different from mere merit and quality) I discovered that I could register and vote for the 2015 Hugo winners myself and did so.

In the end, even though there were only a few hundred ballots to nominate works, there ended up being 5,950 voters for the award winners.

The biggest news was that in five categories where the Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies had successfully managed to completely fill all 5 slots on the ballot, the option of NO AWARD was deployed by a significant majority of voters. In the history of the Hugo awards there had been previously been a rand total o five NO AWARD winners and in one evening that tally was matched. The categories in which this occurred were: Best Novella, Best Short Story, Best Related Work, Best Editor (Short Form), and Best Editor (Long Form).

The second biggest story was that the Best Novel was won by Cixin Liu for The Three-Body Problem, which was my vote for the winner of this most important category. This was historic, because it was the first time an Asian man had won the Best Novel AND it was the first time a translated work had received this honor. Additionally, the two nominees associated with the Puppies, Skin Game by Jim Butcher and The Dark Between The Stars by Kevin J. Anderson both ended up below NO AWARD in the final tally (which is where I had placed them on my ballot, along with the 2nd place finisher The Goblin Emperor).

Best Novel (5653 final ballots, 1827 nominating ballots, 587 entries, range 212-387)

• The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator (Tor Books)
• The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
• Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
• No Award
• Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Orbit UK/Roc Books)
• The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)

What lots of fans and observers are trying to figure out is exactly what are the relative sizes of the four groups who participated in the Hugo voting: Rabid Puppy supporters, Sad Puppy supporters, Anti-Puppies (like myself) or neutral voters. Right now the estimates seem to have the two Puppies groups at about 10% of the total each with the anti-Puppies roughly at 50%.

Also, since the Hugo award administrators release the vote counts for the Top 15 nominees in each category, we can also know exactly which works and people were left off the ballot because of the Puppy slates from this winter. Author Tobias Buckell has released the list of what the Hugo ballot would have looked like without the intervention of the Puppies. Here's the alternative history Best Novel category

Best NovelAncillary Sword by Ann Leckie
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin
Lock In by John Scalzi
City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennet

City of Stairs is a very interesting urban fantasy novel (which I haven;t yet reviewed but I intend to, as well as rad the upcoming sequel, City of Blades when it is released in 2016.) For some reason the Puppies hate John Scalzi with the passion of a thousand dying suns (probably because he's smarter, makes more money and is more popular than any of them) so they are probably pleased they denied him another Hugo nomination. (Scalzi's win of the 2013 Hugo for Best Novel for Redshirts is often cited by some of the "head Puppies" as What Is Wrong With Science Fiction.)

Another point people have noticed is that the Puppies prevented Andy Weir, the author of the best-selling science fiction book of the year (The Martian, soon to be a major motion picture starring Matt Damon directed by Ridley Scott) from being nominated for the non-Hugo for best New Writer called the John W. Campbell award. Instead that went to my choice Wesley Chu!

There were a whole bunch of word written about the Hugo awards before they happened, K'm sure there will be a whole lot written now that they have happened. It is likely that the Puppies will try to repeat their domination of the award nominations in January 2016 but there are now nearly 6,000 people (like myself) who are empowered to make our own nominations and try to blunt their desire to blow up science fiction's most prestigious award.

Happily, it is likely that technical changes to how the nominations are calculated will go into effect for 2017 year, since two proposals were passed at the recent Worldcon business meeting that are designed to blunt the impact of slates on the Hugo nominations. But until then, the fight will go on.

However, in the fight between the forces of good and evil, Saturday's results at the Hugo awards was a big win for the good guys who support inclusion and diversity (and playing by the rules).

BOOK REVIEW: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

Claire North is the pseudonym of Catherine Webb, who although she is only 28 years old is already the author of sixteen(!) published novels, including two science fiction novels as Claire North: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August in 2014 and Touch in 2015. The former won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of 2014, beating out other higher profile books such as The Martian by Andy Weir (probably the best-selling science fiction book of 2014 and soon to be a major motion picture starring Matt Damon), Lock In by John Scalzi, The Peripheral by William Gibson, Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (winner of the 2015 Nebula award) and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (winner of the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke award).

I can see why The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is considered one of the best works of speculative fiction published in 2014. The premise of the book is that when certain people die they live their life over again is a great one. In fact it is so good it has been used before, notably in Ken Grimwood's Replay (which won the 1988 World Fantasy Award.) I had forgotten about Replay but I do remember that although I loved the timeloop concept Grimwood's book seemed a bit dated. There's no question this would make a great movie. In Replay, the main character's time loop starts at age 18, and the loops get shorter and shorter as the story progresses. In Harry August, the time loops go back to birth, but awareness of all one's past lives does not occur until age 5 or 6.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August takes Grimwood's time loop premise and improves it in several, specific ways. First off, there is an organization of ouroborans (i.e. individuals like Harry who relive their lives after "dying" and are also known as kalachakras) called the Cronus Club whom Harry pretty quickly comes into contact with and serves as a support network for creatures like himself. Secondly, North introduces a thriller element to the story by including a megalomaniacal kalachakra who is apparently discovering the birth dates of fellow kalachakras and eliminating them before they can recover their memories or defend themselves. Unsurprisingly, most kalachakras tend to avoid others of their kind (and have low profiles in general), but Harry meets another kalachakra named Vincent Rankis who becomes a frenemy of sorts. The third aspect of the book which raises it to the upper echelon of speculative fiction is the way in which it deals with various aspects of time travel. Basically, kalachakra's repeatedly experience the same time period as they repeat their lives, so they have a limited foreknowledge of the future. By interacting with other kalachakras whose lifetime overlaps with theirs, but whose birth occurs later a kalachakra can obtain information about the far future. This is what happens when a very young girl comes to Harry towards the end of one of his lives and says "the world is ending." In fact, soon it becomes clear that the end of the world is coming about earlier in the future and as Harry continues to live his life (from about 1919 through to about 2010) he notices other changes, like technological advances starting to occur earlier and earlier.
He is pretty sure that Vincent Rankis is involved in making these changes because in addition to being a kalachakra, Rankis (like Harry) has an eidetic memory: he remembers everything that happens to him, in every life. The reader is faced with the question of what you would do if you discovered you were a kalachakra and could live your life over again and again knowing what events would be occurring

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August ends up being a power struggle between Victor and Harry; the reader is exposed to Harry's thoughts and feelings so we are predisposed to be on Harry's side. (He has a wry wit.) In addition, Victor turns out to have a complete disregard for life, both human and ouroboran alike. He creates a device which when applied to a kalachakra, wipes their memory so that even when they are reborn, they are no longer able to access their memories of their past lives, essentially killing them.

Overall, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is a compelling, well-written, very entertaining work of speculative fiction which packs an emotional wallop while it amuses, thrills and challenges the reader.

Title: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.
Author: Claire North.
Paperback: 416 pages.
Publisher: Redhook.
Date Published: April 8, 2014.
Date Read: April 30, 2015.

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.583/4.0).

PLOT: B.
IMAGERY: B.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.