Andy Weir's 2021 "Hard sci fi" novel Project Hail Mary was
recommended to me by a friend when it was new, and later handed to me
by my cousin after he read it. This summer I brought it with me on a
trip abroad, and started it off by reading a good chunk on the flight
out. The premise was intriguing but familiar; a man wakes up in a
clinical and alienating environment, tended to by robot arms that
feed him IV nutrition. A robot/computer asks him questions that he
initially can't answer, like what's your name. After a while he
realizes that he's aboard a spaceship, and memories gradually return
to him. His name is Wyland Grace. So far, so good -- the mystery
unravels gradually. Still I felt irritated after the first reading
session. The main character - who tells the story in the first person
perspective -- just seems so annoying. There's so much mansplaining
going on, he talks down to the reader, treats you like an idiot.
Several times, you read a paragraph only to have the next paragraph
explain to you what the previous paragraph implied. At one point he
even goes as far as typing the previous paragraph's wisdom out as a
four point bullet list! On top of this, Grace seems to be absolutely
pleased, even enamoured, with himself, his smarts, his humour. And
further on, you get the feeling that the main character is actually
the writer himself.
The next problem that I discovered with the book was its structure.
Grace/Weir gradually starts to remember the main goal of his mission
(to save Planet Earth), and identifies the first obstacle to
overcome. He plots up a possible solution, which fails on the first
try. Then he just happens to remember something from his past that
gives him the answer to the problem at hand. Success! On to the next
obstacle. Aaaaaand... repeat the procedure. This part of the book
feels like a computer RPG/adventure game -- a long list of small
problems that lead you on towards the goal. And to build on the
parallel, Grace's/Weir's steady drip of convenient memories is like
the Gamer's Playthrough Handbook. And here you are, trying to solve a
problem, always giving up after the first try, and then resorting to
the guide book. Lazy stuff, cheating.
The writing style is stilted, almost non-existent. You get nuggets
like "I've had seven days of hardcore science since then". The
memories are written in the past tense, and the "now" part is written
in the present tense in a mostly real-time way. I suppose to give the
writing a sort of movie-like drive. At two or three points in the
book, the writer needs to skip ahead a few weeks or months (because,
well, tedium) and suddenly switches to past tense. And it works quite
badly, feels half cooked and random.
Then there are stupid plot points. Like how the essential inter-
species communication in the latter half of the book hinges on the
facts that (1) Grace/Weir has perfect pitch, and that (2) the alien
species from light years away have evolved to communicate using the
chromatic 12 tone equal temperament scale. Not very important in the
big picture, but this is a book that goes out of its way to be anally
as-a-matter-of-fact-y on every single page.
