Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - Another Amazing Story By A Master Storyteller!

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Project Hail Mary is the third book from Andy Weir following the very popular The Martian and Artemis. Overall, it is another masterpiece of writing and storytelling from this author and I enjoyed it.

Astronaut Ryland Grace awakes on his ship, the Hail Mary, disoriented with no memories. As time goes on, he remembers who he is and what his mission is. He remembers he has been sent to Tau Ceti, a star slightly less than twelve light years from our solar system, to save humanity from extinction.

Earth is in danger of entering a global ice age because of the dimming of the Sun. This is being caused by a type of cosmic virus called 'Astrophage.' If left unchecked, the Sun will dim enough to cause a planet wide food shortage. It seems all observable stars are suffering the same fate as Sol, the star at the center of our solar system, except for Tau Ceti. Grace and two astronauts sent with him are to determine why Tau Ceti is not being affected, hoping to find a solution.

Unfortunately, Grace is on his own. His fellow astronauts didn't survive the trip.

Grace, formerly a molecular biologist turned middle school science teacher, is a likeable character who knows his stuff. He loves teaching and his students enjoy his classes. He isn't aware of the problem until he is "recruited" by a United Nations official to use his expertise in discovering why the sun is dimming. When he learns what the problem is, he throws himself into the work.

After he finds the problem, he is sent to train three astronauts to travel to Tau Ceti to find a solution. Grace himself becomes a reluctant member of the Hail Mary crew because of an accident that killed the science expert and the back-up scientist during training. One can sympathize with Grace's reluctance since it is planned as a one-way trip. If Grace finds a solution to the problem, he is to load his data onto four small probes to be sent back to Earth.

Grace makes it clear he doesn't want to go on the mission, but is left with no choice by the U.N. official who has an unimpeachable mandate to solve the problem.

My favorite plot point is when Grace spots a ship from another solar system with a being onboard who has the same mission. Grace is a very resourceful scientist, while his counterpart on the other ship is a genius engineer. Between them, each has the expertise to do some amazing things, once the language barrier is breached.

The author goes into some detail about how the language barrier is overcome and it was for me the most interesting part of the story. The cooperation between the characters adds a great deal of depth to the story and creates an emotional rollercoaster ride for the reader. There are several humorous moments in this story, but there is also sadness, terror, and disappointment. Mostly, the banter between Grace and his counterpart makes Project Hail Mary a fun story to read.

Weir tells this story from two points of view. First is the happenings at Tau Ceti. The other part of the story is told through memory flashbacks in preparation for the Hail Mary mission. The flashback segments are scattered throughout the book and fill in the story's entirety, but they also serve to create suspense as the history of the mission unfolds. The form makes the reader want to get to the next section because, most times, Grace's mission chapters often end with cliffhangers. It is a very effective device to hold the reader's attention.

All the supporting characters appear in the flashback chapters and are developed well. 

Project Hail Mary is compelling on many levels. There are great characters put into situations showing problems solved through cooperation. Grace's situation on earth was full of conflict between people's ideas, ideals, philosophies, and methods. However, in space, there’s no room for conflict when a crisis develops. It was through listening to his alien friend and his friend listening to him that led to lifesaving measures and to move the mission forward; a lesson we can all take to heart.

I give my highest recommendations to Project Hail Mary. It is great Science Fiction, and just a plain good story.

Recently, I listened to an episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s podcast, StarTalk Radio featuring an interview with Andy Weir discussing life in the universe as it relates to this book. It is available on YouTube under the title “What Do Aliens Look Like.”

There is also a film adaptation in development. If it happens, the film will star Ryan Gosling (First Man) in the role of Ryland Grace.

Andy Weir built a two-decade career as a software engineer until the success of his first published novel, The Martian, allowed him to live out his dream of writing full time. He is a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of such subjects as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. He also mixes a mean cocktail. He lives in California.

Well, there it is…

Qapla!

Artimis By Andy Weir - Good Fun Story And Fine Second Novel

Artemis by Andy Weir

In 2011, author Andy Weir blasted onto the Sci-Fi scene with his first novel The Martian. Some may say that lightning never strikes twice in the same place, but as we who read often find, there are authors who seem to have a gift and can crank out one good story after another. Weir would seem to be one of those authors who has found his gift and proves it with his second novel, Artemis.

Artemis is set completely on the Earth’s moon around the year 2080 which has been colonized. The small city known as Artemis is made up of a complex of large dome units that house its residents and provide workspace for numerous craftspeople that work to make a living in the hostile Lunar environment. Artemis is located in the Sea of Tranquility very near the landing site of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission that also affords a fairly active tourist trade. The story centers around a character of somewhat questionable character named Jasmine Bashara who is commonly known as “Jazz” to her friends.

A “porter” by trade, someone who delivers packages to people in the Artemis complex, Jazz also runs a small but mostly harmless smuggling operation. She barely makes enough money to live in Artemis and is under the constant scrutiny of the stations security officer. She has learned how to work the system to her advantage, but also has a reputation for being a bit dishonest and somewhat promiscuous in her personal life. While most serious crimes are punished with deportation to Earth, Rudy, the security chief, handles minor crimes in his own way. While Rudy keeps Jazz under loose scrutiny, he also seems to overlook a lot of Jazz’s petty criminal activity.

For those who have lived their entire life on the Lunar surface, deportation to Earth is the worst possible thing that could happen. Imagine living in an environment that had one-sixth the gravity of what we here on earth live our lives in and then suddenly having to adapt to the full gravity of our panet. So Jazz has managed to avoid doing anything that would sentence her to live the rest of her life as an invalid. That is, until she gets caught up in a plot for a hostile takeover of the Moon’s biggest industry, the mining of aluminum.

Jazz is offered a very large sum of money to perform acts of sabotage against the established company so a new company can take over operations. While she has an idea of how much trouble she will be in if caught, she agrees to take the job. When the company holding the contract sees through Jazz’s very carefully designed plan, she learns that she has gotten in to a situation that is way over her head. What follows are murders and threats to life in Artemis making this story a great sci-fi thriller and a fun read.

For the most part, Artemis does not follow the same formula as the Martian in that this is a thriller involving a lot of people. However, at the same time, There are some similarities in that Jazz is concerned with survival, just as Mark Watney. Once again, as in The Martian, Artemis’ author uses explanations of science that Jazz has access to in her adventure is well within reach of the common reader. Along with that, the main character has a great sense of humor and the same snarky attitude affording the story to inject a little humor into even the most grim situation. Many of the interactions between the characters had me laughing out loud.

Weir seems to enjoy writing about a single character and going well into their development. I found that I did care for Jazz as the book went on, while at the same time not being impressed with her behavior. Let’s face it, she is a criminal and is committing crimes of various levels from very petty to an incredible attempt to sabotage the work of a company that was responsible to providing all of the oxygen to the Artemis community. The characters plan was well thought out by the author, but he left plenty of holes for the antagonists to see through. There is no doubt that Jazz is a very intelligent individual as well as a strong female lead for the book, but she is not all knowing and does make some almost fatal errors. As to the other characters and their development, there isn’t much there, they just seem to be supporting characters that are either there to help or hinder Jazz as she goes about the business she chooses. I would have been interested to see a few of the supporting characters get a little more growth in the story.

The most impressive part of Artemis for me was the elaborate depictions of the environment of the moon, both inside and outside the station. Weir seems to have a huge fascination with surviving in space and explains the construction of the Artemis station domes and the other fixtures with great detail. The author would seem to have gone to great lengths to make the science believable and easy for the common reader to understand. He goes into great detail on the tasks that Jazz does to avoid problems as she moves through the story.

As mentioned earlier, Jazz seems to have a well known reputation around the moonbase of being quite sexually active. Everyone seems to know it and there are numerous references to it; perhaps too many. No matter where she goes, or who she meets she, and the reader, are reminded of this and Jazz seems to not be a bit put out when someone makes reference to it. Funny thing is, during this entire story, Jazz has no intimate contact with anyone and seems to not think about it very much. I found myself wondering why this was part of the story, it had such a large presence and not a lot of substance. It felt to me like it might have been part of an attempt at humor. For me, these parts of the story fell flat and were unnecessary. Fortunately though, it didn’t overshadow the real meat of the plot and I was able to overlook them in retrospect.

The overarching theme of Artemis would seem to be one that is becoming more popular as time goes on; how will those who are outsiders or disadvantaged to be treated in the future? We have seen it in other feature films including The Force Awakens. We have seen it in recent television shows such as The Expanse, Defiance, and even Star Trek: Discovery.  It hasn’t been long since all we had in sci-fi was a more utopian view from shows such as Star Trek in which there is no want and everyone is more interested in bettering the human condition than in obtaining wealth. In Weir’s story, Jazz is a subservient character who is relegated to getting minimal compensation for delivering goods to her betters. Her personal living space is so small that she can barely stand upright and she envies the more affluent tourists and residents that can afford such things as food not grown in vats and a private bathroom. She then learns to live a little better by performing petty acts of smuggling until an ambitious customer dangles a carrot in front of her where she is then all in for some major criminal activity. How will this actually play out in the future? Only time will tell, but I am thinking that the ideal of a Star Trek-like utopian future is not what the future holds. Rather the opposite is what I think, and as it is now, the gap between the haves and the have nots will only become wider. So it is with Jazz; she is not greedy, she just wants something better for herself and finds the only possibility of advancement in illegal activity

While not perfect, I was not in the least disappointed. I did enjoy Artemis and was entertained all during the time I read it. I would recommend it to readers who appreciate good sci-fi with solid science, and a good story, but aren’t too absorbed in well developed characters beyond the star of the show.

[Well, there it is…

[Qapla’!

Edited by Benjamin Arrowood

The Martian - A Must See Film For Manned Space Flight Fans And SciFi Fans Looking For Something Fresh

The Martian (2015)

Back in March of 2014, I finished reading and blogged about Andy Weir’s book, The Martian. In the last line of that review I wrote, “now if only someone  would pick this (the book) up and make a movie.” It wasn’t long after that it was announced that there was indeed going to be a film made from one of the best SciFi novels I have ever read.

Now I am not going to say that the film based on the book that I saw this past weekend is the best SciFi film I have ever seen, but I will say that it would be very near the top, that is if I were given to making lists, which I usually do not. Nevertheless, I found The Martian appealed to me on many levels.

The film follows quite faithfully to the events depicted in the book. While exploring Mars, a potentially dangerous dust storm is found to be headed toward the Ares III landing site. After a short period of deliberation, the mission commander decides that conditions warrant scrubbing the mission and getting off of the surface. The storm hits full force as the astronauts head back to their launch and ascent vehicle and astronaut Mark Watney is hit by a piece of debris that is dislodged from the habitat. Watney is carried away by the impact and the wind and there is a brief effort at a search, but with the urgent situation, the rest of the crew must lift off before they are all stranded. They give Watney up for dead.

Watney is most certainly not dead, but is injured by the debris that has hit him. Now, for the lone astronaut, it becomes a game of survival. After at first realizing that he is as good as dead, he later decides that he is not going to give up without a fight. He uses his wits and his knowledge of science to set himself up to survive. Without communications capabilities, he has to survive four years until the Aries IV mission arrives.

Back on Earth, a person in Mission Control sees pictures of the Aries III site taken by an orbiting satellite and notices that equipment has been moved around and it is determined that Watney must still be alive. A way to communicate is found and options for rescue are considered.  It is finally determined that the transport vehicle that is returning to earth with the rest of the crew can be sent back to Mars on a free return trajectory using the Earth as a gravity assist and a resupply mission is launched.

Watney is rescued and returns to Earth to become an instructor for future astronauts.

There is much in this film that appeals to me. One of the first things that comes to mind is the performance of Matt Damon as Watney. He plays the thinking scientist/astronaut very well. Much of this is most likely thanks to Ridley Scott who seems to understand what an astronaut would do in a hopeless situation.

That leads me to the story itself. While well written by the author, a lot of credit has to be given to the screenwriters who masterfully preserved the spirit of Andy Weir's book as well as the most essential story elements. There are a few things in the book that were not included in the film, but it doesn't diminish the story whatsoever. I have to admit that even though I knew that everything was going to be okay, I still felt tense at several points during the film. Having read the book should not diminish your viewing experience.

The visuals were also very stunning. I seriously believed that the set that the movie was filmed on could have been the planet Mars. The filming for the Martian landscape took place in the Jordanian desert that gave an incredible impression of what I would imagine it would actually look like.

Be warned though, there is one sequence in the film that might be disturbing to some audience members. It had me curling my toes in sympathetic pain as I watched it. Right after Watney wakes up, he has to make his way back to the habitat and treat his own wound from being struck by the communications dish. This scene is quite graphic and bloody as he cleans his wound and staples it closed.

On the other hand, The Martian also has a good sense of humor. In their haste to leave the surface of Mars, all of Watney's colleagues are forced to leave things behind. One item was the mission commander's laptop which was loaded with 1970's Disco music. Watney made several references to his hatred for this genre of music which broke the tension and added some appropriate comic relief. There were also several exchanges between characters in the film that were quite humorous and added to the overall realistic feel of the movie.

All in all, everything about this film was remarkable and is a must see movie, especially for fans of the manned space program. It seems like it would quite plausible that something like this might happen. I hear many fellow SciFi fans complain often that everything we are currently getting from Hollywood is either a prequel, sequel, reboot, or remake, so it is important that we send a message to Hollywood that we want more original and new material. So get out there and see The Martian in theaters! You will not be disappointed.

Well, there it is...

Qaplah!

Science and Science Fiction Mix To Make A Great Story - The Martian by Andy Weir

The Martian: A Novel by Andy Weir

Over the past several years, several personalities have taken us on their adventures on television.  They get dropped off in remote places with little or nothing to survive except their wits and resourcefulness.  One such personality that I particularly enjoy is Les Stroud; his show, Survivor Man.  The thing is he always makes it out with a chopper awaiting him at the end of seven to ten day trips.  He knows when and where he will be retrieved at the end of his ordeal.

Now, imagine yourself as the lone and unintended inhabitant on another planet such as Mars.   Everything is against you.  It’s extremely cold, you cannot grow food, the water is frozen under the surface, the air is unbreathable, and the list goes on.  Space is a dangerous place.

Andy Weir explores this scenario brilliantly in his novel.

Ares 3, the third manned mission to Mars is in its sixth SOL, or its sixth Martian day on the surface.  A day on Mars is about a half hour longer than a day on Earth.  The crew of six astronauts are going about their business on the surface of the planet when they receive a warning from NASA that there is a storm approaching their location.  At first, it is determined that this storm doesn’t seem to be a threat to the mission.  The storm rapidly intensifies and the crew is ordered to abort their mission and get off the surface.  A communications dish is then blown off of the Hab (Habitat) and hits astronaut Mark Watney and the wind carries him a long distance from the site.  With very little time left, the mission commander tries to locate Mark, but the ever worsening conditions make it impossible to find any trace.  Another member of the crew saw Mark hit by the dish.  Mark is presumed dead and the five remining crew members launch.

Mark awakens, surprised that he is alive.  His suit has been breached, but the breach was sealed with his own blood.  With a lot of effort, he manages to return to the landing site and finds that he is now all alone.  The single inhabitant of a planet stranded without communications and facing impossible odds, but he is determined to survive somehow.

Other than the communications, the Hab is in good shape, he has two rovers, equipment, and supplies that were intended to keep six people alive on Mars for a month.  The only possibility of rescue that he knows of is four years away when the Ares 4 mission is due to arrive 3200 kilometers from his present location.

Everyone has given up Mark for dead.  Back on Earth, all of the usual ceremonies are taking place.  Speeches commemorating Mark as a hero are made and speculation begins about the efficacy of future missions to Mars.

Meanwhile, back on Mars, Mark goes about the business of surviving in an environment that seems to be trying to kill him at almost every turn.  He figures out how to stay alive with the equipment he has on hand, and even figures out how to extend his food supply for a long time.  He even has entertainment, but in the form of 1970’s television shows and disco music (much to his chagrin).  He also has his training, his education, and most importantly, his sense of humor, and he refuses to lose.

Thanks to the observations of a sharp-eyed tech at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it is soon learned that Mark did indeed survive and efforts to reestablish communications and plans for rescue ensue.

I enjoyed this story so much, I read it in only four days, reading every spare minute that I could find.  Almost every page had me on edge wondering what was going to happen next to pose a threat to Mark.  But the most impressive thing about The Martian was how seemingly accurate it is.  While I am no expert on NASA protocols involving survival on hostile planets, everything that Mark did to seemed plausible to me, from how he was able to make oxygen by splitting water atoms apart, to how he used his own waste and Martian soil to make a potato farm to help extend his food supply.

Another aspect of this book was the sense of humor that Weir injected into the story.  The hero definitely has a great sense of humor.  He pokes fun at himself and the situation he finds himself in.

I did almost put this book down though.  Mark’s account of his time on Mars was in the form of log entries that chronicle his activities.  The first five chapters of the book follow this format, by the end of the first chapter it was getting a bit tedious reading “today I did this” and “I am planning to do that” and so on.  I did consider setting it aside.  In chapter 6 though, the NASA part of the story was introduced and from there it was a nonstop solid science/scifi story that any fan of the space program, or reality based science fiction fan should enjoy.  I am glad I stayed with it.  The author really did his homework for this one.

I give this novel my highest recommendations as one of the best stories of its kind that I have ever read.

Now, if only someone would pick this one up and make a film.

Well, there it is…

QaplaH’!