Project Hail Mary
[{'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I don\'t even remember pre-ordering this book. It just showed up in my Kindle app this morning. So I decided to read the first chapter before starting work. Four hours later, I can finally put the book down since I\'m done.\n"The Martian" was a great story. "Artemis" was a great story. This one is better than either of those. If you like science fiction with actual science, this is for you. If you like stories with interesting, well developed characters, this also has that. If you want excitement and a thrilling plot, here you go. If you want romance and sex, well, there you\'re completely out of luck. But if that was the kind of book you wanted I doubt you\'d be reading this review anyway. Speaking of, why *are* you still reading this review? Go read the book!! It\'s way better than this.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'This book is simply outstanding. There you go. A 5 word review...but I’m not wrong.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "A spiritual sequel to The Martian that had me grinning throughout the entire book.\n\nMade my inner nerd squeal with delight on many occasions.\n\nHas everything I ever wanted in a sci-fi book, just didn't realize it until now.\n\nRead it. That is all."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'A previous reviewer said: \'"The Martian" was a great story. "Artemis" was a great story. This one is better than either of those \'. WRONG! This one is MUCH better than either of those! Instant classic.\n\nIf you mixed Asimov\'s "The Gods Themselves" and Heinlein\'s "Citizen Of The Galaxy" and added in a few gallons of Clarke and Niven it would be like this. I\'d write more, but I\'m off to re-read the novel.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-2 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I\'m half way through the book and I\'m super annoyed with two aspects of the author\'s approach. First, he gets preachy about global warming, which is not a thing one does when one wants to engage an audience..."And just like that another climate denier is born." Can he be more condescending and dismissive?\n\nTo be frank, I believe in climate change. I believe the climate changes every three months (roughly); they\'re called seasons. What I don\'t believe in is soft science and doomsday predictions based on data that\'s easily manipulated by activists to say anything they want.\n\nThe second problem I have with the book so far is that it reads too much like the The Martian, but without the emotion. There\'s no reason to like or dislike the characters beyond the superficial aspects of their personalities. Everyone is two-dimensional. The main protagonist spends his days dodging his emotions, and every supporting character on Earth is a stereotype--without enough personality for me to care about any of them.\n\nMaybe things will get better as I continue to read, but only if the author puts away his soapbox and get\'s back to story-telling.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-3 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Based on all the rave reviews, I had high hopes for this book. It’s certainly a couple of notches above other science fiction novels I’ve read lately (all of them with rave reviews). If Mr. Weir’s editors had leaned on him to cut 150 pages out of the text, this would have been a stronger novel.\n\nPROS:\n\n1. The characters are individualized and (mostly) likeable. It’s really nice to have a male protagonist in a sci fi book who’s compassionate, caring, and human.\n\n2. Plot twists and turns kept me reading in spite of some long tedious sections.\n\n3. Alien life forms are creatively and imaginatively rendered.\n\n4. A bit of humor here and there helped enliven the story.\n\nCONS:\n\n1. The author is mainly concerned with engineering solutions to survival problems–one after the other after the other. Some of these are exciting, but there were just too many.\n\n2. The plot drags on and on as one technical problem after another takes center stage. If you’ve been dealing with computer, electrical or mechanical problems in your own life, you might find the endless series of equipment disasters a bit frustrating to read about.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-2 review-rating', 'review_body': "There is some pretty clever science here, and a lot of sophomoric fantasy about saving the world with sacrifice and universal cooperation that must have been absorbed from some over-zealous Sunday School teacher.\n\nWe have this interstellar infection that eats the energy of the sun and causes it to get dimmer. We have to save the world from an imminent ice age so we scoop up some of this amazing stuff and figure out that it absorbs, and can be made to emit, incredible amounts of energy. Hey, I have an idea! Let’s use it to power a star ship to near light speed! We’ll build the ship by utilizing universal love, cooperation and sheer human ingenuity and send some suicidal humans to Tau Ceti to figure why that star isn’t getting sick, although also infected. (Well, one of them isn't suicidal but we bully him into going anyway.)\n\nWait!! We have a source of amazing amounts of energy and we use it to send our two-and-a-half heroes off to save the world? What about using all that incredible love, cooperation, ingenuity and boundless energy to keep the earth warm while we figure out how to kill the bug? Well, that won't fit our little trolley-car moral dilemma plot, will it? Can't use that."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-2 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I am surprised by all the rave reviews. While I really enjoyed Andy Weir’s “The Martian”, I thought the writing in this book was very juvenile. Fun/interesting storyline, but the quality of the writing is so weak that I won’t be recommending this to any of my friends.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-2 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I love science fiction. I love reading new science fiction. And I loved the premise of this story -- everything I would be interested in reading.\n\nHowever, this book was a struggle from the onset. It needs an editor, as it\'s way too long, with endless descriptions of "figuring stuff out," especially with an alien. That\'s cool, I\'m sure the author spent a lot of time thinking about these things, because it shows in the writing. Endlessly describing a problem, then figuring out the solution. It helps that the protagonist is apparently a bit super-human in his knowledge, especially for everything needed exactly fitting within the nice confines of the plot.\n\nWill I finish it? I\'m trying, really I am. But midway through, the plot seems to be stuck with endless communication sessions with an alien and I\'ve virtually lost interest as to whether they figure it out or not. Just not enough happening to keep my attention (unless you think action = endless talk about radiation and planetary mass and atmospheres and coming up with new words for new concepts).'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Got the book yesterday afternoon. Finished at 0330 today. Really enjoyed the story. The ending was a real twist. Glad I am cycling onto night shift, I needed to stay up all night and Hail Mary held my attention without fail. Highly recommend for SyFi fans.'}]