Project Hail Mary

PROJECT HAIL MARY by ANDY WEIR3/5 stars Minor Spoilers___________Going through the 1-star reviews, I found some common complains: the whole story is implausible; there are too many conveniences going on; the side-characters are stereotypical and shallow; the main character's wittiness and quirkiness detracts from the experience.Frankly, they're quite correct.Project Hail Mary's prose is not exciting and lacks panache, the first-person-narration being very repetitive and almost robotic when the main character, Ryland Grace (ugh), isn't busy being witty, sarcastic, and comedic. There's a lot of dry science in this, which Weir tries to spice up with Ryland's humor, and there was not a single second when I doubted the success of the mission. Ultimately, if what you're looking for is a beautifully-written rumination on the human species and interstellar life, you're not really going to find it here. At least, I didn't.What I DID find though is a lot of fun spectacle hiding behind science I didn't understand and a character whose humor was frustrating most of the time. You REALLY have to gel with the humor to stomach the writing, since Weir injects every page with it. I got used to it in about 60 pages, enough so that I laughed here and there, but if you want a serious story, it ain't it. This is very pulpy, borderline low-brow, and doesn't bother to be wholly consistent with its characters' personalities, motivations, etc. What Project Hail Mary is is an entertaining spectacle and specualtion on the panspermia theory. I didn't find more than that in here.And hell, what a spectacle it was! Yes, Ryland Grace is a Gary Stu and his name is as corny as literally everything else about the novel, the stakes are technically high but so downplayed by the Litany of Conveniences that they had no impact; the gravity of any given crisis was quickly overshadowed by Weir's writing; and the ending was abrupt and cheesy, somehow still underwhelming despite tying up loose ends. But still. It was mindless fun. My appreciation for the story might be skewed because of the fact I read it all in one sitting (which lasted too many hours for the poor slow-reader I am), and the fact it's the first book I read in a while, but hey, at least I read it!