I can’t believe I didn’t pick up this book sooner. I really enjoyed The Martian, and I also read Weir’s second book, Artemis. I didn’t review Artemis, so I couldn’t tell you exactly how I felt when I’d just finished it, but I believe my opinion was somewhat similar to Peter’s: a fun book, similar to The Martian but not as good.

So then the question is: was the Martian just a one-off? Can Weir escape the legacy of his publishing debut? I’d say the answer is yes. But also no. Let me explain.

Project Hail Mary is in many ways extremely similar to The Martian. We follow a stranded space traveller on a mission to save planet Earth. He’s the only survivor on his spacecraft, and throughout the book, he’s faced with challenges that he has to solve through his own creativity and (of course) ridiculous level of intellect.

Is Weir just repeating what he’s been doing all along? Yes. The problem is that he just does it really, really well. As far as I’m concerned, if he can keep cranking them out at this level of quality, I will read every book about a lone space traveller solving problems that the man wants to write.

Weir’s writing is so fun that I don’t even care that all his protagonists are essentially the same person. The only thing he doesn’t write super well are the scenes back on earth. You can tell he’s just not that comfortable writing scenes with more than one type of character (smart, sassy man), and the other characters tend to fall a little flat. Fortunately, he more than makes up for this with the character of Rocky. I will not elaborate further. Read the book. You will understand.

Project Hail Mary is easily better than The Martian. I cried actual, genuine tears while reading this book.