January 2022 Selection: ‘Project Hail Mary’ by Andy Weir
The first book of the year is always important and Maude wanted to start off with Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Every month Maude chooses a new Fantasy or Sci-Fi novel with her book club. She uses Good Reads to keep everything in one space.
Synopsis:
This novel by Andy Weir is about Ryland Grace, who is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission – and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
Goodreads
About The Author
Andy Weir built a 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 subjects such as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight.
Maude’s Book Chat ‘Project Hail Mary’ Part 1
Talking Points
(22:40) Colleen discusses how she can relate to Ryland as a teacher. She valued his connection to the students. She specifically remembers that she had her own jar just as Ryland did and speaks on how a simple object can bring the students closer to their teacher.
(38:36) Lisa has been listening to this audiobook like Maude and they discuss how funny the character is. They mention that as they’re listening and walking around they have big smiles on their faces.
(1:03:14) Maude talks about space and the great unknown with Jimmy. She reads comments about why it’s so fascinating and why we love these stories. After watching Don’t Look Up, Maude says artists are using new mediums to discuss the planet. People are realizing more and more that we are obliterating this one place we have to live in.
(1:46:46) What would be the hardest thing in space and is it isolation? open-ended question: Jimmy chimes in and says that it is a difficult thing if you were raised by a robot and have no contact with any humans, it would be different but you’d still survive. Maude then says there are studies that took place in Russia where humans are inherently required of human touch. They experimented on newborn babies who were taken from their mothers and were never held. It was a disastrous experiment and babies would try and rock themselves to sleep, they were stunted in growth as well.
Maude’s Book Chat ‘Project Hail Mary’ Part 2
Talking Points
(20:20) Maude thinks that there are many perfect books out there that are worthy of a 5/5. While Jimmy thinks if he was in a different mood, he would have bumped it. And Maude thinks that ratings could change depending on mood when finalizing it. She feels that she’s very generous with her 5/5’s if she would read it again or had a good time reading it.
(44:26) Maude said that she feels like Andy Weir had an issue sticking the landing with this book. *pun intended* KPDubbs says that there should be a sequel with one of his students growing with the problem and trying to save the earth.
(1:32:05): Maude says she thinks her purpose is to offer her body to be eaten is an offer that is too good to be true, Isak says that it would definitely be suspicious. Then Maude clarifies what they’re talking about in the book because the conversation had gone into cannibalism. Would you do it for survival or fun?
Have you read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir?
Maude gave it five out of five stars on GoodReads, what would you give it out of five? If you want to join our Book Chat community, head on over to our Patreon and join us today!
