#2 in Science fiction
Project Hail Mary
- 496
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 62 weeks on the list, peaked at #1
- Seiun Award for Best Translated Long Work
- Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year
- Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
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Editor’s note A standalone novel: you do not need to have read The Martian, though its readers will recognise the same page-by-page problem-solving. The narrator wakes alone on a spaceship with no memory, and his past returns in flashbacks, so it is best read knowing as little as possible. The audiobook read by Ray Porter won the Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year.
About the book
Ryland Grace 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, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he?
Where the score comes from
The sources average 9.0 across 8,300 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 98% of the weight and the score stays at 9.0 — the Science fiction average of 7.8 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 9.0 | 184 | 2% |
| Hardcover | 9.0 | 8.1K | 98% |
Reader voices
The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).
“Andy Weir has the unique ability to write the most cringe book I have ever read that I literally can't put down”
“Woah! It's been a very long time since I read sci-fi, and this story kidnapped me along on a whirlwind of a space adventure! I couldn't put the book down as I needed to know what happened next at all times. The constant element of…”
Frequently asked
How long is Project Hail Mary?
It has 496 pages — longer than 65% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 8.8 and 9.1, closest to this book.
