Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir (2021)
“A man wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory, two dead crewmates, and the fate of every living thing on Earth depending on him figuring out why.”
Short Summary
Ryland Grace, a junior high school science teacher, wakes from a coma aboard a spaceship with no memory of who he is or why he is there. His two crewmates are dead. Through fragmented memories that return gradually, he pieces together the crisis: an alien microorganism called Astrophage is consuming the Sun's energy, and within decades Earth will enter an ice age that ends civilization. Grace was sent to Tau Ceti, the only star not affected by Astrophage, to find out why. In the Tau Ceti system, he encounters Rocky, an alien engineer from the planet Erid, whose star faces the same crisis. Together, the human and the alien solve the puzzle: a predator organism on the planet Adrian consumes Astrophage. They harvest the predator, but getting it back to their home stars requires sacrifice. Grace sends Rocky home and stays behind, accepting that he will never return to Earth.
Detailed Summary
Ryland Grace wakes in a white room, connected to medical equipment, unable to remember his own name. A robotic arm feeds him. Two other beds hold desiccated corpses — his crewmates, who did not survive the medically induced coma required for the journey. He is alone on a spaceship, and he does not k...