Humans are facing an unprecedented existential crisis that can only be mitigated, or even worked through, by the efforts of one individual. Andy Weir’s latest sci-fi novel, Project Hail Mary (2021), is a suspenseful story that combines scientific realism with an emotional, personal journey. Readers are whisked away on an adventure of scientific discovery and invention, with a healthy dose of introspective space travel that reveals the immense loneliness of humanity’s fate in the universe. Here’s a condensed summary of the book, chapter by chapter. You can better understand the story by getting a free audiobook on us through Audible by clicking here.
Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1
Introduction to Ryland Grace
Ryland Grace has woken up alone on a spaceship. He doesn’t know who he is or where he’s going, but after wandering the empty ship for a while, he finds the bodies of two dead crewmates. And slowly everything comes together – he is on a mission to save the Earth from a devastating calamity caused by an alien microorganism, Astrophage.
Chapter 2
Discovering the Mission
Grace can only recall vaguely what his mission was. A molecular biologist after a career change, he had ended up head of the research into Astrophage, the microbial sun-sucker that has been causing the sun to slump, on which humanity’s shaky future hangs. This is the ‘Hail Mary’ mission, taking a stepping stone to a star system where the Astrophage menace doesn’t occur.
Chapter 3
Initial Challenges
She soon faces the urgent problems of how to get the ship working and what to do with her limited stock of food, and learns more about the Hail Mary mission and the role of her late shipmates, the multicultural Commander Yáo and the Russian astrobiologist Dr Ilyukhina.
Chapter 4
Flashbacks and Realizations
From flashbacks, we learn how he was recruited from his office job by Eva Stratt, a dogged scientist who seems to be leading the fight against Astrophage from her command outpost somewhere outside the reach of the ‘Crawler’s’ central planet. We hear about the stakes of her mission as Grace mentally replays Stratt’s theory – that the microorganism is so unbelievably destructive to Earth’s climate and its future.
Chapter 5
Contact with Alien Life
He picks up a second ship, which he then contacts to find that it is an alien, whom he calls Rocky. Rocky’s people, the Eridians, have Astrophage, too, and are also seeking a cure to save their home planet.
Chapter 6
Building Trust
Grace and Rocky put aside their communication problems and start to work together. They trade information about their different tools and technologies, forging a friendship on a foundation of mutual need and trust.
Chapter 7
Collaborative Problem-Solving
Together they work to keep the ship running, make some significant breakthroughs in the understanding of Astrophage, and develop testable hypotheses that offer hope of putting us aboard the Arc once more against all odds.
Chapter 8
Setbacks and Discoveries
A few growing pains derail the mission, with mechanical breakdowns and a host of health woes. Grace learns that Rocky and she are physiologically far apart, and are forced to develop ways of coping with and overcoming these differences. She also learns more about the behavior of Astrophage, and its life cycle.
Chapter 9
Desperation and Innovation
But time is running out. And this gives Grace and Rocky scope to apply the same lateral thinking that brought them to the moon. They now use evolution to their advantage and create the bacteria they require. By mixing and matching, in a safe house on the moon, they designed a polypeptide cargo for a specific type of virus (known as a bacteriophage in microbiology) that infects Astrophage. Our heroes hope this virus will spread among the pathogens; if it can infect other microbes on the moon, it might just spread far enough to make a significant dent. While this was a big break, applying it would be risky too.
You can better understand the story by getting a free audiobook on us through Audible by clicking here.
Chapter 10
Final Preparations
It’s moments before they launch their plan, when Grace and Rocky discuss their attachment and their situation, and the risks, and their bond, and their friendship, and the sacrifice, and the tweaks they must make before going ahead.
Chapter 11
Execution of the Plan
Grace and Rocky’s plan comes to fruition in the last chapter of the novel – and, as in most climactic scenes, it is tense. We’re in the dark about whether the equipment and the entire operation will work. And there is always the fear that failure is imminent. Every second, the bonds of teamwork are put to a test.
Chapter 12
Resolution and Reflection
The plan works, and while neither Earth nor Erid survives unscathed, the immediate threat to both of them is prevented. Grace reflects on what he’s learned on his journey and what the future holds, not only for him but for his two civilisations.
Epilogue
A New Beginning
The epilogue offers readjustments, recoveries and reflections on the work of humanitarian space activism: we come to know Grace’s fate, the Astrophage crisis weakens and humanity recovers. The novel ends on an optimistic note, one that celebrates determination and collaboration.
A clever sci-fi adventure with a big heart and a big brain Spoiler alert: Jerry Mandel survives in Project Hail Mary (2021) by Andy Weir. This smart sci-fi adventure novel has a tendency, much like Weir’s first book, The Martian (2011), to jump from one chapter to the next, without much explanation for the reader. This peculiar style conceals the fact that there is not the smallest physics mistake in the book. Everything is meticulously accounted for. Weir is not one to be fooled by a good distraction. The book is full of science (asteroids, physics, biology, biochemistry) but it is not a rousing science-fiction adventure novel without characters, and it is difficult to imagine anyone writing more believable characters than those assembled here. The story is driven by a single trait (perseverance) and a single emotion (friendship).