Project Hail Mary: A Novel

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, with a screenplay by Drew Goddard

A lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science—from the author of The Martian.

HUGO AWARD FINALIST • NEW YORK TIMES READER PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY • ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS: Parade, Newsweek, New York Public Library, Polygon, Shelf Awareness, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal

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?

Hailed by USA Today as “an epic story of redemption, discovery, and cool speculative sci-fi,” Project Hail Mary is an irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver.

ANDY WEIR built a two-decade 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 such subjects as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. He also mixes a mean cocktail.

He lives in California.

“Project Hail Mary” is a thrilling science-fiction novel about survival, ingenuity, and unlikely friendship. It follows Ryland Grace, a former science teacher and molecular biologist who wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory of who he is or why he is there. As his memory gradually returns, he discovers that he is on a desperate mission to save Earth from a mysterious microorganism called Astrophage, which is draining energy from the sun and pushing the planet toward a catastrophic ice age.

The novel begins with disorientation and fear. Ryland is alone aboard the Hail Mary, millions of miles from home, and the only clues to his situation are the ship itself and the dead bodies of his crewmates. He slowly pieces together the truth: Earth has been threatened by a solar disaster, scientists discovered that Astrophage is feeding on the sun, and a last-chance mission was launched to find out why one nearby star, Tau Ceti, has not been affected. Ryland was chosen because of his scientific background, but he soon realizes that the mission is far more dangerous and uncertain than anyone had admitted to him.

What makes the book so engaging is the way it turns scientific problem-solving into a survival story. Ryland is not a superhero or a battle-hardened astronaut. He is a practical, curious, slightly awkward man who survives by thinking through one problem at a time. Much of the novel is built around experiments, calculations, trial and error, and the patient work of figuring out how Astrophage behaves. Andy Weir makes the science feel exciting because every discovery matters. Every answer Ryland finds brings him one step closer to saving humanity, but it also reveals how little he knows at the start.

The story becomes even more compelling when Ryland encounters an alien from another star system. He names the creature Rocky, and what begins as uncertainty and fear slowly turns into one of the novel’s most memorable friendships. Rocky is unlike Ryland in almost every way, but the two are facing the same threat: Astrophage has also endangered Rocky’s world. Since they share a common problem, they begin working together, even though they cannot initially understand each other’s biology, technology, or language. Their communication process is one of the book’s great pleasures, because it develops through patience, creativity, and a growing sense of trust.

The relationship between Ryland and Rocky gives the novel its heart. At first, they are simply collaborators trying to solve a life-or-death crisis. Then they become true partners, and eventually something like friends. Their bond is built not on sentiment but on mutual dependence, humor, and respect. The novel shows how connection can grow even across enormous differences when two beings are willing to learn from each other. That friendship also gives the book warmth, balance, and emotional depth, keeping it from becoming only a technical or procedural story.

As the plot unfolds, Ryland and Rocky work out a scientific solution that could save both Earth and Rocky’s home. The mission becomes larger than either of them expected, and Ryland has to make painful decisions about duty, risk, and sacrifice. One of the novel’s strongest emotional threads is the way it reveals that Ryland’s memory wipe was not just an accident, but part of the plan. As he remembers more about how he came to be aboard the Hail Mary, he learns that the mission was effectively a suicide mission, and that he was chosen because he had the right mind for the job even if the truth was too grim to tell him in advance.

The book also raises deeper questions about responsibility and the value of one life against many. Ryland is constantly forced to choose between completing his mission, preserving his own survival, and helping Rocky. These choices make the story morally rich without ever slowing down the pace. By the time he has a chance to return home, the journey has changed him completely. He is no longer the same person who left Earth, and the life he finds afterward is shaped as much by what he gave up as by what he accomplished.

“Project Hail Mary” ultimately becomes a story about hope under impossible conditions. It is about what happens when intelligence, courage, and trust come together in the face of extinction. It combines suspense, humor, loneliness, and wonder in a way that makes the vastness of space feel both terrifying and deeply human. At its core, the novel argues that survival is not only about being smart enough to solve a problem, but also about being willing to connect, adapt, and care for someone else even when the universe is doing its best to break you apart.