#booklog: Project Hail Mary
There are some phrases more applicable than others in certain circumstances, and in this one it's probably "Late to the Party". Friends, I'm very late to the party when it comes to the goodness of "Project Hail Mary", by one author named Andy Weir.
It's been out so long, I won't even bother looking up just how long, but let me assure you, it's been a while. It has in fact been such a while that in the meantime, they not just announced, cast, shot and edited a film based on that novel, they even released it already.
But, staying true to the misuse of overused phrases, good things come to those who wait, and in the case of "Project Hail Mary", a very good thing came to me.
I'd enjoyed Weir's breakout novel "The Martian" a whole lot, so I'm not entirely sure why I waited, but it might be connected to a punishing schedule of reading a whole lot of books for work-related purposes every week. Some things just need to go on the back-burner, and in my case that's reading fiction for fun.
But alas, I did, and what can I say? I'm not a book-critic (as much as I'm not a film-critic). I read things, I like things or I don't, and when I try to put into words why I liked or disliked, my vocabulary usually fails me and that's that. In the case of "Project Hail Mary", I think one reason I liked it (and a reason why so many others did) is, that its protagonist is simply such a relatable character (not because he's clearly smart as hell, that's the thing that everyone wishes they were in addition to being an everyman). He doesn't really wanna be there, but he is, so he does his thing, and he does it in a smart way. He uses the resources he's got, he does great stuff, he also fucks up, but deep down, he just wants to do right by everyone (and in this case, our world, and maybe another world too).
Weir, in all his somewhat Reddit-based humour, knows exactly what a guy like me wants to read, and he delivers it in spades (with a lot of information I am simply taking at face value, because, again, not nearly as smart as the protagonist).
There's but one thing I don't like about Weir, and that's the fact he's not churning books out like crazy. I mean, what are you even doing? GET TO IT, I want more of this, and I want it now (or very soon, still gotta read some books for work).
