I’ve heard this sentiment a lot from people who’ve read it.

I think he wrote himself into a tight spot though, and I’m happy with the result. Part of me thinks the second act could’ve been broken down into maybe like 0-1000, 1000-5000, and then the final act could’ve been essentially as it was, stripped down a bit. It felt to me like he crammed a little too much worldbuilding into it and couldn’t draw on the resourcefulness and resilience of humanity that dominates the first act. But it makes sense in context, because they’re not in such dire straits in the second half, and are approaching the whole issue from complex standpoints of religion and meaning and societal archetypes.

I surely couldn’t have done better, I know that much.

I thought both books were entirely too generous in their depictions of humanity's ability to coordinate for enormous, earth-saving efforts. I have a feeling that a real extinction level crisis would be much more like Don't Look Up or Greenland(extra optimistic ending scenes not included) than we'd care to admit. Bureaucratic incompetency and political infighting leading to a tragic and preventable end in both cases presented in the books.

I think this happens a lot to Stephenson. He's great at creating worlds, and that's the genius of his writing. Then what happens in those worlds is sometimes underwhelming.

Anathem is another one of these novels.

I liked Project Hail Mary (and Artemis, and The Martian) but I thought it was a little too heavy in the programmer narrative style. I won’t spoil anything in case someone reads this comment who hasn’t read it, but a large section involving establishing a communication protocol really wore me down from the story.

The big revelation about how he got there also felt nearly translucent in how obvious it was when it was revealed.

I hope he writes a couple more books though, if I can ever get some grandkids outta my kids, Weir’s books will be in their collection for sure.

I love the Bob series, but I'd recommend against it if you don't have a high tolerance for characters who are supposed to be extremely intelligent missing blindingly obvious solutions to problems.

I love the Bobiverse! Another +1 for the series.

Another vote for these books. Pretty quick read, but solid.

Great audio book series.

Critical Drinker made me realize a couple years ago that I'm not crazy and movies really are generally unwatchable these days, with a handful of exceptions, many of which he points out.

Awesome movie. The cinematography is beautiful

Seconding that.

Unit Zappa

Underrated low budget movie.

It is always nice to drop links to something other than the local monopolist that pops up on the top of search results. Like the original publisher, Wikipedia, or default to a search on bookshop.org

https://www.randomhousebooks.com/books/611060/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary

https://bookshop.org/p/books/project-hail-mary-andy-weir/186...

I just took it as a "Hail Mary pass" ie: a long shot, last ditch effort as the phrase is used in American football.

Also, the prayer referenced in this idiom starts off as "Hail Mary, full of grace" and the main character's name is Grace.

edit: beaten by 6 min.

I always just assumed it was simply because it was a last-ditch effort.

But I just Googled it, and someone on Reddit pointed out: "Hail Mary full of Grace."

Groan... Actually makes me like the book a little less than I already did. (Edit: Which I know is against the grain here, as evidenced by the downvotes for not liking the book.)