Project Hail Mary ★★★★☆

I’ve just finished Andy “The Martian” Weir’s third novel, Project Hail Mary — and I concur with the consensus that it’s a “return to form,” good for the same reasons that his first was such an easy book to love. I enjoyed PHM thoroughly, but it loses a star for getting just a wee bit too far from plausibility with one too many major story elements. It didn’t stop me from having a lot of fun, but by the end I was getting slightly peeved by how much belief suspension was required.

Still, Rocky is an alien I will never forget, and the book is a wonderful example of the power of good characters and straightforwardly told adventure stories. (It’s hard to imagine a book more different in tone and style from my last reviewed book, Too Like the Lightning.)