Project Hail Mary: The Sunday Times bestseller from the author of The Martian

It's so hard to find good Sci-Fi nowadays. This book is true science fiction, very interesting, inspiring and comprehensive. It would be much better, though, without product placement (intentional or not) and klukva about Russians, I'm sure Andy Weir is better than this. Some cliché could be easily avoided too. Still, I couldn't name anything else remotely as good as this novel among recently published books.

A good read and real page turner, the only criticism I could put to it is in the authors style of writing, can be very explanation heavy at times but also skips sections too. If you enjoyed The Martian, you'll enjoys this.

Perhaps my expectations were not managed well. After hearing and reading rave reviews, I expected an awesome read in line with The Martian. I was disappointed with Artemis so I was looking forward to this one. The initial setup is fantastic, what enormous potential. A fascinating problem, a worldwide catastrophe to unite the planet (for now) and "roll the dice" solution. But after a few chapters it became apparent this was not really a character driven story, but a puzzle adventure book set in space. The point of the book is to enjoy the puzzles and their solutions, the story is just some glue to join one to another. None of the characters, including the protagonist, have any real depth to them, they are just there. A name, a role and a stereotype. I don't care for any of them, do they live or die? Meh. The development between the main protagonist and a friend he discovers could have been awesome, but it just didn't work for me. The protagonist's jokey, wise-arse internal monologues and interactions with other characters gets old and cringey, very quickly. And speaking or arse - what's with the folksy substitution of "bad words" with childish replacements? "I pressed this button and dagnabbit the killer space aliens ate my ship, golly gosh darn". So Andy didn't write the book I wanted. However I'm sure my 15yo self would have read this and loved it, so YMMV. Not as good as The Martian but better than Artemis.