Archer Book Club: November 2025

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

From Goodreads;

A lone astronaut. An impossible mission. An ally he never imagined.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and 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?

Information will be provided closer to the planned meeting: 12:00pm-1:00pm, November 26th, 2025.

Caution: Discussion questions may contain spoilers.

• Right from the beginning, Stratt trusts Grace. She gives him access to the first samples of Astrophage, she takes him to key meetings, she drags him along to the testing locations. And yet, he seemed perpetually baffled by her trust in him. What did she see in him that he couldn’t see in himself?
• In the book, the world comes together and pools its collective resources to solve the Astrophage problem. Weir finished the first draft in Jan/20 but the book wasn’t published until May/21, when the world was deep into COVID disruption and death. What did you think of how the nations came together in the book? Contrast that with your perceptions of how the world stage responded to COVID.
• Grace has to perform a lot of math in space. He’s running tests, he’s calculating some trajectory or another, he’s figuring out how much Astrophage and/or food he needs. Did you follow the math and science? And if you didn’t follow it, did it affect your experience of the book?
• The novel grapples with the concept of ‘sacrifice for the greater good’. Stratt embodies a utilitarian approach where any sacrifice is justified to save humanity. Grace is more hesitant and weighs individual lives against the potential good. Do you agree more with Stratt’s philosophy, or do you feel her actions are morally questionable? Were her methods, like secretly drugging Grace, necessary for the mission’s success?
• Ryland Grace spends much of the novel with amnesia, slowly rediscovering himself and his role in the mission. How does this narrative choice impact the unfolding of the story, the reader’s perception of Grace, and his character development? Does regaining his memories resolve his inner conflict between cowardice and heroism, or is his character ultimately defined by his actions during the mission?
• What did you think of the novel's conclusion?  Did you find it satisfactory?  Would you have made the same decision as Grace?

Questions taken from LibroManiacs and Books That Slay.