My Favorite Spider Alien Friendship (Project Hail Mary)

This week I reread Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir and I forgot just how much science is in this book… and how much I absolutely do NOT understand it.

But somehow that doesn’t matter because the story is so good.

The real highlight of this book though? Rocky the alien “spider rock” who ends up becoming Grace’s best friend. Their friendship honestly carried the whole story for me.

I loved the characters and the emotional moments, but the ending left me with a lot of questions… mostly about what actually happened on Earth after everything was supposedly saved.

Let me know, did you love the ending or were you also hoping for an epilogue?

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Transcript

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Hey everyone, it's Sadie here, and welcome to Did we read the same book? So this week I am talking about Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I actually read this book a few years ago, and I I remember it being like so good. I do remember some of it, but it has been a long time. So I wanted to do a reread because the movie is coming out in a few weeks, and I am super ecstatic about it, guys, because this is one of my favorite books for the year that I read it, which was I think maybe like four years ago. I think I'm like chapter six, and I'm paying so much attention to it because I'm like, I don't remember that happening. Oh, okay. Anyways, it's good, I love it. Even the reread, I'm like, okay, yes, this is such a good book. It is, I would say, I mean, it is super scientific, scientific. Yeah. And so I am horrible at math. I'm horrible at science. Those are not my forte. I am much better at like creative things and reading and literature and writing. So I'm following along. I don't have to be smart. It's a book. They're explaining things to me in the book. Uh, and that's great. Maybe I'll learn something new. Who knows? But okay, so so far, like I said, chapter six, and uh I forgot that his so he wakes up, and you know, he wakes up from like um a medical coma, and he is in a spaceship, and he's like, What is happening? So at first he doesn't know where he is, he's like, What is this? Where am I at? Why don't I remember anything? And he doesn't even remember his name, right? Um, I'm talking about the main character, of course. So he he's trying to figure out who he is, why he's on this this spaceship, or where he is in the first place, what is going on? How come he doesn't remember things? And then he sees two like mummified corpses in the beds next to him, and he's like, huh, all right, they've been here a long time. Uh, I'm gonna unpack that later. Yeah, so he doesn't really dwell on that, like the two dead bodies for a little bit, like a few chapters into the book. Once he starts realizing who he is and why he's there, and then it comes together, like, okay, these people were on my team, and we are on a mission. We are on Hail Mary, which is the name of the ship, and they're trying to save planet Earth because there are like space algae that are eating the sun, pretty much. So they're like these little space algaes are absorbing all the energy from the sun, which is not great because you know, we need the sun to survive, everything needs it to live. And so they're trying to prevent an ice age, pretty much, you know, happening. They predict that within like maybe 30 days or 30 days, 30 years, you know, we'll be in like an apocalyptic kind of world because how quickly the algae is absorbing all the sun's energy. That's kind of where I left off right now. And I'm thinking, like, first of all, no thank you. You know, I I would never get picked for something like that because again, I am not good at math or science or anything like that. So I don't I don't have to worry about this, you know. But hypothetically, if I did have to worry about getting put on a mission to save our planet, that's a lot of freaking pressure. I don't know if I would be able to handle all of that. Uh, the main character in the book is hilarious because he's like freaking out, and he is pretty like he's making jokes and being super funny about it, but he's also like, oh, what the hell is happening here? How did I get picked for this? I am just a science teacher. I don't think I'm qualified for this, but yeah, his memories are coming back, so I guess uh I'll be back when I figure out like how he got there in the first place because I completely forgot how he ended up there. So I made it to the part where he finally gets to meet Rocky, all right. Now, Rocky, I do remember reading about, and I love, love, love his character, and I'm so excited I finally got to the good parts. I mean, the whole book is good, but you know, yeah, Rocky makes the book amazing. So he's like trying to figure out should he focus on the alien, should he just like ignore the alien and focus on his mission, which is to save Earth? And so he is conflicted, but ultimately the main character, Grace, decides I want to communicate with this alien, and so he does, and when he finally meets him, he's like, Oh my god, he is a spider, and sounds so crazy and scary. But so the alien is not as big, I think, as I envision him originally. And then now that I'm reading the details again, I'm like, oh okay, that's right. He's kind of small, he's smaller than a person, as big as like a lab dog, is how he's described. And he is like really solid, I guess, material. Like he looks like rocks, pretty much, with a lot of arms, and then fingers or like hands with like three fingers on them, is how he's described. So, yeah, giant rock with lots of arms, a spider rock, pretty much. And so Grace calls him Rocky, they start communicating with each other through like panamiming things and then copying each other. Eventually, he comes up with the software to um like translate what what Rocky's saying to him, but he feels like Rocky doesn't need to translate, he just kind of picks up his language quickly. So, yeah, so now he has his translator, they're able to communicate fairly well, and they both are on the same exact mission. Rocky's um homeland is also dying, his planet is dying because his son is being attacked by these little like space algaes. So they both come to what the solar system they're in now to try to figure out how that star is not affected, because apparently there's like a star that's not affected at all by these little algaes, and so they're like, Well, let's go see what's going on so we can save our planets. They become kind of friends right now, it's a little bit early in the friendship at the part that I'm at, so yeah. So, right now I've ended at the part where they're like they're just talking and getting to know each other, really, and they're trying to figure out each other's science and you know, like what they're made out of, and each other's like bodies and how they function, and it's so cool. I don't know how realistic the this scenario is. I feel like it's a little bit kind of overreaching and silly, but that's you know, that's the point of these books and sci-fi and stuff like that, is like, what if, you know, what if this happened? And it's kind of cool. I would be super scared. I think just like Grace, like, should I talk to the aliens? But yeah, of course I would. I'm talking to the aliens. Like, let me know. Would you would you talk to the aliens, or would you just like politely ignore them and move on with your mission? Because I think I would want to know. And I'd be like, all right, if I die, I die, but like I really still want to save the world. What do I do? I'm talking to the aliens, guys. Sorry. Okay, so I am more than halfway done with the book. I I just kind of have been like listening and reading through it super fast. Um, so now I'm I'm actually kind of almost done. I think I'm on chapter 27 or 28, and so I should be done with it by the end of today or tomorrow, which for you guys does not matter because you listen to the episode all at once. Okay, I have gotten to the parts now where Rocky and Grace have a really good friendship, they're communicating pretty consistently, they're working together on saving both of their planets. They have a friendship, they they're just so lovely, and we're getting a lot of backstory on you know, Grace and how he ended up getting put in that position that he's in now, where he's on Hail Mary and trying to save the world as a school teacher, right? Makes no sense, but now he's like, Okay, so he, you know, he's a scientist, we already know that. He gets called in, and they're like, you know, hey, you wrote this um not thesis, or anyways, you did something for your grad school, we thought it was awesome. We want you to look into this. He does, they realize he's a really good scientist, and then somehow he becomes like the second kind of in command for like this whole project. Now there's only a few people who are gonna be resistant to like uh the coma, the medical coma, and he happens to be one of those people. So now we know how he ended up on the ship. Um, because they originally had more qualified people, but there was like an explosion, and the scientists that they were supposed to have ended up dying in the explosion. So literally like a week out or something, I think it was a week out before they're supposed to go on this mission, they kind of like plug him in there because they don't have very many options and they're running out of time, so that's how he ends up there. Okay, I I got I'm not I didn't cry because I have read this book already, but I got like emotional again because like there's a scene where Rocky sacrifices himself, so like part of their fuel tanks get blasted, or no, I think they overheat, they overheat and then they get destroyed, and so in the process, Grace almost dies, but Rocky gets out of his little like safety dome, and he's like, you know, Grace, I'm gonna save you, and so he saves him, but he exposes himself in the process to Grace's atmosphere, which is detrimental to Rocky, and so now Rocky is kind of kaput for a while, and luckily he does not die. Grace is able to save him in return. So both of them get saved, and I was like, Oh no, I know Rocky makes it, but my gosh, like my heart, like I know that it's fake, it's pretend, but like he's an alien, he doesn't have to save this human, and you know, he's before he like passes out, he's like, you know, save both of our planets. And Grace is like, oh shoot, I mean, yeah, I will, but I'm also gonna save you, buddy. And so, you know, he puts Rocky back in his own atmosphere, um, exposes himself again to more harm, and ends up having like an injury on his arm and all these things. So I'm a little past that. Rocky is awake now, he is finally healed, and in Grace's attempt to like make him heal faster and to help him, he creates like an air pressure thing to kind of blow out all of the soot and everything that's built up in Rocky. And then when Rocky comes back and he he's awake and coherent, he's like, How did you get this stuff out of me? And and then Grace being so proud of himself, he's like, Oh, I built this, I built this um, you know, thing, and I blew all of that stuff out so you can heal better. And Rocky's like, no, idiot, like that was my body healing itself, and I needed that. Like, if you would have done that earlier, I would have died, you would have killed me. But because I was already healed enough, you know, luckily, I'm just I've just got to heal more now, but thanks. So I thought that was kind of funny. Like, oh uh. So like, yeah, Grace described it as you know, he pretty much like took all of the scabs off, which is gross. I forgot how much science is in this book for some reason. I mean, the story is so good, the characters are so good. Um, everything that's happening, the dialogue, I love it, and that's probably why I kind of glossed over all of the other stuff happening, like all the sciencey things. But there's so much science and terminology and things happening that are going like over my head, and I'm doing the same thing I did last time where I'm like, cool, science, science, science, science, gloss over that, explain it in layman's term, or you know, I'm like, uh, I get what's happening, but yeah, if you if you actually know what they're talking about and it makes sense to you, the math and everything else, like that is so freaking cool. Let me know. Um, because that must be super cool, uh, to be able to relate more to the book in that sense. For me, I'm just kind of like, tell me more about this robot spider and how they're gonna save the world. But I am loving it. Like I said, I'm almost done. I'll I'll finish it soon. I'll pop back on here and I'll let you guys know how I like the book fully, I guess. Okay, so I just finished the book and I don't know if I really love the ending, especially now that I'm rereading it. And you know, like I I know how it ended before, but then just hearing it again, I was like, ugh, okay, not really my favorite. I don't know how else it could have ended. I mean, sure, I guess, you know, uh Grace could have gone back to Earth and saved it and then been like a hero and everything. But uh, if you read it, then you know that that doesn't happen. He they find the solution, him and Rocky finally are like, oh my gosh, we found the predator for these astrophage, and now let's do all this crazy science to figure out how to get these little amoebas down to our planets to eat all the astrophage. And then they do, they work it out, they you know, they find that okay, they die if they're in, I think it was nitrate, so they're like, you know, all right, they die if they're uh if they're exposed to this, so that's why they're not living on our or near our planet, is because they can't survive. So, how do we make these little dudes live? And they do all these tests, and pretty much they're just like kind of like a vaccine, you know, when you're exposed to something, and then you just uh have like a tolerance, you know, build up immunity and everything to that. So they do that to these little amoebas, and and it works out, yeah. So they're like, okay, now they can go and they can be exposed to the toxins that kill them, and they can eat the astrophage, and our worlds win, and everybody goes back to normal, and we all get to survive and live. Yay! So him and Rocky, Grace and Rocky say their goodbyes, and they're like, Okay, it was nice working with you, thank you so much. You have been like my best friend. I'm gonna miss you, but we have to save our worlds, and it's super cool. And Grace is able to make the trip back and theoretically live. It's not a suicide mission anymore because Rocky helps him with the fuel, and now he's just got to figure out like how to survive and not starve to death, and he does. He's gonna have to live on like the nasty powder liquid sludge that was like hooked up to him while he was in a coma. Okay, moving on. Now that we have like what's happening, how did I feel about that all? I felt like it was a little rushed towards the end, like the beginning and the middle, and everything. We spent so much time building this friendship and getting to know Rocky and Grace, and then we have all this background story about what is happening and how they ended up where they are. Oh, okay, but we do learn something super important too, and that is like how he actually ended up on this freaking mission. I know I mentioned it in the beginning, but he he has a memory, and he was forced to be on this mission. He did not volunteer at all, and that blows my mind. Yeah, so Strap, I know I haven't actually talked about her at all, but she is a very important and pivotal character in the whole book. She's the one who orchestrates pretty much everything and has like godlike power to even uh come up with the Hail Mary uh thing, like project and everything. So Strat is the one that orchestrates everything, she's the one that found Grace in the very beginning and had him test the astrophage and everything in the from the very start. Because I know I mentioned he's like second in command, and so I guess his command would be strat. She there, oh my gosh, I'm trying to overexplain it. I I'm hoping you read the book, and I don't have to explain in detail, but like there's they already had the three people that were supposed to be on the ship on the Hail Mary, and they were very heavily like protected and taken care of and trained and ready for this mission. But then there was an accident, and the scientist that was supposed to be on the ship was blown up along with the person that was gonna replace him if anything happened to him. They were working on something on a project, it went bad, they both died. So now, a week before, they're trying to figure out oh my gosh, who is going to replace them? And it is Grace, okay, but they don't tell Grace this, they keep it a secret. It's all hush hush, but they already have their decision. And Strat is basically like, he's going, whether he likes it or not. I really don't care. I'm gonna give him the illusion of choice, but really there is none because ultimately he chooses no, you know. I'm not, I don't want to die on this mission. I want to teach, I want to make sure that the kids that I'm teaching are prepared and ready for this, you know, apocalyptic kind of world we're gonna live in, and that they understand because they are gonna be the adults that are faced with all of that stuff, you know, with the world ending. They're the ones that are gonna grow up with the world coming to like an end, and I want to be there. So, yeah, so he says no. He's like, I'm not, I do not consent to this. I'm not volunteering, I'm not going on that ship. Pick somebody else. And Strat's like, well, you know, I hoped you would go voluntarily, but you really don't have a choice. So he's thrown into a prison cell and then drugged before getting placed on the ship, which is probably how he lived. The machines on the Hail Mary were supposed to like give him a little dose of something to give him amnesia so that way he doesn't wake up and he's like mad to be there. And he the thought is that he will either, you know, think that he volunteered, which he does. Throughout the book, until this memory hits, or by the time he realizes it'll just be too late, and he, you know, like he doesn't have any like any other choice but to save the world. So the plan that Strat comes up with does ultimately work. He does forget he thinks he volunteered and that he's a good person and stuff like that, and selfless. And then it hits them all at once. Like, no, I didn't volunteer for this. I didn't want to be here. That's messed up. But I mean, yeah, her plan worked. I'm here. I found the solution and I'm going home. I'm gonna tell her. I hope she's still there because I'm gonna let her know that now I'm angry about that. But you know, what can I do? Let's save the world. We still don't really get an answer, or at least maybe I just didn't hear it on how the other crew members died. So, I mean, obviously something went wrong, but he never really gets to know like what went wrong. Um so I wish I kind of knew that. And if it does explain it and I just missed it somehow, like let me know, please, because I don't know how I missed it, but I don't know. I just felt like it was really, really rushed towards the end. So it's like, you know, they find they find the not cure, they find the um solution, then they split ways, and it's actually like really sad. Like, oh no, Rocky, but okay, cool. We get to kind of see him save the world, and then uh like how everybody reacts to it, and him being a hero, and him seeing the state that Earth is in, you know, like present and everything like that. So I was excited about that aspect. I mean, I know how the book ends, so but still like he rereading it again. I'm like, oh, that would be kind of cool. That is not how it ends. Uh, he does make his trip, they boot, they both do separate, and then something goes wrong. The little amoebas, the little predators that he's been keeping safe have evolved to where they can escape their container that they're in because he kept doing all the tests in the same material, so now he's like, Oh my gosh, oh no, Rocky. So he decides, he fixes it, he just puts them in like a plastic container or whatever, and then they can't get out of that because they didn't evolve to like do that. But he's trying to figure out like, should I go back and save Rocky? Because if this is happening to me, then it's probably happening on his ship too. And Rocky doesn't know how to fix that, like, he's not gonna understand what to do with them, and he's just gonna be floating in space now. So Grace decides to be loyal to his friend. He sends all his findings into these little capsules and then like ships them all back to Earth and is like, you know, hopefully these make it, they're supposed to make it, but hopefully they work out and they're able to, you know, look at all his data, have the samples, and and heal Earth. So he sacrifices pretty much himself and like you know, him returning and stuff, and he goes back for Rocky. Rocky is so ecstatic to see him, and I'm so happy as well. I was like, oh poor Rocky was just out there, but yeah, so they reunite, they fix the problem, and then they make it back to like Rocky's homeland, and they figure out that Grace can eat not the astrophage, but the the little amoeba predators, he can eat those and still survive, and they're not super nutritious, so he has a lot of issues, which we don't hear about. He just talks about it, you know, like briefly, like, yeah, you know, we made it back. I had some issues, uh wasn't the best, wasn't the healthiest. But now that I'm living on his planet, they've been very accommodating. And all the people on there, or the little like spider robot rock things, the other Rockies, they build him like a habitat and they just accommodate him. And also they're fascinated because he's an alien, so they accommodate him, they study him, they figure out how to make food that he can eat, and so you know, he lives there now, and then he it ends with them finding out that good news, Earth is fine. Um, soul is the sun is brought back to its full strength, and earth is, you know, I mean, they don't know if it's thriving or what, but it is back to normal. So, you know, he thinks, like, well, maybe one day I'll go and you know, I'll go back and see. But he's also old now at this point, you know, all that time traveling and stuff, the space travel, whatever. So he's I think he said it was like 70 something years, like he would be 70 something years old on Earth, but where he was now and stuff in the solar system, uh, he's like in his 50s. He yeah, so he's in his 50s. Um, and he's just like, I don't know if I'm ever gonna go home. So I think he makes peace with just living there with Rocky. At least that's what I interpret because it it ends there, and he's teaching all the little Iridians, the little alien things. He's teaching them about science now. I thought it was cute. Like the ending is sweet. I'm happy he re reunited with Rocky and everything. But I'm also kind of like, okay, but what's happening on Earth? What's happening over there? Did half the population die? Was there actually an ice age? We know that they like some people survived, and scientists were surviving because they were able to reverse it and fix everything. But like, I I don't know. Me just being, I guess, curious, and I'm sure other people are too. I was like, I really kind of want like an epilogue, and I want to know how Earth is doing and everybody down there. Like, I just want to know. I'm so curious about it. Um, but I'll never have those answers. It's just guessing at this point. Maybe in the movie we'll get to see that because the movie does come out in a week, I believe. And I'm so excited. I am so, so excited. I hope it's gonna be good and that it does the book justice because this is such a good book, and I think it's so much fun. But let me know by the time you guys are hearing this. Um, maybe the movie is already out and you guys have seen it. But let me know in the comments what you thought. What you thought about the book, what you think about the movie. If you skipped the book and you only watched a movie, then let me know that too. Um, just know that the book is so good. I really enjoyed it. It is probably one of my favorites. Um, that's it. Yeah. Thank you guys for listening to my messy thoughts. Uh, I will see you guys next week. And let me know. Did we read the same book?