Book Review: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Book title: Project Hail Mary
Author: Andy Weir
Genre: Science fiction
Published: May 4, 2021
476 pages
My rating: 5/5

“I penetrated the outer cell membrane with a nanosyringe.”
“You poked it with a stick?”
“No!” I said. “Well. Yes. But it was a scientific poke with a very scientific stick.”

Ryland Grace wakes up from coma on board of a spaceship and finds out his other crewmates have died during the voyage to a different solar system. As his memory slowly comes back, he realizes he’s on a desperate mission to save the Earth from star-eating microbes called astrophage. And he has to do it alone… or does he?

Project Hail Mary is a science fiction novel by Andy Weir. I had previously seen the movie version of The Martian, which is based on Weir’s debut novel, but I had not read Weir’s novels before. Science fiction can get technical and difficult to understand, but Weir’s writing is very accessible. You can easily follow the plot even without deep knowledge of all things astrophysics and microbiology.

Book Review: I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

I Who Have Never Known Men
by Jacqueline Harpman

Book title: I Who Have Never Known Men
Author: Jacqueline Harpman
Genre: Dystopian fiction
First published: January 1, 1995
188 pages
My rating: 5/5

“I felt a surge of grief, I, who had never known men, as I stood in front of this man who had wanted to overcome fear and despair to enter eternity upright and furious. I sighed and left.”

In an underground bunker, thirty-nine women and a young girl are imprisoned in a cage, their every move watched over by guards. As the girl cannot remember life before the imprisonment, the women treat her as an outcast. Until one day, a siren goes off, the guards run away, and a stroke of luck gives the women a chance to escape. In the strange and desolate world above, the girl shows herself to be the key to the other’s survival.

I Who Have Never Known Men (original French title Moi qui n’ai pas connu les hommes; translated by Ros Schwartz) is Jacqueline Harpman’s dystopian novel set in a post-apocalyptic world and an instant five-star read for me. Originally published in French in 1995, this book has found a new success in recent years, and its popularity does not surprise me. This was a gripping and thought-provoking novel.

Book Review: This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

This is How You Lose the Time War

Book title: This Is How You Lose the Time War
Author: Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Genre: Science fiction
Published: July 16, 2019
209 pages
My rating: 3/5

“I love you. I love you. I love you. I'll write it in waves. In skies. In my heart. You'll never see, but you will know. I'll be all the poets, I'll kill them all and take each one's place in turn, and every time love's written in all the strands it will be to you.”

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. This begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival time-traveling agents Red and Blue. What begins as a taunt grows into something more, but if they are caught, their bond means a death for them. Because around them, the time war rages on.

This is How You Lose the Time War is a science fiction novel by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. I listened to this book as an audio book in Finnish translation. I don’t know if it was the (otherwise competent) translation or the format, but I didn’t connect to the story. If I had read this book in original language instead of listening to it, I might have enjoyed it a little more. The concept certainly was interesting, but the execution felt lacking.

Book Review: The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson

The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Title: The Library of Broken Worlds
Author: Alaya Dawn Johnson
Genre: science fiction
Published: June 6, 2023
448 pages
My rating: 3/5

Seventeen-year-old Freida has lived her whole life exploring the tunnels of the Library, the celestial peacekeeper of the three systems. As the daughter of a Library god, she has unique access to the information stored in the depths of the Library. When she meets Joshua, a mortal boy desperate to save Tierra, and Nergüi, a disciple of a persecuted religious minority, she decides to break ranks with the gods and help them. For that, she must kill the bloodiest of gods. But first, she will tell him her story.

The Library of Broken Worlds is a science fiction novel set in a far-future society with its (apparently AI?) gods, planetary wars, and philosophical musings about multiverses. The concept was certainly interesting, but I felt the execution was lacking. The worldbuilding was complex and difficult to follow, despite the narrative having tons of exposition.

Book Review: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Book Title: The Midnight Library (*Amazon affiliate link)
Author: Matt Haig
Genre: Sci-fi, fantasy
Published: August 13, 2020
288 pages
My rating: 4.5/5

“I think it is easy to imagine there are easier paths,” she said, realizing something for the first time. “But maybe there are no easy paths. There just paths. In one life, I might be married. In another, I might be working in a shop. I might have said yes to this cute guy who asked me out for a coffee.”

After decades of disappointments and missed opportunities, Nora Seed, a thirty-five-year-old former swimmer and rock singer, philosophy graduate and a shop assistant, finally decides that life is not worth living and attempts to take her own life. She finds herself in the Midnight Library, a library full of books that contain the alternative lives she could have lived. The lives that she is now given a chance to try out with the promise that if she finds the best life for herself, she can continue living in that alternative reality.