I regularly read Science fiction and this week, on the advice of a friend, I read Project Hail Mary. It doesn’t hurt that Ryan Gosling will be starring in a movie soon.

A lone astronaut wakes up with no memory of who he is or what he is doing in this metal room with two corpses. Gradually, as his memories returns, he remembers he is Ryland Grace, scientist/school science teacher, on a mission to save humanity. And how did he go from scientist to teacher? He disagreed with the establishment and left research in a huff.

A space microbe, named by Grace as Astrophage, has infected the sun and is drawing the energy away in such large amounts the sun’s output will diminish by several percent. All life on earth will perish and the Hail Mary project is an effort to reach Tau Ceti and find out why it is not infected. The space ship, hastily cobbled together by the nations of earth, and with three crew members from different countries, have been put into induced comas and sent on this dangerous and likely to fail mission.

And then, as Grace enters the Tau Ceti system, he is met by an alien ship.

There are so many twists and turns in this novel, it is hard to keep up. This is truly hard science fiction, full of physics and math. (It at least all sounds plausible.) I very much liked Grace’s reasons for, not only helping with the research, but pushing his way onto the ship. As a teacher, he feels the kids he teaches are HIS kids so he has a stake in saving them, a feeling I both agree with and totally understand.

Highly Recommended.