Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

 

Ryland Grace wakes up and doesn't remember anything.  Not his name, not where he is or how he got there.  He takes inventory.  He's nude and in what appears to be a hospital bed.  He has tubes going everywhere.  What in the world has happened to him?

He manages to get out of bed and then realizes he isn't alone.  There are two other beds but both of those occupants is dead, long dead.  He starts to realize; he isn't in a hospital but on a space ship and is awakening from an induced coma.  Slowly, in the hours following, he starts to retrieve more memories.  He is on a mission.  Alien bacteria are eating the sun's energy, cooling Earth at a catastrophic rate. That cooling is happening everywhere in the observed solar system.  He has been sent on a mission to a far away star where the bacteria don't seem to be destroying the planet in an attempt to find a solution.

But he's just one man now.  Then the impossible happens.  Suddenly, there is another ship.  Another ship?  Aliens! Eventually Grace meets the alien, a spiderlike creature he names Rocky.  Rocky is on the same mission, trying to find something that will defeat the bacteria.  Slowly, over weeks, the two research the problem and build a relationship.  Can they be successful?

This is a book that will appeal to a wide range of readers.  Want hard science and math?  It's in there.  Want a heartwarming story of character relationships and intergalactic cooperation?  It's in there.  Want a thill a minute adventure story?  Weir has you covered.  The reader will finish the book excited to have been taken along on such an amazing journey.  This book is recommended for science fiction readers.