Just finished it and love every minute. Any recs for similar books.
No spoilers for others please
Old Man’s War by Scalzi. A lot like heinlein used to write.
Yes to this… what a good series. Less of the sciencey wonder and puzzles that phm offers but more future science concepts that are really interesting and the applications of in war.
The Mote In God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Hey this is a good call that should be higher on the list. Not as much humor, but a great alien contact story with well grounded science and A+ storytelling. An all-time great book.
Uh the martian
I’m reading it now and yes, my previous book was also the Project Hail Mary. I’m not even a Sci fi reader.
Yeah that’s the obvious one haha.
I have heard that “The Expanse” is a very good book series. Tho I haven’t watched the series or read the books.
Three Body Problem is a great tv-series that are also based on books. If I recall correctly the author of Three Body Problem won the sci-fi award when he released that book.
Another upvote for The Expanse book series. It has been one of the very few series where I was actually waiting for and monitoring for the next book to be released. The TV series was good, but the books are so much better and carry on well past where the TV series let off.
Going to also chime in for The Expanse series. Fantastic book series and fantastic show. Both are in my all time favorites.
The expanse books are great and, like PHM, very accurately grounded in real science (hard SF). I never finished reading the series only because I had watched the show and they did such a good job of faithfully following the books that it just felt like a fresh reread.
I know I’m an outlier, but I didn’t care for 3BP at all. So many of the things people do just seemed unlikely or thinly motivated, and the computer technology seemed somehow both too advanced and not advanced enough in some ways.
K & R for Three Body Problem (the book) Hard sci fi with a minimum of distractions. The 30 episode chinese series is on youtube (but read book first).
I could not recommend the Expanse** series highly enough. all 9 books in the main series were great. the show was awesome as well, although they only touch on the first 4 books or so and the events happen in a slightly different order. if you’re looking for an epic space saga that never lets you forget about the consequences of being in the vacuum, pick up a copy of Leviathan Wakes
Obviously both Weir’s other books, The Martian and Artemis.
Also recommend the Silo book series by Hugh Howey. Not nearly as hopeful or optimistic, but there’s a similar very strong vein of problem solving / human ingenuity just like in Andy Weir’s work.
I had heard of the Martian but not Artemis, what is it like?
Artemis is set in a colony on the Moon. Cool science and economy about running the colony, but writing was meh (if I have to read “head full of steam” for the third time…) and MC swears a lot in a juvenile and cringe way.
Did you like Hail Mary
Yes
It’s probably his most “sci-fi” work. It’s the farthest in the future, and is kind of a crime / political thriller set in the only city on the moon.
It’s decent, but I liked it least out of Wier’s books. He seems to only have 1 archetype for his main character. It works really well in the Martian, and project hail Mary, where the main character is a highly competent male. It’s a bit jarring when applied to a teenage girl however.
It’s more or less about heist on the moon that goes predictably sideways in weird ways. I’ve noticed that his foreshadowing is a little too blunt though.
If you liked Project Hail Mary, then you should read the Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor. The premise is as follows:
Bob is dead. Long live Bob.
Tap for spoiler
Software engineer Robert Johansen uses his share of the money from the buyout of his company (the rest having been split amongst the employees) to start a trust to support his end-of-life maintenance needs. But Bob’s idea of “end-of-life” is being cryogenically frozen until such a time as whatever killed him can be fixed. What he wasn’t counting on, however, was getting hit by a car later that day and waking up over a hundred years later. Finding that, not only has he not been revived, but instead digitised, but also that the christofascist government doesn’t recognise him as a human or worthy of rights, he is surprised to also be informed that the reason they instantiated his consciousness was to become the guiding intelligence of a Von Neumann Probe, and that Bob is going to the stars… At least, he should be, as long as none of the opposing factions in the government or any of the other countries also building their own probes nuke him first.
Bobiverse is an example of hard science fiction, with similar limitations to what PHM uses. The primary conceits that go beyond what’s currently assumed to be possible are:
- the assumption that it is possible to simulate consciousness using electronic media
- the existence of some method of interacting with the fabric of reality to warp spacetime through a reactionless drive (here called “subspace theory”). This assumption allows for interstellar travel over reasonable time scales (but not superluminal travel) and, later, communications. Think a combination of the “Ansible” and the Bussard ramjet from “Tau Zero”
- the fantasy that most people have comprehensible reasons for their actions.
E: I also wish to advocate for Children of time and, if you have additional spare time, Seveneves.
Now that I think about it, Seveneves might be one of the closest books in feel to Hail Mary
Seconding the Bobiverse. If you like a single guy having to science his way out of desperate situations, Bobiverse is definitely for you!
Or, rather, a plural guy.
I liked the Bobbiverse series, starting with We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor. The first 3 books were great. IMO the 4th is ok, and currently listening to the 5th. Fun fact, the narrator for the Project Hail Mary and Bobbiverse series audiobooks is the same - Ray Porter, who fantastic.
Seconded. The Bobiverse is fun.
I also recommend anything narrated by Ray Porter - he is excellent.
Did they release the 5th in book form?
Agreed that 4 was “meh”.
Fun books, but I would not say they’re at all similar to PHM.
How are they that different? Both involve an anti-social, witty, nerdy guy put in scenarios that demand he come up with an innovative solution that’s usually science or engineering based. And they’re in space. I just finished Project Hail Mary again last week and was consistently thinking about how it reminded me of Bobiverse in tone and character, and not just because of Ray Porter.
Bobiverse is way more superficial - way more fluff - than PHM. PHM is much more hard SF (much more scientifically accurate and fleshed out). While there’s humor in both, the Bobiverse books have an emphasis on the silly fun, with a little depth underneath, and PHM is a deep, serious story with a main character who happens to be funny.
Ya, you’re not wrong about any of that. But you seriously think the differences are big enough to say that they are not similar enough to recommend one based on the other? I think PHM reads like a single plot thread pulled from Bobiverse and expanded into an entire book of it’s own, with all the extra depth and space to dig into the sci fi that comes with that.
In my opinion, yes. The experience of reading the one is just very different from the other for me.
If you want a weird recommendation that isn’t a SciFi clone but matches a really wild world with some pretty hard rules with loose justification because its cool.
The Lost Swords: Fred Saberhagen. It feels like the kind of stuff where you praise your character for their ingenuity and cringe at their failures. World is also real neat.
Clarksworld. Monthly SciFi publication
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars was pretty good just now.
Infinite by Jeremy Robinson is similar. the sequel is not as good and gets preachy. But the first book stands alone with a good stopping point.
Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds.
Well, first of all, “The Martian” by the same author.
Have you read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, or Journey to the Center of the Earth? They very much are the genesis of the kind of pop science novel style that Weir writes in. A lot of the science is wrong but that’s pop sci for you.
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
Oh, good suggestion. It’s much more military SF than PHM, but it does have a lot of other similarities, and the series becomes less military focused. It didn’t come to mind as something a person would like if they liked PHM, but it probably does fit.
This is getting away from the hard science of Project Hail Mary but if you like Old Man’s War check out the Interdependency Series. It’s a bit funnier.
I have a love/hate reaction to this suggestion.
Love - It’s a great book!
Hate - I’ve read it already, and I came here hoping for ideas of new books to read!
Awesome book, which is part of a series.
Yes this is a good one.
Came here for this. Great story.
