For years, I wasn’t into books. My logic was simple: reading is slow. The throughput is nowhere near watching a YouTube video, so why would I spend days on something a 20-minute video could teach me? Nobody ever saw me with a book in my hands.
Then, about two years ago, a friend recommended Project Hail Mary. I nodded and ignored it, like I ignored every book recommendation. A few months ago we watched the movie together, and something clicked. The main idea, and the way they pulled it off, got stuck in my head. We kept talking about it afterwards, and in the end I gave up and bought the book.
Cover art: Penguin Books / Amazon MGM Studios
The first chapters were a fight with myself. I live in a world where I watch YouTube Shorts instead of full videos, where nobody has time to “pay attention” or go deeper than really needed. Reading felt like downloading over dial-up. But Project Hail Mary was different. Somewhere along the way, I stopped rushing and started enjoying the details.
Then I looked up the author. It turns out Andy Weir was a software developer for years, working at AOL, Palm, and Blizzard. He even worked on Warcraft II. And here is the part I love: he didn’t quit programming to become a writer. He wrote on the side, publishing The Martian chapter by chapter on his blog for free while still working as a programmer. It only became his job after the book became a huge hit.
What amazes me most is how he explains physics in a super simple way, mixed right into the story. I always say only someone who truly understands a topic can explain it simply. He clearly, deeply knows his physics and astronomy. It is probably no accident: according to his Wikipedia page, his father is a physicist and his mother was an electrical engineer, so he grew up around this stuff, reading classic science fiction like Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov as a kid.
And now something weird is happening. I am enjoying the book so much that I don’t want to keep reading, because I am afraid it will end. If you know me, you know how strange that sentence is. The guy who was “against books” now reads only a few pages at a time because he doesn’t want the story to finish. And it seems I am not alone: it is really interesting that Goodreads rates this book around 4.5, which is unusually high for a novel with over a million ratings.
I think it’s because Andy Weir’s world is close to mine. I understand his language. The technical, nerdy explanations that might bore other readers are exactly the parts I enjoy. They all make sense to me. I have already bought The Martian (yes, I watched that movie first too).
I am not going to talk about the plot and spoil anything. But if you run into me, I am more than happy to stop and talk about these great books.
Enjoy reading.