Rocky’s introduction to the story almost humanised Dr Grace. Sure, you had to ignore that he named him Rocky rather than let him name himself in English. Or that he almost immediately expected Rocky to follow human protocols while resisting Eridian social or cultural norms. Considering Dr Grace was the science guy, and Rocky seemed to take the role of mechanic and maintenance guy, Rocky came up with a lot more fixes and ideas than Dr Grace did. And he definitely took up less space with pride and posturing when he did something useful. But seeing this weird friendship form between them made Dr Grace seem like he could be more than one-liners and self-indulgence.

Despite Dr Grace’s attempt to drag down the narrative with his personality, I did enjoy the story. I know it wasn’t realistic to have updates about Earth and Erid, but it would have been nice to see how the population was dealing with the climate changes while waiting on information from Hail Mary and Blip-A. For all the details we get about complex science experiments and equations and space travel, the human element is missing a little. The flashbacks were often more interesting than the main story, seeing how Stratt uses her power to pull together what’s needed to save the planet.

I think I’d be scared to go back and reread The Martian now, after how poorly Dr Grace’s character came across in Project Hail Mary. While I enjoyed the story, it took longer than it should have to push past the blatantly American attitude and overtly male privilege that defined so much of Dr Grace’s running commentary. While he is eventually forced to grapple with one aspect of his personality