Allison Denny’s Reviews > Project Hail Mary > Status Update

"'Do you think I kept you on the project for so long because I needed a junior high schoolteacher around?' 'Oh...' I said."

The perfect example of Grace's overactive ego. Yes, he absolutely did think that the most important project in the entire history of the world needed a smarmy, sarcastic, disgraced generalist running around, and never once thought that he could have been kept on for spoilery handwaving.

There's a Black character named Martin DuBois. Our narrator has gone out of his way to point out that this character is super accomplished and well spoken, and also, somehow, Black. ?!

I stopped and reread two other series in the middle of this, but now am back. Honestly, I would abandon this entirely, except my kid read it, liked it, and wants to talk about it. So on we go.

At this point, with what we've seen of his recovered memories, I completely understand why Grace was run out of academia. He's an insufferable asshole. And with his clear problem with female authority figures, I'm not convinced he would have made it 20 years in K-12 education......but I can at least see why he's single.

I know there is a way to explain scientific concepts to the reader without requiring our main character to impatiently mansplain them to his female superiors. (Female superiors who, per the plot setup, should definitely already understand these concepts.) Kim Stanley Robinson does it. Neal Stephenson does it. Blake Crouch does it. Andy Weir, I believe you can do it too.