Project Hail Mary

Another Christmas book - Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. A nice sci-fi from near future that really lives up to the science part of the term.

A man with amnesia wakes up in a small room with a robot that takes care of him, but refuses to let him to other room until he recollects his name. He is trying to figure out who he is, realizing he has some physics knowledge, thinks in imperial units, but cannot get much else. Except for the robot, only other things in the room are two bunks with corpses in them.

Slowly recovering, the guy has a flashback to a moment in the past and now he knows his name is Ryland Grace. As the robot lets him in other rooms, he realizes he is on a spacecraft with an important mission. The narrative follows his struggle, interleaved with flashbacks that over the time reveal the mission objective, technology used, space mechanics and physics involved.

Similar to The Martian, previous book by same author I read, I loved the problem solving approach, thinking about options and potential course of action, and methodical attempts to get through. This time also dealing with extra-terrestrial buddy, building means for communication and mutual trust to allow cooperation.

I really enjoyed the book and can it recommend. It tries to promote real properties of space travel and could provide good idea on problems involved.