Techno-Thrillers discussion

October 2025 Book of the Month (BOTM): We had a tie on the favorite authors theme, so went with both of them, as I usually do.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (2021)


One of my favorite authors, best book of the 2020s, and in my opinion, the best techno-thriller book of all-time. A movie adaptation is coming out in March of 2026. The trailer misses the tone among other things, but I imagine it will still be good, and suddenly, the masses will get that this is a great book. Going to reread to confirm whether it really is the best.

Publisher's Summary
A lone astronaut. An impossible mission. An ally he never imagined.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and Earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?