Project Hail Mary Read-Alikes
Posted on March 31, 2026
by Amy H
The movie is finally here! But once you’ve read the book AND seen the film (because you’d BETTER have read the book, just sayin’, this is your library conscience talking), what should you read next (aside from The Martian, also by Andy Weir? And oo! watch Moon starring Sam Rockwell! Plus, you might want to tune into the news and follow the progress of NASA’s first planned crewed lunar voyage in fifty years)? Glad you asked! Look! Books!
half way home by Hugh Howey
Five hundred colonists have been sent across the stars to settle an alien planet. Vat-grown in a dream-like state, they are educated through simulations by an artificial intelligence and should awaken at thirty years old, fully trained, and ready to tame the new world. But fifteen years into their journey, an explosion on their vessel kills most of the homesteaders and destroys the majority of their supplies. Worse yet, the sixty that awaken and escape the flames are only half-taught and possess few useful survival skills. Naked and terrified, the teens stumble from their fiery baptism ill-prepared for the unfamiliar and harsh alien world around them. Though they attempt to work with the colony A.I. to build a home, dissension and misery are rampant, escalating into battles for dominance. Soon they find that their worst enemy isn’t the hostile environment, the A.I., or the blast that nearly killed them. Their greatest danger is each other.
leviathan wakes by James S. A. Corey
Humanity has colonized the solar system--Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond--but the stars are still out of our reach. Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they discover a terrible secret. A secret that someone is willing to kill for--and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why. Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything. Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations--and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.
the fold by Peter Clines
Mike Erikson is presented with an irresistible mystery he is uniquely qualified to solve: far out in the California desert, a team of scientists has invented a device they affectionately call the Albuquerque Door. Using a cryptic computer equation and magnetic fields to "fold" dimensions, it shrinks distances so that a traveler can travel hundreds of feet with a single step. The invention promises to make mankind's dreams of teleportation a reality. And, the scientists insist, traveling through the Door is completely safe. Yet evidence is mounting that this miraculous machine isn't quite what it seems--and that its creators are harboring a dangerous secret. As his investigations draw him deeper into the puzzle, Mike begins to fear there's only one answer that makes sense. And if he's right, it may only be a matter of time before the project destroys everything. A cunningly inventive mystery featuring a hero worthy of Sherlock Holmes and a terrifying final twist you'll never see coming: Step into the fold. It's perfectly safe.
you sexy thing by Cat Rambo
Farscape meets The Great British Bake Off in this fantastic space opera. TwiceFar station is at the edge of the known universe, and that's just how Niko Larsen, former Admiral in the Grand Military of the Hive Mind, likes it. Retired and finally free of the continual war of conquest, Niko and the remnants of her former unit are content to spend the rest of their days working at the restaurant they built together, The Last Chance. But, some wars can't ever be escaped, and unlike the Hive Mind, some enemies aren't content to let old soldiers go. Niko and her crew are forced onto a sentient ship convinced that it is being stolen and must survive the machinations of a sadistic pirate king if they even hope to keep the dream of The Last Chance alive.
dungeon crawler carl by Matt Dinniman
In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses into the ground, transforming into a globe-spanning 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. Carl and his ex-girlfriend's purebred Persian cat, Princess Donut, descend into a universal game show: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible. Once you're in, you can't get out and each level has a time limit to a scheduled destruction. Winning this game is based on getting followers, views, and killing those goblins with style. You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big (thankfully Donut can talk and her charisma is off the charts), hopefully with loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy. For Carl and Donut, this is anything but a game.
mickey7 by Edward Ashton
Mickey7 is an Expendable: a disposable employee sent to colonize a distant world. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands why they sent a disposable person: travelling through space is dangerous. On a routine mission, Mickey7 is (again) left for dead but gets rescued by a sentient native species on the verge of being destroyed by the colonists. By the time he returns to base, Mickey8 has been created. Now both have a real problem: there can be only one Mickey at a time.
all systems red by Martha Wells
On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied android -- a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot." Darkly humorous, scornful of humans (yet fascinated by movies and video series), and best friends with its sentient ship, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring exploratory mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth. First book in an excellent series, the audiobook narration is wonderful.
the long way to a small, angry planet by Becky Chambers
First in a series. Rosemary Harper doesn't expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a chance to explore the galaxy, and most importantly, get some distance from her past. She's never met anyone remotely like the ship's diverse crew, and life is about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. The tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary's got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs - an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn't necessarily the worst thing in the universe.
a big ship at the edge of the universe by Alex White
A crew of outcasts tries to find a legendary ship before it falls into the hands of those who would use it as a weapon in this science fiction adventure series for fans of The Expanse and Firefly. A washed-up treasure hunter, a hotshot racer, and a deadly secret society are all on a race against time to hunt down the greatest warship ever built. Some think the ship is lost forever, some think it's been destroyed, and some think it's only a legend, but one thing's for certain: whoever finds it will hold the fate of the universe in their hands. And treasure that valuable can never stay hidden for long. . .
the calculating stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington D.C. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space, and requires a much larger share of humanity to take part in the process. Elma York’s experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place as a calculator in the International Aerospace Coalition’s attempts to put man on the moon. But with so many skilled and experienced women pilots and scientists involved with the program, it doesn’t take long before Elma begins to wonder why they can’t go into space, too. Elma’s drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her.
saturn run by John Sandford
The year is 2066. A Caltech intern inadvertently notices an anomaly from a space telescope -- something is approaching Saturn, and decelerating. Space objects don't decelerate. Spaceships do. A flurry of top-level government meetings produces the inescapable conclusion: Whatever built that ship is at least one hundred years ahead in hard and soft technology, and whoever can get their hands on it exclusively and bring it back will have an advantage so large, no other nation can compete. A conclusion the Chinese definitely agree with when they find out. The race is on, and a remarkable adventure begins -- an epic tale of courage, treachery, resourcefulness, secrets, surprises, and astonishing human and technological discovery, as the members of a hastily thrown-together crew find their strength and wits tested against adversaries both of this earth and beyond.
blindsight by Peter Watts
Two months after thousands of alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, burned to ash in the atmosphere, a space probe detects a faint signal from the edge of the solar system. Earth must send someone to force introductions with the unknown and unknowable alien intellect that apparently doesn't wish to be met. They send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores; a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound; a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed; and a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist--an informational topologist with half his mind gone--as an interface between here and there. Pray they can be trusted with the fate of a world. They may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find.
six wakes by Mur Lafferty
In this Hugo nominated science fiction thriller, a crew of clones awakens aboard a spaceship to find they're being hunted-and any one of them could be the killer. Maria Arena awakens in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood. She has no memory of how she died. This is new; before, when she had awakened as a new clone, her first memory was of how she died. Maria's vat is one of seven, each one holding the clone of a crew member of the starship Dormire, each clone waiting for its previous incarnation to die so it can awaken. And Maria isn't the only one to die recently.
children of time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
One way trip to outer space fleeing a dying planet? Check. Spider-y beings already out there? Double check! The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age -- a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?
the last policeman by Ben H. Winters
What’s the point in solving murders when life on earth will end soon? Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. Just six precious months until impact. People all over the world are walking off the job-but not Det. Palace. He’s investigating a suspicious death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week. As Palace’s investigation plays out under the shadow of imminent extinction, questions way beyond “whodunit” arise. What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do if our days were numbered?
the ministry for the future by Kim Stanley Robinson
Robinson tackles climate change head-on in this gutsy, humane view of a near-future Earth careening toward collapse. Mary Murphy, head of the Ministry for the Future, a UN watchdog agency created as a result of the Paris Agreement, spends her days promoting relief for the afflicted and wrestling with the financial powers-that-be to change the carbon balance before it tips too far. Mary is abducted by the traumatized ecoterrorist survivor of a heat wave that killed 20 million in India, hoping to demand change. Galvanized by his demands, Mary attempts to work in secret within the Ministry for the Future to make larger changes than she can aboveboard-only to discover that this effort already exists. Robinson masterfully integrates the practical details of environmental crises and geoengineering projects into a sweeping, optimistic portrait of humanity's ability to cooperate in the face of disaster.
one way by S. J. Morden
Former architect Frank Kittridge is serving life for murdering his son's drug dealer, so when he's offered a deal by the corporation that owns the prison -- he takes it. He's been selected to help build the first permanent base on Mars. Unfortunately, his crewmates are just as guilty of their crimes as he is. As the convicts set to work on the frozen wastes of Mars, the accidents multiply. Until Frank begins to suspect they might not be accidents at all . . . Dr. S. J. Morden trained as a rocket scientist before becoming the author of razor-sharp, award-winning science fiction. Perfect for fans of Andy Weir's The Martian and Richard Morgan, One Way takes off like a rocket, pulling us along on a terrifying, epic ride with only one way out.
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