Last week I watched Project Hail Mary and it easily became one of my favorite movies, so naturally this week I had to read the book to compare the two. Usually I’m more of a “read the book first” kind of person, but I didn’t realize there was a book until after watching the film, so I uncharacteristically experienced this beautiful story “out of order” by my standards. Still, it was absolutely worth experiencing both.

Andy Weir’s 2021 space epic has all the makings of becoming the next science fiction classic. It’s definitely a bit of a long haul, but every moment feels important.

Dr. Ryland Grace is a scientist known for making a few outlandish hypotheses, discrediting himself among his peers and sending him to a career teaching middle school science instead of conducting research (although he clearly has a passion for both). When it appears that a new life form is “eating the sun,” the world and life as we know it are threatened with a slow, gloomy end. Grace is recruited to study what may be causing this dilemma, and before he knows it, he wakes up from a coma several years in the future, alone on a spacecraft with little memory of what happened.

After spending a while floating through the cosmos on his own, he encounters an alien who is also alone aboard his own ship. He comes up with a way to communicate with his new friend (whom he’s named Rocky), and it’s now up to the two of them to save their own planets together.

This is a deep, emotional journey about the bond between two unlikely friends amidst great peril. The book definitely has a lot more detail than the movie (some of it clearly had to be cut to keep the runtime reasonable), but other than that, the film adaptation captures the story remarkably well. Ryan Gosling gives a stellar (pun totally intended) performance as always, and to be honest, this replaces Barbie as his best work in my opinion.

I highly recommend both to science fiction fans everywhere. The book is long but makes for great summer reading, and the movie is the perfect choice for a cozy night in the living room.