Writer Andy Weir clearly has a type. After stranding a guy all alone on Mars in his novel The Martian, Weir has now stranded a different guy on a spaceship in his new novel Project Hail Mary (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook). Though as he explains in this email interview, the new guy isn’t entirely alone on that ship.
For many writers, penning a story about an astronaut stranded on Mars would ultimately lead to some such sci-fi elements as little green men or an ancient civilization destroyed by some unknown danger.
But in his first novel, The Martian (paperback, Kindle), Andy Weir is taking a different approach; a more realistic one that eschews sci-fi tropes, and makes this more of a thriller and a disaster movie in book form.