Shelfology Book Pairing

A Novel

by Andy Weir

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE MARTIAN • Soon to be a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, with a screenplay by Drew Goddard From the author of The Martian, a lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science. HUGO AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS: Bill Gates, GatesNotes, New York Public Library, Parade, Newsweek, Polygon, Shelf Awareness, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century “An epic story of redemption, discovery and cool speculative sci-fi.”—USA Today “If you loved The Martian, you’ll go crazy for Weir’s latest.”—The Washington Post Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the 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? An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Long ago, towards the end of humanity’s first expansion into space, the vast majority of worlds were terraformed under the auspices of irascible genius Avrana Kern. But Kern had rivals, and a team of self-proclaimed innovators took one world from her remit and devoted themselves to reshaping it into a paradise in their own image, using new and unpredictable methods. Later, after the fall of their society and long generations in the wilderness, the new and desperate return of humanity into space is focused on ark ships heading to all the worlds they believe – or hope – their ancestors made into welcoming homes for human life. Whilst most head for the planets that Kern’s people worked on, ancient records show another pristine world, and an invitation from the ancients to inhabit it. Later still, a ship with a crew of maverick humans, spiders and a spectacularly punchy mantis shrimp captain named Cato rediscover the world, and the ark. On their ship, the human Alis wakes up from a nightmare of conflicted realities to discover that she, Cato and the ship’s version of Kern are the only ones left on board. Everyone else went to explore the ark and the planet, and now all contact has been lost. Traumatised Alis and Belligerant Cato must follow in the footsteps of their crewmates to discover the full magnitude of what was done to this world by its terraformers, and to rescue the one surviving member of their crew from the surface – before she becomes a greater threat than anything the world itself can produce.