REUPLOAD: Project Hail Mary Part 2 - Andy Weir - Science Fiction Book - Apocalyptic Fiction Book

Hey Adventurers! Given all this Project Hail Mary hype, we've decided to reupload our original discussion of the book. These are the episodes in which Spencer took over the podcast for two episodes. And, yes, we are still on break, but be on the lookout for more updates this summer.

YouTube Reaction: https://youtu.be/mivtHl-R3Nc (see what we look like)

(00:00) Intro
(05:04) Character Analysis and Development
(10:01) Themes of Ingenuity and Problem Solving
(22:40) Cultural Perspectives on Naming and Relationships
(25:06) Friends for the Road vs. Friends for Life
(34:10) The Theme of Duty and Sacrifice
(44:23) Character Growth and Personal Reflection
(51:40) Final Thoughts and Ratings

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Creators and Guests

Host

Jonathan

Host

Slava

What is The Side Quest Book Club Podcast?

Join Slava and Jonathan as they discuss the books they are reading. Explore world-building, characters, and story development—and share some laughs along the way. Side Quest Book Club — a literary adventure podcast.

Jonathan (00:00.078)
Slava what do what you did with with both about ruining ruining his life ruined ruined his ruined strats life and ruined grace's life go No

I'll ruin Captain Rocky's life.

Slava (00:17.518)
Coming to you from the Endless Library, where every book is read and every spoiler discussed. Join us as we dig into the lives of 59 people who cannot defend themselves. This is the SideQuest Podcast.

Welcome back everyone to this edition of my side quest podcast takeover. And we are currently reviewing project Hail Mary. is our second episode. Slava, why don't you give us maybe a little bit of an update review as to where we've been so far.

Project Hail Mary, published in 2021, is American author Andy Weir's third novel following The Martian and Artemis. And as we discussed in the previous episode, it is a true example of hard science fiction. Project Hail Mary features Weir's characteristic combination of humor, scientific accuracy, and technical speculation.

notably its depiction of human contact with extraterrestrial life. The plot summary In the near future, junior high school teacher Dr. Rylan Grace wakes up on the Hail Mary, an interstellar spaceship with total amnesia. The surviving member of a three-person crew gradually graze begins to recall that his controversial academic work on extraterrestrials caused him to be drafted into Project Hail Mary.

a mission 12 years away from Earth to save all of humanity from astrophage, which is an alien life form that is eating away at the sun. As the astrophage causes solar dimming, humanity has only 26 years before crop failure, famine, and climate change will reduce the population by more than half, and ultimately will cause total extinction.

Slava (02:15.928)
To save all of civilization, Grace must learn why Tau Ceti is unaffected by astrophage and send data back to Earth on little probes. However, the Hail Mary is on a sacrifice mission, as the ship can't carry enough fuel for a return trip. As the story unfolds and a wry first-person tense and alternates scenes from the past and present,

Grace recalls discovering Astrophage and prepping for Project Hail Mary as the mission's lead scientist. On his trip, he makes contact with an alien race, a friendly alien race, and another lone survivor, Rocky, and they plan to travel to the planet, Adrien, which is the other pole in Tau Ceti's own Petroba Line.

of migrating astrophage.

Just one quick correction for Slava, it's Captain Rocky. Just, it's Captain. Captain.

Yeah.

Slava (03:21.558)
Right, right, Captain Rocky. So Captain Rocky, Grace and Captain Rocky work together and through many successes and failures, they figure out a predator for astrophage, something that can destroy astrophage. They get enough of it on their ships and decide to part ways to go back and save their own respective planets. However, one month into his journey,

Grace realizes that the nitrogen-resistant predator of astrophage has also evolved the ability to pass through xenonite. That is a very strong element on Rocky's whole planet, and this is a side effect of being bred in xenonite tanks. Grace knows that Rocky's field tanks are made completely of xenonite, and Rocky is likely now stranded in space, putting his entire species at risk again.

Grace launches the Hail Marys four probes as originally intended and turns back to rescue Rocky and take him to Ered, Rocky's home planet, knowing that he will starve when he runs out of food. A stark contrast to how Grace started, where he did not want to die for the sake of humanity. But anyway, Grace saves Rocky, who refuses to allow Grace to die and suggests that they return

to his planet. Years later, Grace is happily established on Rocky's planet, teaching science to young Iridians. He is able to survive on Iridian-made vitamin shakes and lab-grown protein. Rocky visits Grace to tell him that Iridian scientists have determined that Sol, Earth's sun, has recovered from the astrophage infestation, indicating that the probes return to Earth and Project Hail Mary

was successful. Man, such a good book from start to finish, especially Rocky.

Jonathan (05:23.918)
Yeah, great synopsis there Slava. Yeah, like you mentioned, I also really, really love this book. And as mentioned before, I read it twice within a year. And quick plug for the audiobook version. I do a lot of Audible. The narrator for that one does a great job. I would definitely recommend that if you're into audiobooks.

You like him better than Nick Bodell, huh?

I do like him better than Nick Poto. I this one is, I believe it's Ray Porter. Yeah, anyway, so very good, does a great job. He does the sarcasm that Grace has, he does that well, highly recommend.

That sounds right.

Jonathan (06:02.892)
You like the panache that Ray Porter brings?

Nash. It's a good word. I do. Yeah. So a quick update on the author. His book, The Martian, did become a movie and it was a really well done movie and I felt like it stayed pretty true to the book. What was interesting is that Andy Weir didn't really have a role in that production. He basically just sold the rights to the studio and then they produced the movie and he was like maybe a kind of a consultant. But in this one, he's actually going to be listed as a producer.

and he'll have a more active role in the film. Some more input into the creative direction in how things are, you know, translated onto screen from the book. I believe that is coming out in 2026. I don't know a specific time of year.

Is that coming up?

Jonathan (06:52.11)
probably comes out on Captain Rocky's favorite holiday.

What is Captain Rocky's favorite holiday, Jonathan? Moving. Just a refresher on who he is. He's a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of such subjects as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned space flight. He started off his career as a software engineer. He writes a lot of code. So very cool to see his background as a software engineer kind of.

Done. Weren't you going to tell us about the author?

Jonathan (07:22.072)
translate into the novel a little bit because we see Grace use computers and technology to help advance his cause. So cool little side note there about Weir. But I wanted to talk about as we continue moving forward here in this episode, characters, maybe who our favorite character was and or if there is maybe a particular character that we related to more. Jonathan, I'll hand this over to you to start off.

So these are the characters that I identified. Just a quick note, Slav, you spelled strat wrong.

You

Slava (07:57.403)
What in the astrophage are you talking about?

huh.

Quick note for everyone, he spelled Strat right but I removed one of the T's. Just so I could say that. So the characters that I identified in the book were Ryland Grace, our main character, Captain Rocky, the one and only, Strat, who is guiding all of the Earth items, and then the variety, I lumped these together, the flashback characters, but here's the thing that stood out to me the most, is that the...

The ship itself was a character and I there's a story Slava. What was that story by? Who wrote Fahrenheit 50 for 451. It's not HG Wells. It's Montgomery or something like that

No, it was Ray Bradbury.

Jonathan (08:51.084)
Ray Bradbury. Ray Bradbury wrote a story about a house that was alive that was its own character. And it's always stood out to me. I think we read it in like 10th grade, but I'm always impressed when the author is able to turn an inanimate object into a character. One of the ways that, not one, but like a few of the ways that

The ship becomes its own character. It's the first thing that we meet really that is interacting with our protagonist. It's central to the plot because he never leaves the ship basically. It interacts with the protagonist. It has a personification where he's getting frustrated with it. It has a voice. It's talking to him. It's also this narrative device to help move things forward and also the distributor of Snackies. So.

It's a good character. It's my favorite character is the ship. Second to Captain Rocky. Slava changed my note. It's not Sergeant Rocky, it's Captain Rocky. That jerk. Captain Rocky. Yeah, my favorite character is Captain Rocky. And don't ask me why, he's just fun. Captain Rocky rocking around the universe. My second favorite character is the ship. And I'm sure that Spencer and Slava have different.

Hehehe.

Jonathan (10:18.466)
favorite characters and things that they like but i really appreciated the fact that the ship was its own character

Yeah, that's interesting, Jonathan, about the ship being its own character. That's something that I hadn't considered, so I'm glad that you pointed that out. But yeah, he definitely did a great job weaving that into the story as its own sort of, you character.

Yeah, he does it pretty flawlessly. Who's your favorite character, Spencer?

Man, I know you already picked Rocky, but I kind of want to go with Rocky. Just you and the ship. But I like Rocky's engineering mindset and his determination to fix a problem when he sees it and to make it right. You know, similar to Grace, where Rocky sees an alien ship and he's not apprehensive, but he's willing to engage.

Just me and the ship, I guess,

Jonathan (11:07.706)
and kind of tying back into that theme of cultural relativism. Rocky is just as willing to engage as Grace. So I just thought that was really well done by Weir. And just seeing all the cool ways that Rocky comes up with to interact with Grace, I just thought it was so cool. So Slava, what about you? Do you have a favorite character?

Yeah, I have two. I liked Rocky and I like Stratt and Grace is fine. The other characters are great. I liked all of them. But if I was going to pick favorite favorite, it would be Rocky because he's just great. Very interesting character. He's not really a scientist, but he's more of an engineer and he's smart enough to grasp the complexities of human technology, even though according to Grace, Iridian technology is like

something prior to the 1950s, if you compare it to Earth. So his ingenuity, just the fact that he's such a fun character and Stratt, for the reasons I mentioned in the previous episode, she is very determined. I like how she is the foil to Grace and her lack of sentimentality, I think is very necessary for the story. And so that appeals to me. I like the way she handles things, except the one in the prison where she...

really oversteps it. the rest of it, her determination, her pragmatism is an excellent addition to this book.

know, during the week that we were reading it, you also really liked the Russian comment. yeah. Russians were your favorite as well.

Slava (12:41.548)
Well, I like the Russian comment and the comment was when one of the scientists does something very eccentric, is doing silly things and Grace says to another Russian, are all Russians crazy? And that commandant says, yes. In order for Russians to be happy, they have to be a little crazy. That made me chuckle. I thought that was funny.

You did. You liked that a lot.

I did.

Yes Lava, think Stratt was definitely a great character for moving the plot along and definitely creates this tension of, know, do something that is maybe morally wrong, but in order to save humanity, know, morally wrong, meaning how she goes about handling the environment on earth and having to maybe create global warming in a sense in order for humanity to be able to survive, you know, an extra 20 or 30 years.

Right, she's very decisive. She's authoritarian, but she's decisive. She's unmoved by humor and sensitivity, the lack of sentimentality, as I put it. And her bravado, if you could call it that, is motivated by her fervent mission to save humanity. That's it. That's her mission. That's all she cares about.

Jonathan (13:50.872)
She has a strong sense of sacrifice and duty woven into her character's backbone.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that is in contrast also to Grace's lack of backbone, which we see a little bit later on near the end of the story where after one of his flashbacks, he comes to realize that he's a coward. He wasn't ultimately able to lay down his own life, you know, in putting himself on to the Project Hail Mary mission. so Stratt, you know, willing to do whatever is necessary sedates him.

or drugs him basically and is like, you're going on this mission. And if Stratt didn't do that, you know, it's very likely that humanity would have suffered the consequences. meet Captain Rocky. And poor Rocky would have been stranded all alone in space, you know, until he died because radiation killed him. But one of the other things that I see in this book and that Grace really exemplifies is

to never meet Captain Rocky.

Jonathan (14:43.912)
radiation

Jonathan (14:53.25)
Like once he is on the ship and before he has his flashback of realizing that he's a coward is he exemplifies ingenuity and problem solving. along with Rocky, know, they discover ways to breed this Talmiba in order to act as a natural predator for the astrophage. Grace's background as a scientist and educator really comes into play with this.

So on the Intinuity and the Problem Solving, he talks about evolution of things and this is a don't get me started, but I'm already started. So it just seemed a little convenient that he was able to create an evolution of, or sorry, eight evolutions of the Talmibas in the course of a couple weeks. The evolution narrative is that evolution takes time. So why did it work so quickly? This is a rhetorical question. You don't actually have to answer it.

is controlled.

because it's not a real question, but it is a real question. Well, it's lava.

is it was controlled environment.

Jonathan (15:55.006)
No, that still doesn't help. Even if you had dinosaurs in a controlled environment and you were trying to get them to grow feathers, that still takes the life of the entity and you can't speed that up.

Well, that's explained a little bit because the, the Telmeba and the Astrophage, they multiply and advance faster than anything they've ever seen. And they controlled that hyper evolution. They already have the ability to evolve quickly and Rocky and Grace controlled that and prompted it for lack of a better term. So I think there's an answer to your, to your question. Of course it is because they're smart.

It's convenient.

when they're scientists.

Rocky's an engineer. To your own words.

Slava (16:42.616)
Tater potata.

Slava's got a morning beer. Nice.

It's actually a truly, but whatever.

I didn't know that you could only take the essence of beer. Very nice.

So I have a question for either of you in regards to like ingenuity and problem solving. Is there a time maybe in your life where you had to, there was a big problem and you had to use, you know, ingenuity problem solving to overcome it? And maybe what did that look like?

Jonathan (17:09.752)
So we shouldn't talk about our current problems. Should I save that for my therapist?

Yeah, that's probably a good idea, Jonathan.

Okay, okay. Just checking. Yeah, just trying to be authentic.

We've heard them before. We've heard them before.

I'm gonna start drinking like Slava in the mornings.

Slava (17:27.342)
It helps.

You

To quote Homer Simpson, to alcohol, the start and solution to all of man's problems. I can't think of anything even close to the scale that Grace and Rocky.

that's not well and i think the question

I think anyone's ever going to have that kind of a scale.

Jonathan (17:48.97)
Slava have you ever had to save humanity from itself? No

You

Slava (17:55.31)
2008. was a thing.

Well, you didn't do a very good job because I was there

You didn't do a very good job. Could have been better.

Everybody's a critic.

Yeah. He just said, you know, any major problems that required you to have ingenuity to solve in your life throughout the course of your very few 18 years on this planet.

Slava (18:20.846)
I'm trying to think and my quip about the scope wasn't necessarily something that's analogous to saving humanity, but something that was maybe life altering or where my life was on the line. I can't think of anything, despite some of the stuff I even shared in this podcast that was a tremendous hurdle to overcome. I can't think of anything where my life was in danger or.

If I didn't do X, everything would be upended. We could go back to the issue I mentioned in 2014 in New York and my career kind of unfolding, but the ingenuity there was to start looking for jobs in other States and just taking direct steps like Strat would without any sentiment or thought to how it would affect the current thing that I'm in. But I got to get to point B from point A.

And even if everything in point A burns to the ground in a heap of ashes, I sincerely did not give a shit what happened. I knew that I had to get my wife out of the situation, out of New York. It would made concrete steps and got it done. That could be it, but fortunately the rest of my life, even with my family, even the stuff I mentioned with abuse, I can't think of anything, you know, that's comparable. I suppose.

having to learn defense mechanisms, both good and a little bit detrimental to my, to myself as a kid to be able to survive the abuse and the insane situation I was in. But that's about it. I can't think of anything else. Jonathan, you jump in here and give us some.

I would say my whole life has been problem solving. I've mentioned in previous episodes about having a birth defect. There have been times where I've been deathly dehydrated and needed to go to the hospital. There was times when I was in Israel, I was starting to get super dehydrated and needed to do something about it. Most of my life is problem solving and ingenuity. Not even like colloquially, it just is because when your body doesn't absorb water correctly and our bodies need water.

Jonathan (20:37.034)
and we're 70 % water or 80 % we're a large majority water. Don't science me. You don't have an option, but to constantly figure out what survival looks like and things you should do versus shouldn't do. I can't eat certain things because I've been hospitalized because there've been gastric blockages due to it because back in 1988, they, when I was born, they were still figuring the surgery out.

So I helped push science forward, but they don't do it this way anymore because it doesn't work. And so I'm one of the last test subjects that is stuck with this type of surgery. Yeah. Most of my life is problem solving. That's the broad stroke version. Similar to Slava too with like problem solving growing up and like figuring out how to emotionally regulate yourself and process your emotions when no one has taught you how to do that. I picked up journaling.

because it's like, well, I don't want to sit with these feelings forever, but they're also preventing me from moving forward. So I need to figure out how to process them. Therapy wasn't a thing back then. It existed, but like people weren't doing it. People weren't sending their kids to it because it didn't look good. You you basically were assumed to be crazy. And then career stuff too, like Slava, like I'm still looking for work right now. Yeah, I mean, I think that most of life is problem solving for people. Like no one, not no one. Very few people have parents who educate them correctly to...

properly engage with the world so that problem solving is easier because they've been well equipped beforehand. I think most people are fumbling around in the darkness trying to solve their problems or they're just not acknowledging their problems and they choose to just pursue comfort because it's easier but they're going to have a real rude wake up call in 15 years when they have no savings, no retirement, they're not married and don't have kids which were goals of theirs and

Part of the problem solving that occurs today is that people need to acknowledge their problems and I don't think that they do that. Does that answer your question Spencer?

Jonathan (22:38.638)
Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that from both of you. In Slava, you had shared a quote with us. said from Viktor Frankl where he says, when a man can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure. Yeah. And because, sometimes, you know, people aren't willing to put in the work to make the changes necessary to grow and to move forward. I think for me, a situation that I had that required problem solving was just trying to transition careers and

Still working on that, still trying to problem solve and figure out the things that I need to do in order to move forward. And it is a real challenge. And I've definitely not been perfect at it, but it was kind of nice to see that character growth through Grace and seeing how he adapted to that situation that he was put in in order to overcome a huge, problem. So yeah, I just really, really liked this theme of ingenuity and problem solving.

So yeah, last time we talked a little bit about naming conventions and how we are establishes that. But for Rocky, things are a little bit different. Naming things in his culture doesn't hold a significance like it does in ours. Slava, I was wondering if maybe you want to talk a little bit about that.

I have a favor to ask you. If you like what we're doing, the simplest way to support the show is to hit subscribe. In return, we'll keep leveling up, we'll listen to your feedback, and read authors that you suggest. Of course, we'll take side quests all along the way.

Yeah, I can touch on it a bit. When Rocky mentions or questions Grace, why do humans name things? Because even his ship, Rocky's ship, is just ship. It's called ship. And Grace explaining this to Rocky, he tries to align the act of naming with both scientific tradition and human instinct. So names in Project Mary are given specific.

Slava (24:44.056)
or maybe special significance as innate elements of human behavior. And it's related to human curiosity and the drive to explore. Grace also gives an example where if you discover something, you get to name it. And then Rocky participates in this tradition, if you will, by naming the planet after his partner, wife, whatever, right? So the Adrian. And that's what Grace gave the name to it. And then

Rocky says, okay, so this is musical note, whatever it is in Rocky's language for my partner. says, okay, Adrian, we're going to call it Adrian. Cause that goes to the humor part where Grace names it after, know, so this is Stallone and his character in the movie Rocky. I thought that was another little, interesting quip that we're sneaks in.

Adrian!

Yeah, it's a very small point that I'm making here. It's not very extensive, but it still stood out to me as something important given the conversation about it that we are in Rocky have.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I really liked the, the friendship and cooperation that Rocky and that Grace established with each other. think it highlights the importance of working together to, to achieve, you know, some common goals, obviously in this case, trying to save both of their planets. but I wonder if either of you guys have had any short-term like passing friendships that were meaningful to you. Obviously Grace did end up living on Rocky's planet, but he didn't have any intention of staying there.

Jonathan (26:21.92)
at the moment it was just him and Rocky working together for short amount of time and then moving on. So I'm curious if you guys have had any sort of or had a passing friendship that meant a lot to you. And Jonathan, why don't you maybe go ahead and take this one.

So there's this class in college I took called interpersonal relationships. And in the class, they categorize two different types of friendships throughout our lives. There's friends for the road and friends for now. And so the question you're asking is about like friends for now, or was it actually, was it friends for the road and friends for life? I think it was the second one, friends for the road and friends for life.

Friends for the road is where you have friends for a certain period of the journey that we're on here. And then friends for life are the people that you can call up and you just go, hey, we haven't talked in, you know, blah, blah, blah time. And you just pick up where you left off. Slava and I have talked about this a little bit in our friendship over the years and similar to some of the people we grew up with where, you know, if either one of us called them, they'd be like, Hey, haven't talked to you in while. Like what's going on? Because, um, just the community that we were, we were part of. So as for.

my friends from the road. There was a guy back in the day who, it was just meaningful because I didn't have a lot of money at the time. And he, he did me, there's actually a few of these people. He did me a charity and let me live with him for basically nothing. was a hundred bucks a month. It ended up being an unhealthy living situation because he was a little emotionally unstable, but for the time being it's what I needed and he helped me out. So definitely grateful for that.

Hope he's doing well, but eventually I needed to leave because I was just like, yeah, I can't put up with this every X amount of time happening over and over and over again of you just blowing up and not listening to stuff that I've said in the past about boundaries. so there've been people along the way that have been, this is going to sound bad, like utilitarian wise, like they've been useful for my life, but they just didn't stick around for a variety of reasons. Or they tried to cultivate relationship again with me after time.

Jonathan (28:32.334)
And, there was just stuff that threw me off. I think that's another thing that people don't discuss regularly is like someone who tries to come back in and then you're like, something doesn't feel right about that. And you just go, I don't want to spend time with this person. There was a guy from high school. We'd got together after a long period of time and he was doing like some Dave Ramsey stuff and getting his finances together. And he's like, we can't hang out again until you sell your car. Cause my car had some debt on it. Didn't feel right about it.

I chose not to hang out with him again after that. later I realized, you trying to control my life don't like that. So I unconsciously made distance. So I think it's both, right? There's friends for the road and then there's friends for the road who want to be friends for life, but sometimes they try and come back in and something doesn't strike you right. And so you go, you know, that's not for me anymore. And it's a bummer. And you keep up with them on social usually.

just to be like, you want the wealth for their family and stuff. Neither of these people are enemies, but there's just things where it's like, it doesn't mesh with where I'm trying to go. So that's my little quip about friendships, Lava. You can now talk about me and our friendship.

Yeah, I know this guy who's a real pain in the ass, but I love him. And so we've been friends for a couple of decades. No, I'm kidding. We're not friends. I'm kidding about that too. Friends for the road. I've had numerous friends for the road through younger years, fourth, fifth, sixth grade in high school. There was one guy that sticks out. He was a really good friend. Middle school through high school was a very difficult time for me.

you

Jonathan (30:14.072)
same.

The usual high school and middle school bully stuff, although high school, I didn't have any bullies, but the insanity and the dysfunction at home made me a very disjointed, scared, constantly in survival mode. But during the same time, this kid and one of his friends became my friend. And then there was a girl that I worked with. The three of them were really friends for the road.

We always had lunch together. We hung out during periods that we had to catch up on homework and to do extracurricular activities, whatever. The high school had a really good program. We never hung out outside of school. We never called each other on the phone. But during school hours, especially every lunch hour, we would hang out. And he was just a good friend to me. Maybe he saw that I was kind of lonely and upset and going through stuff. And he just wanted to be a good...

friend, a good person to me, because he was a very devout Catholic. maybe there was a religious impetus there. Whatever it was, he was a good friend to me. And I've had a few of those in my life. And the recent one, I mentioned him in a podcast too. During my previous post, there was a lot of upheaval after COVID decimated our finances and certain people were brought in.

And they created more problems. They brought down morale. They created a lot of, infighting just by their poor leadership. And this guy and I became friends because of that. That friendship, which lasted for a bit after I found the new job that I'm currently at, it lasted for a bit, but then it just fell apart. Soon after our conversations, our texts.

Slava (32:06.764)
became fewer and fewer and fewer. And then he just stopped responding. And I'm not one to chase anybody around and beg them to be my friend. So I said, all right, I'll stop texting him. And it's been almost two years. Haven't heard from him, but my view of friendship, and this goes back to, and I'll end with this, what Jonathan mentioned about the community and the people we grew up with. Some of those folks were friends for the road. Just like this guy, those folks.

a good 90 % of them, they were fun to hang out. It was great. Everything went well. We're all together, you know, in this community. But what I found out as I was growing as a person and I was maturing and unfortunately I didn't articulate this well to them, people around me, or I didn't process it in a way that was maybe the best way. But now looking back on it, those relationships were very superficial and very one-sided.

And I was just not mature enough, unfortunately, to just break it off and say, okay, we're done. This doesn't have to be a thing because never during that time or before now as more mature in this area, did I ever want like a bosom buddy or a best friend for life. wasn't looking for anything beyond what could be possible to Jonathan's second point, forcing something that isn't there. And the other guy going,

I just want to be a buddy. don't want to be your best bud for life. I never wanted that from any of them. And I just wanted some reciprocity. But that aside, there's been numerous people that have been friends for the road. And I think that's important because even the people I just mentioned where I felt it was just superficial and one sided.

In the moment, it served its purpose. If I can be a strat for a second here, it served its purpose and that's fine. And I needed it and God used it and all is well. My life has been filled with more friends for the road than friends for life. But those people are necessary, irrespective of whether or not they turn out to be douchebags. They are necessary for human survival, for humans to function.

Slava (34:30.006)
whatever the situation may be, maybe you're having a great time and just a buddy in college and you get married or not married, you go your separate ways and you just have fond memories. I've had friends like that and then I've had friends that I don't have fond memories of, but in the moment you kind of helped each other or they helped you more than they can imagine or vice versa. That's my take on it.

What about you, Spence? Yeah.

feel like can relate to that a little bit Slava. I definitely feel like I've had more friends for the road throughout my life and not necessarily intentionally. think sometimes it's just the way things happen to work out. But one that kind of stands out to me was funny you mentioned having a buddy in college. I had a buddy in college. We were roommates, didn't know each other beforehand.

got to know each other pretty well. We did a lot of stuff together. He was someone that kind of really helped me get through my, I call it fake college experience. That's a whole other story. But like he was someone that helped me like through that time. And I think looking back on it now, I realized that, but at the time I didn't see it. I am grateful to have had the experience of.

you know, meeting him and just having our time together. And ultimately we ended up going our separate ways. But that was one of those instances where I needed a friend for the road and you know, and he was there at the time. And so I'm grateful to have had that friendship. But as we kind of maybe sort of get back to the book a little bit here, I just want to talk about anything that stood out to you guys in the story. So whether this is like a character or maybe there's a certain scene that happened.

Jonathan (36:14.912)
or a question maybe that popped up in your head about the book. What was the of like one main thing that stood out to you? And maybe Jonathan, you can take this question first.

Something that stuck out to me was the theme of duty in this book and sacrifice because it's so lacking in the Western world here to feel a duty. Not even just like a military duty, because I think a lot of people presume that that's what duty is. It's like, well, you have to serve your country. You have to join the military. It's like, well, you can serve your country and you can serve the people in your community and you can serve like there's more than that. Duty is multifaceted, multilayered.

Duty is first to yourself and your family, and then it's to your community, and then it's to your country. But we have become so individualistic today that it's really just a free for all. It's every man for himself. We see this a lot to tie in the friendship thing. It's like, how many close friends do each of us really have? Right? Like people that you know are, as they say, ride or die. They're not going anywhere. This is the society we've built, and I think it's awful.

And part of the reason that it is that way is because we don't have this sense of duty where you can trust your neighbor to do something. People are so, they've become able to find joy in simply tearing down or reporting on their neighbor, whether it was during COVID or during, you know, hey, the HOA, they didn't cut their grass, you know, their house is falling apart as opposed to like, hey, we as a community,

The reason their house was falling apart is because their mom got cancer and they have to work their job and then go take care of her. They're doing the duty for their family and so they can't do the duty to their neighborhood because we all only have 24 hours a day. And it just reminded me that this is not the world that I want to live in. And so I try to retain my duty to my family and responsibilities that I have. If duty seems like a weird word to you, another way you could say it is your responsibility.

Jonathan (38:19.104)
It's not just responsibility you choose, it's also responsibility that is chosen for you, similar to grace in the book. I like that this coward was forced to participate in duty for a species that he is a part of against his will because he was the best suited. It still sucks to be the sacrificial lamb. That's what duty does is it lays itself down. Most other cultures have a form of duty.

Japanese culture, samurai culture, honor culture. Duty is a huge part of that. You can look at other cultures throughout the world where duty, it looks different sometimes, but it is there. It's present in most other cultures and we have since stripped it because everyone wants to be an individual. And frankly, that's why we're all suffering. That was heavier than I thought it was going to be, but Slava, what about you?

I have three quotes that I want to look at. That's the best way can answer your question, Spencer. So one is from chapter six. Grace is talking to Stratt and he says, science and morality both give the same answer here and you know it. And this is in relation to using only coma resistant crew members. I think this quote indicates that grace at heart is unwilling to privilege either science or morality over the other.

And he prioritizes solutions that are both ethically sound and scientifically promising. Cause some of the quotes I read in the book where they were like talking about evolution and they were talking about evolution from a strictly materialistic point of view. And I think you can't have morality in that kind of a world. If nothing immaterial exists, then the math you're doing to fly to Telsetti is irrelevant. Right?

You can't talk about morality. You can't talk about right and wrong, a strictly absolutist materialistic worldview. So I really enjoyed this about grace because despite him being a scientist and a committed scientist, I don't want to get into a religious discussion, but based on what I understand from the book, non-religious, even if he is slightly religious, he puts no stock in it apart from it being good. And this is me definitely reading into it. This is my assumption of the character.

Slava (40:35.16)
But I found that really cool where there is this juxtaposition of yes, we have to save humanity. Science will help us do it, but how we get there also matters. And that's the juxtaposition, the foil of Stratt versus Grace. I enjoy that a lot. The second one is also from chapter six. And I think it's part of the same conversation. says, human beings are amazing things. We can get used to just about anything. And when I was reading that.

What I was reminded of is the Holocaust and Wiesel and Frankel, Ellie Wiesel and Victor Frankel, how they both went through horrific things, adjusted and adapted, got used to their current situation, survived it, were both duty bound, and then came out of it and made their life about helping humans as a whole. They weren't just individualistic.

or utilitarian in their survival. made sure that the experiences they had and what they learned from them was somehow beneficial to others. And then the final one is chapter 14. Sometimes the stuff we all hate ends up being the only way to do things. It's another grace quote. And to me that just says that life is messy. Rarely does it work out like anything you want or imagine. As a guy,

who pretty much flushed down my twenties, down the toilet by not doing anything, know, playing around, partying. I had a good life. Nothing was horrible to go down, but I wasn't taking anything seriously. And then going to seminary for eight years, preparing myself for an academic career, all that blowing up in 2014, having to change midstream and go somewhere else and somebody that has built the career that I have for the last now 10 years or so.

Yeah, 10 years, having built that career and being very successful at it and being glad even for all the shit that's happened, being glad because that has formed me and helped me mature. I saw that quote, that discussion that Grace was having as just proof that life is messy. Grace is referencing his hatred for the project Hail Mary staff meetings in this moment, but it serves to foreshadow the morally complicated tactic that

Slava (43:02.038)
strat forces everyone to be complicit in. As Grace is thinking on this, reflecting, he understands that nothing is so rigid as maybe he thinks. And maybe I'm reading into it, but I thought that quote was another Grace quote that was phenomenal. It stood out to me and it shows that life is messy. And that goes to him maturing, goes to his character arc, where even after he

realizes he was a coward at the end when he sacrifices himself for Rocky and then has to live on a foreign planet, an alien planet in a special habitat because he'll die otherwise. He can reflect on it in the last few paragraphs of the book. He can reflect on his life and say, Hey, despite all these things, and I'm putting words in his mouth. He didn't say it this way, but despite all these things, I have lived a fulfilling life and my life now has meaning.

outside of getting some sort of superficial high from my kids liking me. I've accomplished something and it's connected back to what I was writing papers on. So there's almost this redemption to his life too.

Can you read that quote one more time for us?

Sometimes the stuff we hate ends up being the only way to do things.

Jonathan (44:22.006)
I read books to find quotes like this.

Good quote. Spence, why don't you give us some of your reflections on the book. Anything that stood out to you, maybe if it's a little bit heavier, a little bit lighter, whatever it is, what are some things that stood out to you and stuck with you? That's a better one. After you read the book.

Yeah, I think on a similar, similar vein is what you were saying Slava about Grayson, his, his character growth. think that kind of really stood out to me because we see him acknowledge that he's a coward near the end of the book when he finally realizes that he was there against his will. But, but, what I thought was cool is he doesn't continue thinking of himself as a coward. Like he adapts, he, changes and you know, his primary feeling upon remembering

Stratt's violation of his free will is not anger, but it's disgust with himself. I just thought that was a really, really cool character growth because I think when we are presented with choices or situations in our own lives where we have to confront something negative about ourselves, it's often very much defensive and we want to be like, no, that's not me. I'm not that way. And we refuse to grow and to learn from our mistakes or from our

old character traits. feel like I had a similar moment of realization. I used to be last fall when I attempted, well, I'm still attempting to change careers. I just had this moment of realization where I'm like, I am more of a lazy person than I thought I was. You know, I haven't, there wasn't anything that had really challenged me in quite a long time. And this really did. And it really forced me to evaluate what I want out of life and what I'm willing to do to go.

Jonathan (46:10.328)
to go and get it and still trying to grow into that. having, but seeing grace learn and grow and being able to choose the option of growth and say, I was a coward, but I'm here now and I have an opportunity to save another people, a whole nother civilization. And in leaning into that shows that he acknowledged his cowardice and then chose to do something about it.

by saving another people group or civilization in this case. So that really stuck with me from this book.

Deep stuff from Spencer on his SideQuest Takeover.

Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. This book definitely brought out, in doing research for this episode, definitely brought out some things that I didn't think we would get into, but it's been a pleasant, pleasant surprise and glad we were able to talk about these things.

It's fun running a podcast, isn't it?

Jonathan (47:06.862)
Indeed, indeed. It is more exciting than I thought it would be.

Just a humdrum Saturday with the boys.

Saturday.

Matt, eat your heart out.

Yeah, you got a lot of work to do to catch up here, so.

Jonathan (47:26.094)
Gotta throw that at him.

Might as well.

Yeah, so great, great stuff guys. As we start to kind of get near the end of the episode here, what are some hot takes that you guys might have about the book?

takes.

So hot they all got burned up.

Jonathan (47:41.014)
Or we don't have to do this section if you don't want to.

But we'll find some.

Let's think on it.

Slava what do what you did with with both about ruining ruining his life ruined ruined his ruined strats life and ruined grace's life go No

I'll ruin Captain Rocky's life.

Jonathan (47:59.744)
They get back to the planet and Adrian is with some other spider dog with like 10 offspring. And then Rocky and Grey's have to live in the same habitat, like an odd couple, at each other's throats.

You're an anti-romantic.

Jonathan (48:15.608)
Well, happy Saturday to us. I wanna know, my hot take is, who hurt Strat and why was she an orphan? Here's the thing, I can answer that question, I just have to read the book again. It's pretty clear in all of her actions, I think, individualism. I also wanna know why those two scientists that were with him died. I narratively it makes sense, but I want the real reason. Give me the science behind it with this science book.

That's my hot take. Tell me more about these two scientists who were clearly healthy enough to go and then just like, nope, they died on the way out.

Maybe Skynet or where the robot was, the AI that was keeping them alive messed up.

Maybe strat actually was just trying to prove a point.

That's a hot take. I'll take that.

Jonathan (49:07.31)
a huge gamble on her part, if that's the case.

She knows she's gonna be put in prison afterward anyway, so whatever.

I'll join you in that hot take. Strat killed the two scientists to prove a point because she's that vindictive.

Jonathan (49:23.096)
Ben, what's your hot take?

Great stuff guys. I don't know if this is so much as a hot take or maybe it was more my personal wants for Grace, but I think he should have ended up back on Earth at some point. But I know it was kind of part of his character growth to be able to go to Aerith and be a teacher. I think it's cool, but I think I would have preferred him to end up back on Earth.

Well, I think the book ends where they are like on the cusp of maybe going out to adventure again. I mean, he's old and also remind me, what is he eating while he's there?

himself. They're cloning his meat and he's eating himself. right.

himself, yup.

Jonathan (50:04.664)
Cannibalism. Cannibalism. Yeah, that doesn't actually check out. That's another hot take I have. If you look at homicide stuff or like where people killed someone and ate them, it actually like feeds into helping people go mad.

I did not like that part.

Jonathan (50:18.198)
I have heard that. think, don't they explore that a little bit in the, there's a movie, the book of Eli, I think. I don't remember that.

Yeah, I've seen it, but I don't remember that.

and cannibalism.

okay. I thought there was a... I thought they had emphasized that point because there's a spot where the main character encounters a... I think it's a couple who is... They're cannibals, but they're going mad because they keep eating human meat. anyway.

Ice cold takes with Spencer.

Jonathan (50:48.312)
Probably also not a very reliable source because Hollywood, but I believe you Spencer's hot take is about a different story Good hot yeah

Fair point.

Slava (51:01.106)
I think Book of Eli cannibalism. Let's see here. Book of Eli. yes, realizing that George and Martha are cannibals, Eli and Solera attempt to leave just as Carnegie and his men arrive. And then there's an ensuing shootout. Yep, there's cannibalism in Book of Eli. Good job, Spencer.

Thank you, thank you. So if you guys had to rate this on a scale of one to five, if you're trying to sell this book to someone, how would you rate this?

Five stars across plot, story, world, five stars. And if they don't want to read it, I'll sedate them and lock them in a basement with this book. They will wake up. Only a book will be there. Every time they read a page, they'll get some food.

They can't read it if they're sedated.

Jonathan (51:46.934)
Too much? Too soon? Calm down, Stratt. Too soon. Calm down. I'd give it a full constellation, five stars, world, character, plot, all around, very cohesive story, very engaging. If I was going to sell this to somebody and tell them to give it a read, you don't know how engaging one person alone with a mission can be until you read this book.

Yeah, great stuff. I totally agree. I definitely give it five stars across the board. When I first went into this book, I had read The Martian and enjoyed it, but was a little bit skeptical because of like, well, isn't this just kind of another guy on his own trying to save either himself or the planet? So was like, how different is it really going to be from The Martian? And I was very pleasantly surprised and was definitely hooked right off the get-go as Grace was trying to figure out who he was and what his mission was, world building, character building.

Really good. Definitely got to see a lot of, I think a lot of in-depth look at a few characters, which is really nice. So yeah, overall, five stars for me as well. And five stars on the audio book. Throw that little plug in there.

okay.

Especially when they made Captain Rocky's musical notes, they added that in the... Yeah.

Jonathan (53:02.542)
You

Yeah, that was great. Yeah, I thought that was really really clever how he did that for the audiobook. I enjoyed that.

Because in the regular book they use Chinese characters and Russian characters, Cyrillic characters. So for the audio, how do you do that? I think the little musical notes are great. But I want to add on a sour note. I really can't stand when narrators can't take five seconds to figure out how to pronounce Russian words. When they're pronouncing French words or Spanish words, God forbid they mispronounce a Spanish word, they're not going to say tortilla.

If they're reading about tortillas, none of these bastards can just listen to a Russian speaker and figure out the accents and the syllables. They sound like illiterate buffoons. It pisses me off. When Hollywood does this, when books have done this, I'm reading a new book by Keanu Reeves and China Mayville, which maybe we'll get to on this podcast too, but there's a Russian word that's mentioned in it. And I'm like,

how can you just not take five extra seconds like you would do for any other language and learn how to pronounce this in Russian? Anyway, that's it. Five stars anyway.

Jonathan (54:17.804)
Five stars on the book you're reading. okay. Just clarifying. Just clarifying.

Now five stars on this.

Jonathan (54:25.678)
Alright well thanks guys for your ratings and thank you everyone for joining us today on this SideQuest Takeover Edition. Join us next time as the guys take on another epic sidequest.

And before we go, take a moment and rate this show on your favorite podcast platform and share this episode with a book-loving friend. See you next time on SideQuest.

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