Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

If you liked Andy Weir's first novel, The Martian, then Project Hail Mary won't disappoint as another witty, funny, creative sci-fi adventure. Suspend your belief for this one, as moments of sudden clarity, synchronicity, and serendipity abound. But in order to save the world, everything has to fall perfectly into place, and I was here for it!

In some ways, Weir's protagonist, Ryland Grace, is an everyman archetype - an unassuming middle school teacher with no real drama or intrigue in his life. But in other ways, he's the smartest, luckiest, most well-equipped human in the universe. If you can get past all of that (and I think Weir is able to get us to that point) then PHM is a great story. 

We open to Grace waking up and not remembering where he is or even who he is. But he seems to be in space, which is a problem when you have amnesia...aaaaand have never been in space before. Grace slowly regains his memory through snapshots of his life back on earth. So we get the alternating timelines as a way to reveal why Grace is in a spaceship trying to save the world. To complicate things, there is an unknown vessel near grace's ship that he isn't sure is from earth. But he has to make contact with it in order to complete his mission.

Weir is great at giving us so many scientific details in an easy to understand and relatable way. And Ryland Grace is a smart, funny, and entertaining narrator. And the story itself, about how the sun is dying and what is causing it, is thoughtful and interesting too. 

For more information about Weir and his work, here is his website. And here is a link to the trailer for the movie, coming out next year, added bonus - it stars Ryan Gosling.

Ghost Station by S. A. Barnes

I was going to say this was a first for me in terms of genre: space horror. But now that I think about it, I was introduced to space horror in the 90's when I went in cold to see Event Horizon and walked out of the theater in horrified silence. THAT shit was space horror. 

But we'll take it down a notch and talk about Ghost Station, which is set on an alien planet with a long lost civilization. We follow a team of explorers to this planet which includes psychologist Dr. Ophelia Bray, who is there to help them deal with the recent loss of a team member. But she is also there to screen them for signs of ERS, a debilitating space disease that results in psychosis.

While it can be assumed Dr. Bray won't immediately be accepted as a part of this already established team, she can't help but feel like there is more they aren't telling her. The leader of the team doesn't support her presence and the others' treatment of her range from indifference to outright resentment.

As they explore this long abandoned planet, the team's grief over their lost teammate, coupled with disturbing discoveries, make it difficult for Dr. Bray to discern if someone's behavior is due to grief, deception, or emerging signs of ERS. 

Of course, Dr. Bray isn't immune to developing ERS either, and her past, which slowly unfolds for us, makes her wonder if she might have a predisposition for it, because her team aren't the only ones acting strange at times...

While this wasn't Event Horizon level space horror (and let's be real, thank God for that), it was a solid read. I'd pick up another one by this author, who apparently writes a variety of genres, from YA and Romance (as Stacy Kade) to horror (as S.A. Barnes).