Andy Weir: Well, when I'm doing my editing passes, I imagine my reader, you know, just doing a little bit of reading before they go to bed at night. They're getting tired. It's like 1:00 a.m. Eventually, they get to a paragraph where they go like, "Okay, well, you this I can I can put the book and go to sleep down." No. What paragraph is that?

Gilbert Cruz: What paragraph were you able to put the book down and go to sleep on? I have to get rid of that paragraph, right? I want to keep you up all night.

Gilbert Cruz: I'm Gilbert Cruz. This is the book review for the New York Times. And today we've got Andy Weir on the show. You might know Andy as author of the science fiction novel The Martian. It's a story about an astronaut who gets stuck on Mars and has to figure out how to get home. That book, which Andy initially self-published, eventually became a bestseller and then was adapted into a blockbuster film starring Matt Damon. Several years later, Andy scored another hit with his book Project Hail Mary, which has now also been adapted for the big screen. This time starring Ryan Gosling. Project Hail Mary starts with a middle school teacher named Ryland Grace. He wakes up on a spaceship. He is alone. He has no idea how he got there or what he's there to do.

Gilbert Cruz: When I talked with Andy, he said the reason that he opened the book this way is because he wanted to start with a mystery. And so one thing I found is that if you start with like a bunch of unknowns and make the reader curious and you slowly answer those questions, the reader is like, "Oh, they get that that satisfaction of having this thing answered, but then something else is asked and and so on."

Andy Weir: Absolutely. That's um I mean the the best thing you can hope for as a writer honestly is to just write something that you yourself would enjoy reading. Um and so I try to put myself in in my reader shoes. Like I say, what would I enjoy if I wasn't chronically obsessed with the minutia of quantum physics? You know, it's like I would like that, but most readers wouldn't. You know, that sort of thing. Um but yeah, that's what I like to read. I like being pulled through. I don't like uh you know I don't like reading prolonged pieces of exposition. It's kind of like doing homework,

Andy Weir: you know. So I that's why I put so much humor in. Readers will forgive you any amount of exposition if you make them laugh while you're doing it.

Gilbert Cruz: Did you realize that um with your first book? Did you realize that you needed to or you wanted to put humor into your writing?

Andy Weir: I guess the best way to put it is I I I realized it after the fact. Like it's just my kind of natural mode of conversation is snarky and and I'm just krakenwise all the time. And so that's the voice. I mean Mark Wattney is basically just me, right? He's well he's me with all my good parts magnified and all my flaws deleted, right? He's the idealized me.

Gilbert Cruz: But yeah,

Andy Weir: um and I noticed that that was working, so I kept doing it. And then looking back on it in retrospect, I was like, "Oh, okay. There was a lot of exposition in there, but people didn't mind because I was making them laugh with the tone that it was given to them. Okay, lesson learned. That's good. Remember that.

Gilbert Cruz: So, Mark Wattney is, you know, a perfected Andy Weir. Ryland Grace strikes me as not the same. Talk to me a little bit about you visav Ryland.

Andy Weir: Uh, Ryland is the first time I tried to make a character out of whole cloth that wasn't just based on my own personality. Um Mark Wattney like like I said is just the idealized me Jazz Bashara who is the main character of Artemis. Um it was really when you think of a 26-year-old Saudi woman you think Andy Weir. Um but no she really was me as well. She had the same kind of attitude and flaws that I had when I was her age when I was 26. Theoretically smart yet still making bad life decisions. um most of the problems she faces are self-inflicted and that's how I was. So I wanted to make at that time I said like Mark Wattney was a fun character but he wasn't a deep character like all you know about him at the end of the book is he didn't want to die and he didn't undergo any change throughout the whole story like it's he's you know he they it's an entirely plot- driven novel and I'm like I want characters with more depth and complexity. Okay, so that's where jazz came from. And I based her, yeah, I tried to give her some flaws and and some problems and stuff. Problem is, I I think I went a little too far and I made her kind of an unlikable protagonist. Turns out the idealized version of me is much more fun to hang out with than the real uh kind of version of me with the with all the real flaws.

Gilbert Cruz: Um, yeah.

Andy Weir: So then, uh, for book three, for Project Hail Mary, I I still got to keep trying to grow as an author here. I'm gonna make a character that isn't based on me. Who who who have thunk it? And so I'm going to start off and say like, okay, I want some core traits for this guy. I decided he's a little bit naive. He's uh so incredibly he's like pathologically conflict averse. Um to the point that he's like just he fears conflict. He fear he's he's a fearful person. And so I I wanted to show that subtly. And then in a big reveal toward the end of the book, you you learn more about that. But and I also wanted him to undergo change during the course of the story to overcome some of these flaws. But this time I'm like, okay, I made Jazz pretty flawed and it drove the readers away. What What are the things you if if a reader kind of stops rooting for your main character, you've lost them. They're going to DNF your book or they're going to finish it and go like, "Okay, I finished it, but I I didn't like it." M um so I had to make him flawed but likable. So I gave him I I tried to tone down his flaws a little bit. You know, his situation is not his fault. It's not of his own making. I think we all feel afraid sometimes. Tried to make a a character you could empathize with and like.

Gilbert Cruz: Um I I'd love to talk about Artemis uh a little bit. you know, you had this big hit with the The Martian and then you have a thing you didn't have with The Martian, which was expectations. You're like, "Oh, we it's I described it to someone as like the you know, the second album syndrome. Same thing about the second book."

Andy Weir: Um

Gilbert Cruz: I forget which um which rock singer said it, but he said something like you have your whole life to make your first album, then you have a year to make your second.

Andy Weir: Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, you know, even hearing you talk about it, you you you seem to have a sense that readers were not as satisfied with Artemis as they were at The Martian or as they were with Project Hail Mary. What what what what else did you take away from from writing Artemis? And what was that experience like putting your second album out there into the world?

Andy Weir: Yeah, the main lessons I took away from Artemis were that um I made the character a little too unlikable. I made her too immature. Um, a lot of people commented saying like, "Look, I mean, she's ostensibly 26, but she talks and acts like she's 15, so like maybe I should have just made her 15."

Gilbert Cruz: The other thing, though, uh, I thought some of it was a little unfair. Um, I think a lot of people um, basically went into it expecting a negative experience because it was a female lead written by a man. I mean you that book definitely came out at the height of the uh how would we characterize it the um yeah these questions about who can write whose story you know um across gender across nationality. I want to ask you about fans though because I feel like you

Andy Weir: oh of course

Gilbert Cruz: you are the subject of fan reaction and people leaving reviews on your second novel. People telling you I like this I didn't like this. You have all this feedback coming in. You can choose what to let into your life and what not, but what has it been like to be someone who now has to take the opinions of people they don't know and choose whether or not to take them seriously?

Andy Weir: Well, it's actually very important to me the people I don't know. I mean, I actually, in a weird way, I pay more attention to the layman than I do to, you know, professional book reviewers,

Andy Weir: cuz book reviewers have their their things that they're looking for. Um, but I want to make mass appeal. I I want books that just everyone likes, not just fans of like literature. And so I pay kind of in a way more attention to like Amazon negative reviews than I do to like published book reviews. And so I I read them all. There are two kinds of writers. The ones who uh admit they read all the reviews and the ones who don't admit that they read all the reviews. Um but I read them all because I want to get better. But the the only the only problem is that um the you know like Amazon reviews are not written by book critics. And so sometimes those folks have a hard time putting into words what it is that they didn't like or they will say one thing but actually mean another. And so that's like I have to read between the lines and analyze. I'm like okay I see I I I look for patterns. I see like okay I'm seeing a lot of people are talking about so for instance if you if you read the negative reviews of Artemis you'll see a lot of reviews saying like Jazz was not a realistic woman because no woman would ever blah blah blah. no woman would ever blah blah blah. Let me tell you, anything that starts with no woman would ever is false, is wrong. Like there are four billion women on this planet and they're all different. And so generally when I see one of those, what it they're not it's almost always by a woman and they're they're what they're not they're not really saying Jazz is an unrealistic woman. What they're saying is Jazz is a woman that I would not like. Like Jazz is a woman that I I I I if I if I knew her, I wouldn't want to hang out with her and if I met her, we would not click and she would not be a friend of mine. And so what I took away from most of those reviews wasn't so much that I kind of like failed to make a realistic female character. It's that I failed to make a likable character. So that was my course correction in Project Hail Mary was okay you can't have um you can't have the protagonist be unlikable.

Gilbert Cruz: So much of what uh Ryland has to do in Project Home and what Mark has to do in The Martian is about problem solving. And while you know storytelling is often about conflict or or tension in looking at your past, what you used to do before being a a published writer. You know, you were you were uh a programmer, you were an you know, you you you can tell me about the different jobs that you have. But this it almost struck me as sort of like a coder mentality like I am going to solve this story problem, then move to the next one, the next one. And I'm wondering if there are parallels between what you used to do and and what you're doing now with fiction writing.

Andy Weir: Oh, absolutely. Like I I mean I was a computer programmer for 25 years. And so that approach to problem solving colors everything I do like as an engineer. I would I was the same. I'd be like I want to get better as an engineer. Here's this whole type of coding or this whole set of libraries that I don't understand. I want to go learn those so that I can so I can use them when needed. So it's the same thing I'm trying to solve. I'm trying to increase my like knowledge base on what I do and also the actual kind of work environment of uh being an author. It's very different than being a coder because as an engineer I was one of a team,

Gilbert Cruz: right?

Andy Weir: And then go on to being a writer where it's like I'm all by myself. But once we get to the point where I'm working with the editor where I, you know, okay, here's my manuscript, then I've been told that I'm pretty easy to work with as writers go because I don't argue too much about the notes. I'm like I kind of see them as like bug reports. A

Gilbert Cruz: as an editor myself, I I will say that is that is just the most beautiful kind of writer to work with. Whatever you say, I will take these notes into consideration. I will I will push back on things that if I if I really think I'm like, "No, that one's really important to me." But I but I pick I pick and choose my battles and I I 99.9% of the time. It also helps that um my editor is like usually right. You know, he'll write these notes and I'm like, "Yeah, that's that's that's right."

Gilbert Cruz: When we come back, Andy Weir answers your questions about his book, Project Hail Mary. We actually put out a call to New York Times readers and and listeners of this show soliciting questions for you. We got so many questions. This is Matt from Norwell, Massachusetts. Um he says or asks many aspiring writers are balancing their creative ambitions with full-time jobs and other responsibilities. Um do you have any advice that you would give them about how to build a writing life under those constraints or under those conditions?

Andy Weir: Well, at the time that I wrote The Martian, I I had a full-time job, but I also had no social life, no friends, no girlfriend. So, um, if you just if you just just, uh, do your best to be a complete loser and you'll have plenty of spare time for all the writing. Well, uh, in my defense, I had just moved to Massachusetts. I had spent my whole life in California and I just moved to Massachusetts for an engineering job and so I didn't have anybody nearby that I knew

Andy Weir: and so I didn't really have anything to do. Um, so I had a lot of uh, spare time. I have found now that I'm a, you know, full-time professional author and now that I have like a wife and a kid and stuff like that, it's it's it's I can't imagine I I have no idea how I would do it if I was working a day job and then attempting to write a novel in my spare time while also having a wife and kid. I I just genuinely don't think I could.

Gilbert Cruz: Yeah. Yeah. No, I know what you mean. You know, one thing, of course, you've heard this a million times that readers love about your books is is not just that you write about science, but the way that you write about science. It's incredibly detailed, but it also is accessible. Um, which is not something I think that many people uh can do. Uh Meline from Phoenix, Arizona want wants to know how do you do that and how do you also choose what signs to include in the book versus what not to include in because it would slow down maybe the story in some way.

Andy Weir: Well, um so you know I try I go for very scientifically accurate books. I mean there's always some mcguffin in there somewhere. Uh but once you get past that I try to stay true to real science. Uh, mainly because that makes it easy for me when weird questions come up in the middle of the book. I'm like, wait, what if this and this and this happens? I'm like, well, I don't need to make up new physics to support my previously made up physics. I can just use the real physics to figure out what would happen.

Andy Weir: Um, but uh, in terms of expositioning complex uh, scientific stuff, I'm not a professor, right? I don't have to make sure that the reader retains this information and is able to solve those problems on their own. I just need the reader to understand enough of the science to understand why it's a problem for the character and why their solution is a solution. The the research I do, I would say maybe 5% of it ends up in the novel. the rest. It's all just like in Excel spreadsheets and documents and and and files on my computer. So, it's like if I if if you had never heard of relativity, I would explain it and say like, "Yeah, the faster you go, the slower time goes for you." But I wouldn't try to explain all the math.

Gilbert Cruz: I um know that you grew up in a household with a dad who was a a a physicist.

Andy Weir: Yes.

Gilbert Cruz: And a mother who was an electrical engineer. Um, would you

Andy Weir: So I was doomed to be a nerd. Yes.

Gilbert Cruz: Would you have been you without those influences in your life? What was that household like in terms of you just learning stuff or or picking it up, you know, peace meal?

Andy Weir: I think uh I think I'd still be more or less me. Uh so it's like I didn't have a love of science drummed into me or anything like that. Dad was always there to answer questions I had, but he didn't go like, "Hey, come here. I'm going to tell you about physics." You know, it was like I had questions, he had answers. Mom, while absolutely, you know, was a good electrical engineer, she um did that for the paycheck. She has absolutely no passion at all for the sciences.

Gilbert Cruz: What was her passion?

Andy Weir: Uh literature.

Gilbert Cruz: Hey, there you go.

Andy Weir: Yeah. So, there you go. Yeah. She did she did electrical engineering for the money, like to to raise me because my parents got divorced and so she was a single mom and I mean my dad paid his share and everything, but

Gilbert Cruz: that that was her profession, not her passion. Did you um did you grow up with one of them or

Andy Weir: so? Uh they were married until I was eight. Then I was with my mom until I was 14 and then I was with my dad until I was 18.

Gilbert Cruz: You have talked about your dad being a big reader of science fiction. You have described him having a shelf a big shelf of of paperbacks, science fiction paperbacks. And I'm wondering as you close your eyes and picture that shelf, what what are you seeing on that shelf? And what do you remember about those books pulling off the shelf maybe and reading at an early age?

Andy Weir: It was awesome. I mean, because like I loved I loved reading science fiction and dad had this whole collection all the all the sci-fi books that he had been reading since he was like 12 or something. So, it's all these like like uh back then in the 50s and 60s they called them juveniles. Um which are science fiction with the intended audience of like you know tween and teens. And so a lot of like Robert Heinline, Isaac Azimov, Arthur Clark, Clifford Simac, lesser known, but uh still really really good author. I really liked his stuff. And so it was just this infinite array of all these paperbacks. And I would just kind of like, okay, I finished the last one. Put that back. Pick one. All right, let's see what Highway to Eternity is like. All right, fine. Let's read it.

Andy Weir: Generally picking them based on the cover or based on what gathered my attention on the title. Do you feel like you learned anything from those sci-fi masters? Obviously, they influenced you in some way, but in terms of storytelling, is there anything that you took from them? It

Andy Weir: it's weird is that the they had, you know, those those those boomer era like sci-fi books had a real positive view of the future. I mean, the people in the future had their problems, but the future wasn't bleak. It was exciting. It was like real interesting stuff going on. We're going out into space. We're exploring stars. We're encountering aliens. this is all real cool, so awesome. Um, and I that certainly colored my form of writing where I I tend to write positive like you know feelgood stories. Uh, I think that wasn't just an aspect of those authors. My holy trinity or Heinline, Azimov, and Clark, but um, it wasn't just those authors that influenced I am an inherently optimistic person. Um, well, especially when it comes to humanity. I have a very high opinion of humanity. And so, what a weird thing happened was in the intervening times since those guys were writing novels, science fiction has become this gloomy, dower, like

Gilbert Cruz: totally

Andy Weir: miserycape of like it's always the same thing. It's always like, oh, the future is horrible. Technology is bad. Uh, every government tends toward fascism. everything is awful. People stand in line for like soilent green, you know, whatever. And and I'm like, how did the view of the future get so dim?

Andy Weir: I I I don't know. Pessimism became trendy or something. Um, but I just don't see it because when I look at the march of history, instead of trying to look forward and assuming we're going to go downhill from here, look backward and see how much uphill we've come since then. Let me put it another way. All the dystopian science fiction you see is based off of the hidden assumption that where we are living right now, this moment is the best that humanity will ever be. And then it's all downhill from here. So it was like 20,000 years of progress upward and here we are now at our at our absolute apex and it's all just crap from then on.

Gilbert Cruz: I do you think that this is the peak of humanity right now?

Andy Weir: I have no way of telling. Uh, well, I bet you people a hundred years from now would rather be there than here.

Gilbert Cruz: I I I have a question about books, but also about you you growing up. So, we had GM Del Tour on on the show a few weeks ago, the director of Frankenstein and so many other wonderful movies.

Andy Weir: Quite aware of who he is.

Gilbert Cruz: Okay. Just making sure. I don't like to make sure. Yeah. He talked about his love of books and movies being related to what he considered a somewhat lonely childhood. And I know you have talked about isolation appearing in The Martian and Project Hail Mary and and I'm wondering where that isolation came from.

Andy Weir: Uh I had a pretty lonely childhood.

Gilbert Cruz: Yeah.

Andy Weir: Um

Gilbert Cruz: was it you in the books?

Andy Weir: Uh it was me in the books and then maybe one or two friends, you know, I was one of those kids where, you know, I always had friends, but I was never anybody's best friend. I I don't know. Uh, part of it was because we moved around a lot. So, I would always be kind of plunking down into the middle of pre-existing social groups.

Andy Weir: So, yeah, a as a kid, I often would just have nothing to do. I'd be bored a lot, watch a lot of TV, and like my life, my childhood and my upbringing, my life was was not really that happy a story. I wasn't abused. I wasn't, you know, assaulted in any way or nothing like nothing horrific like that, but I just had a very a pretty unhappy childhood. And if you made a movie out of my life, it wouldn't be a fun one to watch. Um, so, uh, I I I I did often feel like I was on my own without any help. So, yeah, that isolation certainly is an aspect of my personality. Now, had I, you know, maybe if I'd had more of a social life or lived in one place longer and been able to develop longer, deeper social bonds with people and be part of a like a large dynamic, you know, group of folks, maybe I'd make better characters. Maybe I'd understand people better and make better, you know, characters with depth and complexity. So,

Gilbert Cruz: yeah, but maybe you wouldn't be a writer.

Andy Weir: Yeah, maybe not. Maybe not. I've got friends now, though, that I've had for like 30 years. So, the friends that I made in college are still with me, you know.

Gilbert Cruz: You know what? College friends are the true friends, I believe.

Andy Weir: Yeah.

Gilbert Cruz: Up next, Andy talks about Project Hail Mary, the movie, and how he came up with his beloved character, Rocky. So, you've you've been through this before. You have a movie coming out. How how have you gone through this experience differently this time?

Andy Weir: Well, um, so I've done it before, so I kind of know what to expect. And, um, also this time around I'm a producer, so um, the actual process of making the movie I was much more like directly involved with. So I I feel in a in a way much more ownership over the end result because The Martian, I was an excited observer and I I look at the movie The Martian, I say like they did a really good job with this. Mhm.

Gilbert Cruz: When I look at Project Hail Mary, I think we did a really good job on this, right?

Andy Weir: You know, now I have this copy of this book here. Ryan Gosling is on the cover. For many people, even people that have read the book, he's he is this character. Now,

Gilbert Cruz: as a producer, did you have feedback on

Andy Weir: Yeah, I think this guy could work.

Gilbert Cruz: Yeah. All right. I mean, well, yeah. So, as a producer, I I had to like author I I had to be one of the people who approved Brian's casting, but that was obviously a no-brainer

Andy Weir: of a decision. It was just a matter of I had to like officially say yes.

Gilbert Cruz: Uh Ryan was interested right from the start. He is also a producer on the film now, you know, but he he was interested right away. I mean, he was already attached to the project before the book came out on shelves. I have a a question here from Tabitha who's from Sandy, Utah. And Tabitha wants to know um you know, do you think the the movie sort of visually portrays Rocky who becomes a main character in this book the way that you envisioned him in your mind? She also says, "This is my favorite book ever. I'm reading it a 54th time. And I will say respectfully to you, Andy, uh I think Tabitha should start another book after she

Andy Weir: I I think if you're at uh number 54, um that's probably plenty. Um maybe move on to another book. How about uh how about how about some Blake Crouch? That's what I always recommend when people ask me for recommendations. Go read recursion.

Gilbert Cruz: Recursion is my personal favorite of his. Uh uh al although most people I think like Dark Matter more.

Andy Weir: There you go.

Gilbert Cruz: Anyway, um

Andy Weir: Rocky. Yes. Um so here's the thing. I am kind of on that aphantasia scale. So I don't have a very visual imagination. That's what aphantasia means.

Gilbert Cruz: Got it.

Andy Weir: Um and different people they have learned you know some people if you picture an apple they see every little detail of an apple in their mind. Other people do not get an image at all and they just have the idea of like I I know what an apple is. I understand the concept of an apple. I can identify an apple and I can tell you all about apples. But if I close my eyes and try to picture an apple. Some people some people it literally they would say like that doesn't make sense. What do you mean picture in your mind? That doesn't make sense. So those people have

Gilbert Cruz: I don't think I'd ever heard of that before.

Andy Weir: Yeah. It's called aphantasia anyway. Um and it's not any sort of disability. It's just different brains work different ways and different brains maintain process and and present information uh different ways. So for instance Rocky I had uh done all the science work to define his morphology figure out how his biology worked and everything like that but I didn't have an image in my head of what he looked like physically. I mean I he has a thorax and five legs but I couldn't have told you if those legs are thin or fat, if they're smooth or bumpy or anything. So when I saw the puppet, the the puppet that they were going to use for Rocky, they showed that to me and I'm like, "Oh, okay, cool. So that's what Rocky looks like." I mean, they would often ask me questions. The art department would say, "What does this look like?" And I'm like, "I don't know."

Gilbert Cruz: We we had a lot of readers who wanted to know how you came up with Rocky in the first place. Not, you know, not necessarily how he looked or anything, but just the fact that you invented a new species and had to come up with the idea of their language, their how they communicate that language, how they eat, how they sleep, how they, you know, get rid of wastes, all the things that we learn about by reading the book.

Andy Weir: Yeah. Uh, well, that was fun for me. I just had an open canvas to create an alien species. I like, you know, it's speculative biology. There's there's whole Reddits dedicated to that. I mean, it's fun and and for me and I had decided, it's not much of a spoiler. We learn toward the end of the book, the characters speculate, but as the author, I can tell you they're correct, that there was a panspermia event that emanated out from uh Taletti that seated life onto the various planets. It was like a a primordial version of astrophase 4 and a half billion years ago existed on on the planet Adrian and seeded out into the nearby stars and life was able to take root. That's not why it did it. It was just, you know, mold. But that's how life ended up on on some of the other planets. It also opens the door for me in the future to have more aliens in the nearby stars. So I I started with that and then said like but everything else is fair game.

Andy Weir: I their planet I I picked a real exoplanet. So their planet is really close to the star. So how do I explain why there's liquid water on this planet? Well, it'll be really hot, but you can have really really hot water if the air pressure is really high. Okay, if the air pressure is really high, it means they have a really thick atmosphere. They have a really thick atmosphere, it means light probably doesn't make it all the way down to the surface, which means there's no need to evolve vision and so on. And and so just bit by bit, I built up this species. The most important thing to me though was that it be truly alien. I didn't want it to be like a space opera alien like Star Wars or Star Trek where um it's just like a guy in a suit, you know. Um I didn't and no no disrespect to those shows. I love I love those shows and my favorite show uh is Doctor Who. So I mean there's plenty of that. Um, it's just that I in my kind of like realistic attempt at sci-fi, I I just don't believe that an alien species would be comfortable in our environment or vice versa. I I just have a real tough time believing that. I mean, we have species here on Earth that have incompatible environments. If you swap the locations of a camel and a shark, they're both going to die, right? So why would you why would somebody from another planet entirely different evolutionary line in an entirely different environment why would they be comfortable? So I wanted it to be that's why there has to be those like barriers between them and that's why I wanted it to be nothing like a human at all.

Gilbert Cruz: I have to ask since you alluded to it would you ever do a sequel in some way not not to this story maybe but in incorporating the world?

Andy Weir: Absolutely. Um, uh, I have ideas for sequels for PHM, but I I just don't have a good enough one yet. I have lots of ideas, but that's my next book. The one I'm working on now is not a sequel to anything that I've written. It's a new standalone science fiction story.

Gilbert Cruz: Oh, yeah. I was going to ask, are you talking yet about what you're working on?

Andy Weir: No, just just just that that I've told you. It's science fiction and it's standalone.

Gilbert Cruz: All right. Well, that was quite a tease. Um, we

Andy Weir: got not a huge surprise though.

Gilbert Cruz: Whoa, it's a sci-fi story.

Andy Weir: Yeah. Oh my god.

Gilbert Cruz: Uh, we are approaching the end of our conversation here and I'm going to turn to our weekly segment. So, the New York Times Book Review uh for more than a decade has asked authors new and old a recurring set of questions about their reading. It's part of a series that we call Buy the Book. You were actually interviewed as part of the buy the book series uh in 2017, but now I have several new and extremely specific questions for you. Are you ready to answer some of these questions?

Andy Weir: I will do my level best.

Gilbert Cruz: What is the last great book that you read?

Andy Weir: I would say Paradox Inc. by Forest Brazil.

Andy Weir: It's uh cool time travel science fiction novel. I don't know if it's out yet. I read a galley copy, so I don't know if it's out yet. I don't know if it's out when this will air. I don't know the release schedule on it, but I enjoyed it a lot and I recommend it.

Gilbert Cruz: Um, which three books would you bring to Mars with you?

Andy Weir: Well, ignoring comedic answers like How to Survive on Mars and if it's like I'm going to be stuck if I if those are the only three books I'm going to have access to for a long time,

Andy Weir: I' i'd probably pick uh books that are considered classics that I have never read, you know? so that I could read them for the first time. But if if we're going to limit it to books that I have read, then I would probably say Iroot for sure by Azimov. Well, let's do one from each of my guys. Uh I'll go for Iroot Azimov. For Heinline, I will go The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. No, no, no, no. Tunnel in the Sky. Tunnel in the Sky. I like that one better. And then for Clark, uh Rende with Rama. So, those would be my three. I got to have one of each of my Holy Trinity authors there. So, that's uh those are my answers.

Gilbert Cruz: Andy Weir, what is your favorite book that you think no one else has heard of?

Andy Weir: Ah, so the Werewolf Principal by Clifford Simck. Have you heard of it?

Gilbert Cruz: Are you saying principal as in a tenant or principal as in I am the head of a school?

Andy Weir: uh the the former the principal princip principal no principal

Gilbert Cruz: whatever tell me about the Werewolf Principal

Andy Weir: it is a story it really appealed to me as a kid I guess because I was lonely uh but it's a story of like this like three different minds are in one body and the body can change shape between their original forms so there's a human and then there's this like tetrahedrin thing and Then there's like this werewolf looking. I mean it's like a a lupine looking thing. And those three like whichever whichever body they could just change shape into you know any of those three bodies. Whichever body they're in um is that mind has control of everything but the other two minds are there talking

Andy Weir: right? They're like hey you should go here. So, it's like a guy who can like go run along and do stuff and then change shape and then a different brain is in charge, but then he's one of the guys advising him. I just thought that was a really cool concept and he finds out the details of why and how he is how he is. But, uh yeah, so that one I I really enjoyed as a kid because I thought, you know, I I was a pretty lonely kid and I thought, wouldn't it be neat to be like just to always have like people with you? Wouldn't it be nice to just never be alone? I think that's that's a little sad, but that's kind of one of the reasons I enjoyed that book so much when I was a kid.

Gilbert Cruz: I think it would be nice to never be alone.

Andy Weir: Yeah.

Gilbert Cruz: In 2017, we asked you, "What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?" And you said Dune by Frank Herbert, a book that in the past few years has been made into just two giant blockbuster films. Have you read it yet?

Andy Weir: No.

Gilbert Cruz: Are you is this on purpose now or are you just going to see how long you can go without reading it?

Andy Weir: No. First off, still embarrassed. Still haven't read it. In my defense, my wife and I had a baby. So, that really takes up a lot of my time.

Gilbert Cruz: Oh, yeah. Okay, fine. Likely excuse me.

Gilbert Cruz: Are you going to read it?

Andy Weir: I plan to, but you know, it's another one of those things where I've seen so many adaptations of it. I love the story, but I also know every beat of the story. Yeah.

Gilbert Cruz: So, all right. Let me ask this. If you are going to Mars and you could only bring three books with you, would one of them be Dune?

Andy Weir: Yeah.

Gilbert Cruz: Okay.

Andy Weir: Okay. I I'll read Dune. Yeah. I don't have to take care do I have to take care of my kid on Mars?

Gilbert Cruz: Um, wow. You're really in dad mode. You're like super in it right now.

Andy Weir: I'm all about I'm I'm dad. That's my number one job, right? I mean,

Gilbert Cruz: I'm I'm going to ask you a final question, and this is a a spoiler question, right? So, a lot of people have read this book. I think a lot of people are going to see the movie. We're at the end of the interview. So, listeners, if you just don't want to know what happens at the end, and you haven't read the book yet, now's a good time to turn it off. Um, several readers had questions about this. They want to know about the end of the book. They want to know about the choice that you made at the end of Project Hillary. Ryland Grac has saved uh Earth uh Arid Rocky's home planet from this astrophase parasite. And instead of returning home, which he can do, he decides to go back, save Rocky, who's in trouble, and then stay on on the Aridium planet. Um possibly living out the rest of his days teaching science to young Little Rock children. Um why did you end it this way? And was there were there alternatives? Did you was there a world in which uh Ryland did go home?

Andy Weir: Um so that I knew that that was going to be the end of the novel before I started writing the first page. So I knew I knew that's how it was going to end. It was just I I didn't know all the steps that would get him there, but that's how it was going to end. And um no, I think it's a perfect ending for for Ryland because he just really liked being a teacher and in the end he gets to be a teacher and hang out with his best friend and um he doesn't know what waits for him on Earth. He doesn't know what state Earth is in. You know, it had it was able to solve its problem. We learned because the sun returned to luminance and so they know that there's at least enough of an infrastructure on Earth to do space stuff. So, he knows they're not all dead, but he'd also be returning to an Earth, even if he left like right away, he'd be returning to an Earth where something like 75 years had passed since he left.

Andy Weir: Everyone he knows back on Earth will have died either in the ensuing, you know, climate catastrophe or just of old age in the intervening time. He doesn't really have anything to go back to, but he's got his best friend here and a job that he loves. Why would he leave?

Gilbert Cruz: Andy Weir, thank you so much for coming on the book review to talk about Project Hail Mary.

Andy Weir: Thanks for having me.

Gilbert Cruz: The book review is produced by Sarah Diamond and Amy Pearl. It's edited by Lissa Anderson and mixed by Pedro Rosado. Original music by Dan Powell and Alicia Ba. Special thanks to Dalia Hadad and Paula Schuman. We want to hear what you think about the show. So send us an email at thebookreview@ny times.com. I'm Gilbert Cruz. Thanks for listening.