A page-turning hard-science novel in the tradition of Clarke or Asimov. Overall a good read. Technological and scientific concepts are combined with adventure, to minimize the amounts of character development and philosophy needed to propel the story thereby saving precious weight and cubic volume. The use of consumer tested off-the-shelf stock characters allowed the book to be constructed with maximum reliability and functionality built-in, & enabling this book to be read with maximum efficiency. The main issue that I have with Project Hail Mary is its enthusiasm for authoritarianism. I understand the narrative & conceptual need for a dictator (in the ancient Roman Republican sense of the term, perhaps), but I got the feeling that we were supposed to cheer Stratt's various displays of power. I'm not sure how else I was supposed to read the copyright court scene, which also seemed kind of outside the logic of the character; if Stratt was too important to bother with niceties & legalities, why was she bothering to show up to a court room herself (along with intimidating soldiers) to snot at a judge and some lawyers? If she could draft all of the greatest minds in the world for her project, why not conscript some lawyers to obstruct & delay proceedings for the duration of the crisis? I also wasn't sure if Stratt's view of history is supposed to be persuasive or to indicate someone whose study of history ended with undergraduate history courses & Stephen Pinker or Jared Diamond books. History is full of societies where people were just not spending that much of their time foraging or growing their food. Maybe I'm stuck on this point because I found her attempts at justification at the end of her narrative to be so insufferable.