I recently finished reading Project Hail Mary, a sci-fi novel by Andy Weir. It was a book club assignment, otherwise I might have put the book aside, never to be picked up again, after reading the first 50 pages. Out of respect for my club mates, I make it a point to finish reading any book that one of them recommends to our group.

In recent years, I’ve blogged about making an effort to read more science fiction, a genre I’ve traditionally avoided. There is a lot to learn from science fiction, even if I usually find the characters boring. Project Hail Mary, fortunately, has two major characters who are well-rounded and interesting, even, in one case, funny. Another feature that keeps me away from sci-fi is the sometimes heavy emphasis on science. Of course, that emphasis makes sense, but not when it comprises at least 50 percent of the book, and the science is not easily understood by a layperson (including me). That is the case with Weir’s book, which is packed with scientific facts, figures, formulas, procedures, and on and on. I had to skim through those sections with a vague understanding of what was happening so that I could finish the book some time this year! This isn’t to say that I didn’t learn anything, because I did.

More importantly, by reading this book, I was able to reflect on the global warming crisis that confronts us and how our world is lacking in an effort to bring together world powers to tackle the problem and come to some agreement on techniques for dealing with it. Though Weir writes about a specific world crisis (an alien species is killing our sun), he draws attention to the need for putting aside individual concerns to fight for the greater good.