BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSA man wakes in a strange round room to a computer voice asking, "What's two plus two?" He cannot remember his own name, and the two people in the beds beside him have been dead a long time. With a tape measure, a stopwatch, and some clever experiments, he works out where he is while memories return in flashes. He is Ryland Grace, a junior high science teacher from San Francisco, and he is aboard a spaceship called the Hail Mary. Back home, a microbe called Astrophage is eating the sun's energy, and Earth is headed for an ice age. Grace is now light-years away at Tau Ceti, the one star in its cluster somehow not dimming. And he is about to learn he is not alone out there.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Project Hail Mary
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Project Hail Mary. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book does a scientist find a fourth alien cell and realize he accidentally made them breed?
✓ Answer
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Grace loses his three cells when a carbon dioxide light makes them shoot off, so he hunts for their heat in total darkness with homemade infrared goggles. He finds all three plus a new one, proving a cell divided, and greets the newcomer as Shemp.
- First half
In what book does an official threaten to have the Swiss Gendarmerie drag a Norwegian scientist to the airport?
✓ Answer
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
In a memory from Geneva, Dr. Lokken convinces Stratt that the ship should become a centrifuge so its lab has gravity. Stratt agrees on the spot and drafts Lokken to design it, whether Lokken likes it or not.
- First half
In what book does a man sip water until a spinning string balances an alien's metal ball?
✓ Answer
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
To define a kilogram, Grace ties canisters to both ends of a string and keeps drinking from his water pouch until the contraption spins evenly around its center. It turns out Rocky was already telling him the answer, since the ball is iron and its mass is easy to calculate.
- Second half
In what book does an alien offer two million kilograms of spare fuel so a stranded man can go home?
✓ Answer
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Grace finally admits that his ship only carried enough fuel to reach Tau Ceti, so he expects to die there. Rocky asks how much he needs and says he can give him that much Astrophage, because his own ship was more efficient than planned, and Grace breaks down crying tears of joy.
- Second half
In what book does a quiet commander end an argument by saying, "You are the number two"?
✓ Answer
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
In a memory, the crew watches a rocket launch on TV in the aircraft carrier's break room, and Ilyukhina and DuBois insist that Grace is Stratt's second-in-command. Grace protests that he is just one of the scientists, until Commander Yáo, who rarely speaks, turns around and settles it.
- Near the end
In what book does a scientist discover that a little nitrogen kills the predator meant to save two worlds?
✓ Answer
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Testing why Taumoeba die in Venus and Threeworld air, Grace adds gases one at a time and finds that nitrogen, which is harmless to life on Earth and Erid, kills every Taumoeba in seconds. Since Venus's air is 3.5 percent nitrogen and Threeworld's is 8 percent, he and Rocky must breed a strain that can survive it.
