Have you ever read a book that's hard to tell people about without giving away some of the plot? I recently finished Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir and couldn’t wait to recommend it. But as soon as I started talking about it to some colleagues, I realized there was a problem: there was no way to explain why I liked the book so much without spoiling one of its big surprises.
你是否读过这样一本书，你将它推荐给别人时很难做到不透露一点情节？我最近读完了安迪·威尔的《挽救计划》一书，迫不及待地想推荐给大家。但当我开始和同事谈论这本书时，我意识到一个问题：解释为什么我会这么喜欢这本书时，我无法避免地会剧透书中的一个大惊喜。
Here’s what I can say without ruining anything for you: Project Hail Mary is the latest novel by Andy Weir, who is best known for writing The Martian. It tells the story of Ryland Grace, a high school science teacher who wakes up alone on a spaceship in a different star system with no memory of how he got there. He quickly figures out that he’s been sent on a mission to save our solar system from a microorganism called the Astrophage, which is essentially eating our sun. If Ryland doesn’t succeed, the Earth will enter a new ice age that kills billions of people.
下面是我在不破坏你获知剧情的情况下能说的内容:《挽救计划》是安迪·威尔的新作。（《火星救援》是其成名作。）这本书讲述了一名高中科学教师瑞恩·格雷斯的故事，他孤身一人在异星系的一艘宇宙飞船上醒来，却不记得自己是如何到达那里的。他很快就明白自己是被派去执行一项任务，从一种叫做噬星体的微生物手中拯救我们的太阳系，这种微生物实际上正在吞噬太阳。如果瑞恩没有成功，地球将进入一个新的冰河时代，数十亿人将因此丧生。
The twist comes about a quarter of the way into the book. So if you want to go into it blind, you should probably stop reading this now. I won’t ruin the ending or anything like that, but I’m going to give away a bit more than the summary on the book jacket.
转折出现在书的四分之一处。因此如果你想在读书前丝毫不受剧透影响，你最好现在就停止阅读这篇书评。我不会透露故事结局或其他重要内容，但这里我还是会比书封上的摘要多说一点。
It turns out that Ryland isn’t the only one looking for a way to stop the Astrophage. He crosses paths with an alien that looks like a Labrador-sized spider made out of rock. The rest of the book is about Ryland and his new alien friend—whom he not-so-cleverly names Rocky—working together to save their home planets.
事实证明，瑞恩并不是唯一一个想办法阻止噬星体的人。他在那里遇到一个外星人，这个外星人看起来像一个石体的、拉布拉多大小的蜘蛛。书的剩余部分是关于瑞恩和他的新外星人朋友（他不太聪明地给外星人取名为洛基）一起努力拯救各自的母星。
Weir offers a somewhat plausible notion of what it would be like to make first contact. Unlike the humanoid extraterrestrials you see in a lot of science fiction, Rocky is completely alien in every sense of the word. He breathes ammonia, uses echolocation to “see,” and speaks using musical notes. Ryland has to create a smart bit of software before they can communicate. The two end up bonding over being lonely travelers who are light years from home, and they develop a beautiful friendship despite being so different from one another.
对于他们第一次见面的场景，威尔提供了一个看似合理的描述。与你在很多科幻小说中看到的类人型外星人不同，洛基在任何意义上都完全是外星生物。他呼吸氨气，用回声定位来“看”，用音符来说话。瑞恩必须开发一个智能软件，他们才得以相互交流。这两个离家数光年的孤独旅行者最终建立了联系，尽管他们彼此之间的差异是如此之大，他们还是建立了美好的友谊。
As I was reading about Rocky, I couldn’t help but think about Nick Lane’s excellent book The Vital Question. Lane helps you understand the extraordinary number of things that had to line up perfectly to create complex life on Earth. The odds that there is another sentient species relatively nearby seem low. (Rocky is from the 40 Eridani system, which is “only” 16 lightyears away from our sun.) Still, it’s exciting to think about what other life might be out there.
当我读到洛基的时候，我不禁想起了尼克·莱恩的杰作《生死攸关的问题》。莱恩（的书）能帮助你理解，为了在地球上创造出复杂的生命，必须要有无数事物完美地连接在一起。相对而言，附近存在另一个有感知能力的物种的概率似乎很低。(洛基来自波江座40星系，距离太阳“只有”16光年的距离。)尽管如此，想到那里可能存在其他的什么生命体，还是很令人兴奋。
Like Weir’s other books, Project Hail Mary is clever about the dilemmas the hero gets put into. Ryland is a fundamentally decent and likable main character who you can’t help but root for. Because he has amnesia at the beginning of the book, you get to puzzle out what’s happening along with him, which is a lot of fun. He also has a great sense of humor. When Ryland realizes he’s about to become the first human to meet an alien, he thinks, “If there is hostile intent, what would I do about it? Die. That’s what I’d do. I’m a scientist, not Buck Rogers.”
和威尔的其他书一样，《挽救计划》巧妙地设计了主人公陷入的两难境地。瑞恩是一个绝对正派、讨人喜欢的主角，你会情不自禁地支持他。因为在书的开头他失忆了，所以你可以和他一起弄清楚在他身上发生了什么，这很有趣。他也很有幽默感。当瑞恩意识到他即将成为第一个见到外星人的人类时，他想:“如果对方有敌意，我该怎么办呢？死亡。我会选择这样做。我是科学家，不是巴克·罗杰斯”。
He reminded me a lot of Mark Watney, the protagonist in The Martian. The two books deal with similar themes about how people work together in challenging situations, although the big difference with Project Hail Mary is that not all of the collaborators are human. I loved reading about how Ryland and Rocky combined their species’ expertise to solve problems they wouldn’t have been able to tackle on their own.
他让我想起了《火星救援》的主角马克·沃特尼。这两本书的主题相似，都是关于人们如何在具有挑战性的情况下一起工作的，但《挽救计划》与之最大的不同在于，并非所有的合作者都是人类。我喜欢阅读这一部分——瑞恩和洛基结合各自物种的专业知识，解决独自一人无法解决的问题。
I thought some parts of the story—like how Ryland gets picked for his mission and how powerful the United Nations task force that organizes his mission is—were a bit unbelievable. They didn’t bother me too much, though. Science fiction gets a lot of latitude to conjure things up. It’s hard to be too distracted by something being implausible when you’re reading a story about a giant space spider.
我认为故事的某些部分（比如瑞恩是如何被选中执行任务的，以及组织这项任务的联合国特别工作组是多么强大）有点令人难以置信。不过，它们并没有给我造成太多的困扰。科幻小说有很大的自由度去想象事物。你在阅读一个巨大太空蜘蛛的故事时，很难被一些悖于情理的细节分散注意力。
I recommend the book for anyone who is in the mood for a fun diversion. I started it on a Saturday and finished it on Sunday, and it was a great way to spend a weekend. Even if you aren’t a big science fiction fan, Project Hail Mary is a terrific story about two friends using science and engineering to save the day.
我把这本书推荐给任何有兴致读书消遣的人。我是在星期六开始看的，星期天就看完了，这是个度过周末的好方法。即使你不是科幻小说迷，《挽救计划》也是一个很棒的故事，讲述了两个朋友利用科学和工程来拯救世界的故事。
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