So a nanoscientist and a microbiologist walk into a bar
(spoilers for phm and the three body trilogy below cut)
Project Hail Mary and The Three Body Problem have such striking similarities to me. Obviously their content is similar; both are hard scifi and depict first contact with aliens, and off the top of my head some of the central themes are human resilience and connection in times of strife. (maybe the latter isn't as prevalent in the text of Three Body, but it's still there)
However, the books are also counterparts of sorts. Three Body is intensely impersonal in its focus on plot and worldbuilding over characters.. it will sack characters freely. Wang Miao appears only in the first book and disappears after. There's a recurring image, of one tiny person against the vast cosmos, of insignificance. The universe will die and be reborn and it will be like we never existed, but we still existed, but does it really matter? The alien adversaries in the book were so powerful that they likened us to bugs. Though it was pointed out that bugs like locusts survive despite the best efforts of the locusts' adversaries (humans), we still got crushed in the end.
Project Hail Mary, meanwhile, is so so personal. From the very first page the reader gets intricate insight into Grace's problem-solving process from his perspective, with first-person narration. He cries every other chapter. The reader experiences or is exposed to every emotion he feels and we get intensely attached to him and Rocky as the book goes on. There's the feeling of one human against the universe, but the human is actually... winning? We are bugs, we're literally using beetles to transport our saving grace back to Earth, but it. it works? I was thrown by this because I'd read Three Body first and was fully expecting to see the Hail Mary explode horribly. But no, it's sci-fi hopecore.
they're so alike, they're so different. They're two sides of a coin, the heads side facing a brighter future and the tails side slipping down a gravity well of doom. Not to mention the characters: on the one hand you have Grace, who never raised kids but taught so many of them, and he loved them so much they were always at the forefront of his thoughts. On the other hand, you have Wang Miao, who had a wife and a kid, but I don't think he ever once has a single thought about his kid in the book and his wife is mentioned like, twice (it's cause he's too busy thinking about his gay bodyguard Shi Qiang trust). Even in the 'divorce bad' environment typical to China at the time I think it makes the most sense to headcanon his wife divorcing him. You got the teacher who loves so intensely but just doesn't have the relationships society expects of him (hello aroace Grace) and you got the Successful Career in Applied Science guy who looks Properly Heterosexual until you realize he has no romantic attachment to his wife and also does not care about his kid. You have two people, two middle-aged guys who are also leading scientists who somehow got unwillingly roped into save-the-world plots, and who object to the loss of autonomy they experience along the way, but who ultimately really, really care about Earth and all the people there.
...so anyways the (friend)ship name is locustbeetle-
