Jenna rushed excitedly down the sidewalk. It was her first solo scan day, and she couldn’t wait to get to work. As she dashed past the long side of her building to get to the staff security entrance on the north side, her coffee and ice bounced around inside its plastic cup. She met Tony, the security guard, with a cheerful greeting, and hurried through the metal detector to the elevator beyond. She fought to slow her pace as she exited onto her floor, very aware of how fast her heart raced. She dumped her bag at her desk, booted her computer, and quickly logged into her account.

Governor Pillen held a press opportunity where he touted his quest to try to appeal to more voters by lowering their property taxes. He gathered all his department heads at one table and brought the media in to talk about how he’s going to attempt to achieve his goal when the Unicameral convenes again next year.

To achieve his goal, he said that he’s going to propose cuts to state services so he can get the tax relief he so desperately craves.

Jenna sighed. She was just settling into week three of her new job and the excitement of learning the computer system and other requirements had all but worn off. She looked around the office. The open work floor she sat in contained several banks of workstations. Little walls divided the cubicles for a sense of privacy, but if she stood up, she could see across the room. She was on the side opposite the bank of windows. She actually preferred it because when the day was warm and sunny, those window desks were sweltering.

It’s been a few weeks since Project Hail Mary came out, so I feel less awful about the copious spoilers ahead. But it’s really difficult to discuss or describe Ryan Gosling’s intergalactic science fiction dramedy without getting into what makes it intergalactic or science fiction or dramedy. So here goes. 

Right at the top, I will say we can’t talk about Project Hail Mary without talking about my previously adored ‘Interstellar’ from 2014. It’s almost exactly the same plot with a few important deviations.