The Creator of Project Hail Mary Supports Your Ryland Grace Fan Fic — But His Doctor Who, Star Wars & Star Trek Fics Are Even Better

Have we, as a society, recovered from the amazingness of Project Hail Mary? If we’re lucky, we never will. The smash-hit movie, starring Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace and James Ortiz as the lovable alien Rocky, brought Andy Weir’s 2021 novel to life, doing great justice to the book. The appeal of Weir’s writing is that, like with The Martian, the feeling of Project Hail Mary is the experience of reading (or watching) a story made for fans of big, warm science fiction. Weir has never chased critical adoration, and his writing demonstrates a real love of the game.

The paradox is that in pursuing his own interests, Weir reached a larger audience. Weir’s biggest books aren’t fanfic, but his writing is that of a fan, and like many successful writers of science fiction and fantasy, Weir began writing fan fiction. And some of his most underrated published projects are also fanfic.

For Fan Fiction Week, Inverse reached out to Andy Weir because of his reputation as a true fan’s fan. If you dig around on his Wikipedia page, you’ll find that some of his earliest writings were about the Time Lady Ramona from Doctor Who and that some of his projects that aren’t The Martian or Project Hail Mary are connected to other famous fiction worlds he didn’t create.

And so, when Weir was told we were doing a fanfic issue at Bustle and Inverse, he was more than happy to chat a bit about his earliest fics, his thoughts on Project Hail Mary fanfic, and his big pitches for the greatest sci-fi franchises, from Star Trek to Star Wars to Doctor Who.

Is it true you started in Doctor Who fanfic?

Well, I'd always wanted to be a writer, but back then, I had not broken into it. And I also really, really loved Doctor Who. It was at a time when they weren’t really making Doctor Who, and I think that’s what a lot of fanfics are all about, like I just want more of this thing that I love. And so, with fanfic, there’s a mechanism by which I can get that. I remember at the local comic store in the '80s, there was a fan comic for Doctor Who; it was a parody called “Doctor What.” I'd always buy it.

What did that look like, practically?

Well, I had my own website where I put my writing, but then I would also post it. I think at the time I was doing LiveJournal; there wasn’t even Facebook yet. So mostly LiveJournal, and I didn't have that many connections or anything. Mostly I wrote just because I really enjoyed it.

“I’ll never be as good a writer as [Arthur Conan] Doyle, but you get that feeling that sort of harkens you back.”

If not legally speaking, do you think spiritually a lot of writers start out as fanfic writers?

I'm not an expert at this. All I can tell you is my own personal experience, but yeah, we're driven by a desire to recapture that fun we have from reading something. I think the most important thing as a writer is to write something that you yourself would enjoy reading. So, deep down, we all start off with fan fiction, for lack of a better term. I don’t think there’s a single writer who hasn’t, at least in their mind, written some fan fiction. I mean, hell, even kids who aren't writers will take some property, like The Avengers or something like that, and make up their own stories about it. There's something fundamentally inherent in human nature to just use your imagination that way.

Some of the most enduring early fanfic comes from the world of Sherlock Holmes. You did your take on that, with James Moriarty, Consulting Criminal in 2017. Can you unpack that a bit for me?

I think Sherlock Holmes was one of the first collective enjoyment of fiction phenomenon. Those stories, published in The Strand Magazine, were like a book club where nobody had the ability to read ahead. So I think that was the first time that we got actual collective immersion. Somebody else probably did it earlier, but [Arthur Conan] Doyle is the one who really brought it into the mainstream.

With the Moriarty stories, I tried to emulate Doyle’s prose style a bit. I mean, I’ve read Holmes enough that I have a feel for how it is. I'm sure Doyle scholars would be like, “Oh, this phrasing, no, no!” But for filthy casuals like myself, I think it’s good enough. I’ll never be as good a writer as Doyle, but you get that feeling that sort of harkens you back.

You wrote a fanfic for Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One — and then that became canon. How did that happen?

Well, the dream of every fan fiction writer, deep down, is to have the original author canonize your fiction, and that's what happened to me. I can die now. I was a huge fan of Ready Player One. I had never spoken to Ernie yet at that point. I just really enjoyed the book, and right after finishing the book, I wrote a little fanfic called “Lassero” and posted it on my site. Eventually it got around to Ernie, and he's like, “I love it. This is canon.”

“The dream of every fan fiction writer, deep down, is to have the original author canonize your fiction, and that's what happened to me. I can die now.”

What’s funny is that at the time, they were making Ready Player One the film. But that then meant there was something in the Ready Player One universe that Warner Bros. didn’t own the rights to. And Ernie's agent was talking to my agent. I was like, “Look, I didn't want to cause Ernie headaches.” I think I sold him all rights in perpetuity and everything to “Lassero” for $1, something like that, just so they'd belong to Ernie and then be covered under his contract so everybody could calm down.

Have you had any legal challenges with any fanfic you have published?

I did a comic called Cheshire Crossing, which is Alice from Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and Wendy from Peter Pan are all brought to an institute called Cheshire Crossing. Their caretaker ends up being Mary Poppins, and everything was in the public domain except Mary Poppins. So, when it was re-illustrated by Sarah Anderson — who’s a real artist, unlike me — and then released in physical print form, that had to change. When it was just a comic posted on my website, not for profit, it didn’t matter. But when it was released for print, I had to take out the references to her being overtly Mary Poppins.

So, back to Doctor Who, what would your dream pitch be, outside of the fic you’ve done?

I've got a bunch of ideas for stories that revolve around the Meddling Monk. When you first see him, he's trying to affect English history, right? In “The Time Meddler,” that’s what he’s doing. So, I was going to say that now, with the Time War having come and gone, he was able to preserve himself because he's an expert at paradoxes. He basically makes a paradox engine that keeps him alive even though he shouldn't even exist. And then, also, what he’s been doing for centuries is he's grooming England to be as much like Gallifrey as possible, which is why there are so many similarities in the culture between England and Gallifrey; that’s why they have lord presidents and lords and ladies and all that, because he’s caused British culture to move that way and wants to remake Gallifrey because it’s gone.

Wow. So like a massive retcon of Doctor Who history.

Well, no, I’d actually be retconning British history. [Laughs]

I’ve heard you’ve pitched a Star Trek show. Can you share that pitch?

Well, I’m not telling about that. Because I want to pitch that again, with everything changing, but I will tell you about a Star Trek/Star Wars crossover fic I’ve had for ages. In my mind, I call it “Star Star.”

The idea is that the Genesis device going off at the end of The Wrath of Khan rips a hole in the fabric of reality. And so did, too, the Death Star exploding in A New Hope. It becomes the Yavin/Mutara wormhole. Then I imagine the Enterprise goes there, and so from that point forward, the stories diverge from canon.

Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader end up on the Star Trek side of that wormhole because the Death Star blew up and they’re in their ships, both of them. And the Enterprise picks up Vader. And they’re like: “This guy is f*cked up. He's got these cybernetic implants.” And so they completely repair his body, which McCoy does in sickbay. And then he's back to Anakin.

“Anyone who wants to write fan fiction of my stuff, I fully support it. If ‘Raymond Grant’ and his alien ‘water friend’ want to explore the galaxy in somebody else’s book, that’s great. I’d totally read it!”

And when the Enterprise goes to the Star Wars universe, Spock is dead, because it’s the end of The Wrath of Khan, but then Spock becomes a Force ghost. And Sulu has inherent Jedi abilities which manifest once he goes there.

What do you think of Project Hail Mary fanfic, like fic about Ryland Grace?

There’s a few of them that are really fun. There’s one called “Eriddit,” which is what Reddit would look like if it was by Eridians. It’s like one post is like “Oh, Rocky’s mate Adrian is going to the space elevator to visit him.” Everything’s famous, and they’re about about this alien [Ryland Grace], and they’re like, “This alien, I don’t understand how he lives on this fire world.” It’s so great.

How would you feel if someone’s Project Hail Mary fanfic transmorphed into its own thing, like Fifty Shades or The Love Hypothesis?

Anyone who wants to write fanfiction of my stuff, I fully support it. And if it turns into such an awesome story that they want to scrape the serial numbers off to make it a unique story that doesn't violate copyrights, then again, power to them. If “Raymond Grant” and his alien “water friend” want to explore the galaxy in somebody else’s book, that’s great. I’d totally read it!

Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary: Deluxe Edition releases Dec. 1.