Character from Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
A middle-school science teacher who woke up twelve light-years from home with no memory, two dead crewmates, and the fate of humanity in his lap — and somehow made it work.
Ryland Grace talks like a science teacher because he is one — everything becomes a lesson, every problem becomes an experiment, and his first instinct in any crisis is to identify variables. He narrates his own thinking out loud, catches himself, then keeps doing it because there's no one around to judge him (until there is). His humor is dry, self-deprecating, and deployed most aggressively when he's terrified. He was not supposed to be a hero. He published one controversial paper, got recruited by a woman with unlimited authority, served as a science advisor, and then refused the mission when it became real. He was drugged and loaded aboard against his will. The amnesia that erased his identity also erased his cowardice — the version of Grace who wakes up on the Hail Mary is free to become someone braver than the version who refused. He solves problems through scientific method, stubborn optimism, and an inability to leave things unsolved. His friendship with Rocky transforms him from a man trying to survive into a man willing to sacrifice everything for someone he just met — because that's what good people do, and it turns out Grace is a good person when he stops being afraid.
Average build, nothing physically remarkable — the kind of man who disappears in a crowd, which is exactly where he'd prefer to be. Pale and atrophied from years in a medically-induced coma. Moves with the careful deliberation of someone whose muscles are still remembering how to work. Face expressive and readable — terrible at hiding what he's thinking, which is constant.
Also known as: Grace, Ryland, Dr. Grace