Best-selling science fiction author Andy Weir, celebrated across the globe for his trademark blend of meticulous hard science, high-stakes survival scenarios, and sharp humor, is lending his creative vision to an entirely new kind of cosmic adventure. While Weir made his literary mark with solo astronauts utilizing pure math and ingenuity to cheat death in blockbuster hits like The Martian and Project Hail Mary—both of which earned massive theatrical adaptations—his latest undertaking ventures into a mysterious and terrifying new frontier: time travel.
Fans of Weir’s meticulous approach to speculative fiction will soon have a chance to experience his next major narrative contribution when the ambitious audio production officially arrives on November 5.
Set to launch exclusively on Audible, the upcoming project takes the form of an immersive, full-cast audio original titled Exoplanet. Rather than writing the prose himself, Weir is stepping into the role of executive producer, helping guide a high-concept script penned by acclaimed author Benjamin Percy, whose previous works include The Ninth Metal and Red Moon.
The narrative premise of Exoplanet leans heavily into the kind of isolating, life-or-death problem-solving that defines Weir’s bibliography, but introduces a dizzying temporal twist. The story centers on the crew of a deep-space starship that is suddenly torn apart by a catastrophic quantum anomaly. Following this catastrophic event, the crew members find themselves marooned on the exact same alien world, yet separated by vast chasms of time.
Stranded across different eras on the same planet, the crew must figure out a way to communicate and coordinate their efforts to survive. Compounding their desperate situation is a relentless, predatory alien intelligence that is actively hunting them, seeking to exploit human technology in order to manipulate the future across the timeline.
Reflecting on his involvement with the project and what drew him to Percy’s script, Weir emphasized the unique emotional and psychological weight of the story’s central conceit.
"I’m obsessed with problems, the kind where one person and a lot of math are all that stand between survival and disaster," Weir said in a statement. "Benjamin Percy’s writing in Exoplanet takes that and adds a twist that genuinely kept me up at night: what if the people trying to save each other were separated not by distance, but by centuries? You can’t see that story. You have to hear it. The crackle across a five-hundred-year gap, the desperation in a voice that doesn’t know if anyone’s still listening."
Although Exoplanet marks the first time Weir has officially tackled the mechanics of time travel, the theme of harrowing, long-distance communication challenges runs deeply through his previous literary works. In The Martian, the marooned astronaut Mark Watney famously has to improvise and utilize the long-dead Pathfinder probe to re-establish a fragile communication link with NASA across millions of miles of empty space. Similarly, in Project Hail Mary, the solitary protagonist Ryland Grace records desperate audio logs and physical messages to send back toward Earth alongside samples of the organic threat known as Taumoeba, knowing full well he will have to wait years or even decades to learn if his desperate transmissions ever reached home.
This thematic focus on isolation, audio transmission, and distance makes an immersive audio-first medium a natural home for a story of this scale. Marshall Lewy, the head of content for Audible in North America, highlighted how the collaboration between Weir’s signature style and Percy’s audio-optimized script aims to deliver a distinct experience for science fiction enthusiasts.
"Andy Weir’s stories transform rigorous science into big-hearted thrill rides with heart-stopping action and intense human emotion," Lewy said in a statement. "That’s why Andy’s books have sold millions and inspired blockbuster films. With Andy as executive producer and Benjamin Percy crafting beautiful scripts specifically for the ear, Exoplanet is built for the audiences who loved Project Hail Mary and The Martian while also giving them something entirely new."
To bring this temporally fragmented crew to life, Audible has assembled a high-profile, star-studded ensemble cast. The production features powerhouse performances from Anthony Mackie, Ariana DeBose, and John Leguizamo, whose vocal talents will anchor the intense, high-stakes drama of characters trying to bridge centuries of isolation to save one another from a common threat.
Exoplanet launches exclusively on Audible on November 5.
