I loved this book!! I enjoyed 'The Martian' so was looking forward to reading this - I was not disappointed. Another novel set in space, Weir has created a fantastic city on the Moon, 'Artemis', where the protagonist Jazz Bashara lives and works as a delivery girl/courier and part time smuggler. The descriptions of the city, it's interior and exterior are amazing, and, as with the 'The Martian', Weir is brilliant at describing very technical/scientific things in easy to understand ways. I don't want to give too much away here and spoil the plot for new readers, but the story is brilliant and definitely written in a way that you can imagine on the big screen!

A tightly plotted story set in a colony on the earth’s moon. A great mix of technology, adventure, danger, daring, striving against the odds, ingenuity and glimpses of both sides of the economic coin. The pace is terrific and the detail sufficient and convincing enough to please fans of the author’s last, very successful, novel and movie ‘The Martian’.

This is such a good book. I was immediately interested when I saw the setting of this book (the moon) and it does not disappoint. Artemis is well crafted and throughout the book you really get a feel for life in the first and only city on the moon. The characters are fantastic. Jazz is a great main character and the other characters are just as well written. The plot is compelling throughout, the writing is easy to get into and the science is interesting without bogging the book down. I will say the constant attempts at humour seemed a little forced at times and Jazz's thoughts sometimes seemed a bit out of place - maybe a bit juvenile for a 26 year old. Overall I thought this was a very entertaining read and I would definitely recommend it.

In space, no-one can hear you yawn…

I try to include plot summaries at the top of my reviews for context but I can’t do it for Fartemis - every time I think about this trash my mind collapses out of exhausted, frustrated, sheer boredom! The protagonist is a smuggler called Jazz Bashara. It’s set on the moon city of Fartemis. There’s a laughable half-assed “heist” plot. Oh, and I fucking haaaated reading it! AARRGH, GET IT AWAY FROM MEEEE!

To be fair, I didn’t like Andy Weir’s last novel, The Martian, so I probably should’ve known better. But I wanted to give this writer another shot to try and see what everyone else does – mebbe now he somehow got good? NOPE. This is one author I’ll never read again!

Jazz is a Muslim for diversity reasons only. Because she doesn’t act or talk like a Muslim woman nor does her religion or ethnicity play any part in the story. Same for Fartemis being run by South Africa – no reason why, just diversity! It feels all the more contrived given that the culture feels American and all the calculatingly diverse characters talk like Americans.

And let’s talk about the cheeseball dialogue because Jazz’s voice is SO ANNOYING. It’s an amalgam of conflicting nonsense. Jazz is supposedly a 26 year old woman who for some reason talks like a 14 year old boy cracking forced cringey middle-aged dad jokes – coincidentally like 45 year old Andy Weir! She’s the least convincing female character I’ve read in some time.

At no point was I at all interested in the convoluted “heist” plot. Sabotage this thing, work for this gangster, fight this gangster, double-cross, yawn, oh god, why won’t this book end… The story unfolds predictably with the usual eye-rolling cliffhangers you find in junky books like this. There are interstitial (FILLER!) chapters featuring Jazz’s pen pal which were totally irrelevant. And, like in The Martian, there are far too many overly technical passages full of (probably) real science that was immensely dull to read – this is a novel, not an engineering manual, Andy! The laughable “action” at the end revolves around welding, which is as tedious as it sounds. In fact, it reads like a novel written by the book’s autistic character, Svoboda!

I’ll give Weir that basing the currency around weight and some of the world-building is clever but I can’t say I enjoyed reading any aspect of this at any time so it easily earned the lowest rating possible. Fartemis is the complete package – of shit: a trashy YA novel full of uninteresting characters, an unexciting, forgettable plot, bad dialogue and an annoying lead all bundled up in pedantic sci-fi. Readers who enjoyed shite like Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter, Ernest Cline’s Armada, and Pierce Brownpants’ Red Rising will probably dig this but otherwise I’d recommend Fartemis to no-one, anywhere, ever!

Following up a blockbuster debut is tough. Do you stick with the same format and try to capture the same feeling twice, or do you do something different and risk alienating your new fanbase? Andy Weir has chosen the second option here and it’s paid off.

Artemis is a more traditional sci-fi story than The Martian was, there’s a cast of characters this time, and a full new world rather than a hostile, unpopulated environment. It’s also lighter in some ways. Weir’s science geekery still comes out, particularly when Jazz is applying her skills to taking something apart or solving a practical problem (boy, do I know more about welding in space than I did before!), but it’s not the driving force like it was in The Martian.

Jazz lives on Artemis as a porter, with some smuggling on the side to make ends meet. She’s sort of estranged from her father and pretty much everyone in her life through a combination of bad life choices, circumstances, pride, and her sterling personality. Despite this, she manages to get drawn into a job that could achieve her ultimate goals fast if she’s willing to take a few risks. Without spoilers Artemis is a heist-style, action-based, sci-fi caper and it’s well worth a look when you’re looking for your next fun sci-fi read.

I liked Jazz as a character. I liked that in some ways she wasn’t particularly likeable. She was a shit, flaky, prone to bad decision-making, putting off her problems, and not being particularly nice to the people who support her. Weir’s characterisation of Jazz’s female-ness felt a bit off at times for me, but I like that he’s taking risks and trying new things. It was refreshing as a contrast to Mark Watney, but also generally, to have a female character who is competent, but allowed to not be perfect in a whole lotta ways. She’s funny, bossy, fucked up and smart as hell. Jazz is a main character I wanted to keep watching.

The wider cast was a strength here, too, and added something on The Martian. Jazz’s group of “friends” (I use the term loosely because a lot of them are begrudging, which I loved!) were varied, competent in their own ways and balanced each other out to make a nifty crew. The banter worked, the relationships Jazz had with each of them and the way they bounced off each other worked well (Svoboda and Jazz’s dad are a highlight). There was also some nice casual diversity on a lot of fronts which I appreciated. Though, I would have appreciated a few more female side characters.

Artemis as a world is smart and interesting. Weir’s gone the extra mile in thinking through not only how the moon base would develop, but how the science would work to support it and what a society based around that would look like. What would they eat? What jobs would they do? How does power work? What resources do they have? What would work differently to how it does on earth and how? I like that it felt ‘early’ in its development as a colony and that the tech level was consistent and interesting. It made for unique settings and problems which really lifted the book.

The plot was simple, but moved fast. Much like The Martian, Artemis’ strengths are in seeing how the thing gets done rather than unravelling a complicated mystery or following a particularly twisty plot. I particularly liked the epistolary mechanic used to reveal Jazz’s backstory and I’m secretly hoping for a sequel told from the other side of that.

This was fun and shows me that Weir can write good science-based adventure sci-fi with funny dialogue. It’s not going to reinvent the form, but it doesn’t have to. I’d read the next one he puts out off the strength of this.

An advance copy of this book was kindly provided by Penguin Random House UK, Del Rey, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book intrigued me. I hadn't read the Martian but i'd seen so much about it that when this came up I wanted to read it. Jazz is a fantastic and compelling character. I love her sassy spunky attitude, and it's great to have leading female characters like this. The topic of the moon is an interesting one, and how we would live there is something I've thought about so it'd been great to actually give me their version of whats in my mind. I thought the city was solidly built, but I would have liked a little more from it. I also felt at times i was switching off in the tech elements, but that's me more than anything wrong with the book. Full review to follow on blog!

It was very difficult to not compare «Artemis» to «The Martian», and I must say that this new book was not as good as the previous one. Still very entertaining and full of science, but something was missing.

Jasmine Bashara, short Jazz, moved with her father to the only city on the Moon - Artemis, when she was just 6 years old. Growing up on the Moon can be very exciting, especially for someone as smart as Jasmine, but! Life is not easy, even on the Moon.

No matter how much I enjoyed this book, I had many MANY issues with Jasmine: everyone kept mentioning how smart she was, but she wasn't doing anything with her potential; shallow dreams, lazy, too cocky...

As expected, I really enjoyed Artemis. Weir writes wonderful books that can be relied on for interesting and entertaining reads.
https://lilolia.wordpress.com/2017/08/26/artemis-by-andy-weir/

A thoroughly enjoyable second novel, with strong characters and a good alternative setting. Weir goes back to space but manages to achieve something different.

Fast-paced sci-fi-thriller set on the moon with a kickass female protagonist. What more do you want?

Artemis centres around Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara, the wayward daughter of Ammar a master welder on the still nascent but rapidly growning lunar colony of Artemis. It is the second novel by Andy Weir, which, after The Martian which I absolutely adored, I was very much looking forward to reading.

Like The Martian, the story is told in the first person and follows a similar stylistic approach, laced with the same humour and strong scientific focus. It is however very different, as the Artemis colony already consisted of some 2000 individuals at the time the novel is set.

Artemis itself, is supposed to be a bustling place, with a stratified class system. It is a popular destination for very wealthy tourists who are offered the ability to see the Apollo 11 landing site, but it also has its fair share of administrators, blue collar workers and a lower underclass of people just trying to eke out a living. Structurally, it is architected as a series of interconnected domes, each dome forming the natural habitat for the different classes represented.

The story itself begins with Jazz, struggling to make ends meet as a porter and small-time smuggler, who is offered a job which would make her rich beyond her wildest dreams. Of course there are several sizeable catches along the way. Unfortunately the central premise of why Jazz in particular is offered this job, never really seemed satisfying or justified to me, which somewhat unfavourably coloured my impression of the story which followed.

From there, the story itself rapidly turns into fast-paced heist caper which by rights should have made it just as gripping and involving as the Martian. However, there were two things which I think really let the novel down. Firstly, I didn't really like or find Jazz all that convincing as the protagonist. She just seemed to be a bit of a cypher. Obviously brilliant, yet maverick and wilful, she was a bit too cocky and wise-cracking to make the reader warm to her. In contrast to the cocky wise-cracking Mark Watney of The Martian whose mere predicament means that the reader feels instantly sympathetic towards, Jazz just seems like an over-indulged wilful child who manages to get away with entirely too much without suffering from any more serious consequences than a few stern words of admonishment, even when her actions were actually quite serious and criminal in nature. Maybe I'm being a bit a over-critical about this but the actions in the book just didn't seem to be being treated seriously enough and the humour sometimes felt jarring and unnatural.

I also found Artemis itself to be unconvincing, it just seemed to be too constructed - at times it reminded me of the kind of colony which could be built in something like SimCity and consequently was populated by a bunch of one-dimensional Sims. I never got a feeling that there was any substance or coherence to the place - it all just seemed a bit antiseptic and sterile.

All this being said, what redeems the book and where Weir obviously excels, is, as with The Martian, in the technical details, which here for the most part revolve around chemical physics. Weir does an excellent job with the story revolving around two main set pieces, through which he plots a meticulous but thrilling course, interweaving the sciencey bits with some good old-fashioned derring-do and nail-biting suspense. In particular, things really start to hot up in the last quarter of the book which does much to offset some of the less satisfying aspects of the novel.

Overall, although I did enjoy Artemis, I do feel a bit let down as I was really hoping for great things afer something as wonderful as The Martian and ultimately I ended up disappointed.

This hasn't put me off however, and I do look forward to the third novel by Weir, if and when that might be, and hope that he manages to produce something as magical as The Martian.

My first experience with Andy Weir’s writing, his acclaimed The Martian, did not work out well: although the story’s potential was amazing (as testified by the huge success of the movie inspired by the novel), the delivery failed to engage me, and the book ended up in my ‘unfinished’ pile. Still, I’m a great believer in second opportunities, and when the first synopsis for Artemis surfaced, I was intrigued enough to give it a try: this time around, things went a great deal better…

Artemis is the first (and so far the only) organized community on the Moon, a collection of interconnected domes named after famous astronauts: the city, with a resident population of around two thousand people of varied ethnicity, is mostly an industrial settlement and a tourist resort – a place with few written laws and a good number of unwritten ones. Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a young woman of Saudi descent, the daughter of a respected welder she had a falling out with some time prior to the start of the story: Jazz works as a porter, a low-income occupation she uses as a front for her smuggling operations, and it’s because of her non-official job that she becomes involved in an industrial take-over scheme that suddenly morphs into a bloody gang war, turning her into a target for both the police and the members of a ruthless Brazilian cartel.

The pace is lively, carried by Jazz’s mordant, impudent tone, while the city of Artemis comes alive before our eyes thanks to her first-person narrative, whose scientific explanations (clearly the main staple of Andy Weir’s storytelling method) come across as lightly informative rather than pedantic: unlike what happened with Mark Whatney’s voice logs, Jazz ideally talks with the audience rather that at them, and this made a huge difference for me as far as my connection with the character was concerned. The mechanics of living in microgravity, and in a hostile, airless environment, are explained in a discursive manner that makes it sound more like an interesting chat between acquaintances than a pedantic lecture – one of the most fascinating pieces of information being the effect of reduced gravity on the boiling point of water and therefore the temperature (and taste) of hot beverages.

Another characteristic Jazz seems to share with Whatney is her flippancy, with the difference (from my point of view) that with her it works well and it feels natural, an integral part of her psychological makeup, and what's more it suits the character and the situations she finds herself in, while that same cheekiness sounded wrong for Whitney and his dilemma. Moreover, the book’s chapters are interspersed with the mail correspondence Jazz starts as a child with an Earth boy, Kelvin, and through these exchanges we learn much about her back-story without need for lengthy infodumps. There is a not-so-subtle veneer of pain and resentment underlying Jazz’s character, a dark side that she seems to have accepted and makes jokes about, but at the same time you can feel it places her apart from everyone else, a remoteness that seems more a form of defense than a real wish for solitude.

I guess it all boils down to the youthful transgression that caused the rift with her father, an event that still preys heavily on her mind and must be the reason Jazz constantly refuses to employ her remarkable skills to better herself: there are several instances, throughout the book, in which people point at her above-average intelligence and wonder – to her extreme annoyance – why she remains attached to what is essentially a menial job, when she could fare much better with work she’s more skilled at. It’s easy to imagine it might be a form of self-inflicted punishment – unexpressed as it remains – that coupled with her sense of fairness, and her peculiar moral code, quickly endeared her to me despite the brash surface appearance Jazz presents.

Here, though, also lies my main contention with this story: as an independent, self-sustaining woman, Jazz exerts that freedom in many areas of her life, including her sexuality, something that is not at all strange in our present time, nor should it be in the near future period - and frontier location - where Artemis is set, since the absence of Earth-style laws or morals allows that freedom in all its different declinations. As an example of that liberal mindset, we are told about a couple of siblings engaged in an incestuous relationship that chose to emigrate to the Moon to avoid condemnation for their life choices. So, why does practically everyone have to remark on Jazz’s past and present promiscuousness? Why is she targeted as the Red Woman from Babylon, in a place where you can do almost anything as long as you observe strict airlock safety? It’s a small thing, granted, but still it bothered me like an itching nose in a spacesuit…

Still, it’s a very minor quibble, and the story itself more than makes up for it, especially in the breath-stopping (literally…) final segment, where the words “compulsive reading” become quite appropriate. As my second attempt at Andy Weir’s writing, Artemis worked like a charm and the news that it’s already been optioned for a movie picture made me eager to see how this one will translate to the big screen: hopefully they will find an actress that will do Jazz the justice she deserves.

A tossup between 2/3 stars but ultimately I can't say I'd recommend it so 2 it is. It's no Martian that's for sure. The first third of the moon romp is quite good but after that it gets lost in techno babble. Admittedly 'The Martian' did that too but in a more enjoyable way. This is less space buggies and more smelter core reactors valves. One niggle was that the female protagonist was forced by the author to say something sexy esque every 25 pages or so and I just found it a bit unnecessary and forced.

The long awaited follow up to The Martian delivers on the promise displayed there. It's a more traditional story but is a first rate thriller. I'm not a big science fiction reader but this had me hooked from beginning to end. It has the potential to cross over from the sci-fi readership into the mainstream

Welcome to the lunar city of Artemis. Jaz Bashara has lived there since she was six. Her job as a Porter barely pays her rent, so she smuggles in contraband on the side to make ends meet. The police want her deported back to Earth, her father barely speaks to her, her ex shacked up with her best friend. Life isn't exactly a barrel of laughs. When one of her contraband customers offers her the chance of her biggest payday, it's too good to turn down, even though failure would mean being cast back down to Earth in disgrace. What she isn't prepared for, is to be dropped into the middle of a battle to control the city, where choosing the losing side could prove o be fatal.

There was always going to be a weight of expectation with this one, after the success of The Martian, and glad to say he didn't disappoint. It comes with the same caveat of "you don't have to love science, but it helps", however even the technophobes amongst you will be able to follow along, thanks to his no-nonsense way of explaining to through some great characters. Jaz is awesome. Super-smart, but enough of a problem child that she rubs people up the wrong way wherever she goes. Great supporting cast of Svobda, Bob, Dale, Rudy and Jaz's Dad, to name but a few. This was a really visual read for me - I could see it all unfolding as I read, and if this doesn't get snapped up to appear on screen as well I'll be amazed.

7.5/10

How do you follow up a book like "The Martian"? Every aspiring authors dream of a self published phenomenon and also made into an Oscar nominated film. Not bad really, plus it was well written and made science easily accessible to idiots like myself to boot!

So, I repeat. How the chuff do you follow that up?! Well he's certainly given it a good shot with Artemis. It's not in the same league as "The Martian" but there is plenty going on and the excitement ramps up near the end which raised my overall rating. Jazz is a great female lead with enough brains to get her in and out of many scrapes.

There is a decent pace to the book once we get past the first quarter but things were pretty slow to begin with apart from the very opening scene. It's mostly setting up the whole living on moon thing and dropping a bit of backstory for Jazz but it was a bit dry. Then things picked up with plans to take over the world moon and then the last 20% was nonstop which made me rethink my rating.

I enjoyed this overall, it was a little dry to start with but ended with the bang I was hoping for. I see it's already been picked up for a movie so I'll look forward to that shortly.

How do you follow a rock-solid debut hit, such a compelling novel as The Martian? Andy Weir gives it a good effort with Artemis, a clever story of humanity's first colony on the moon, told through the eyes of a morally challenged young woman planning the ultimate oxygen stealing caper! And, is it a further hit or the dreaded sophomore slump? Alas, a bit more the latter. It has its moments of cleverness, an interesting imagining of how life on the moon could be in the near future, with a well-thought, technically grounded vision of what and how it would take to actually set up a city on the moon. However, perhaps because you can't help to compare it to The Martian, it falls a bit flat... particularly the tone of the main character which is meant to sound real and sassy, but just comes across incredibly whiny. Was really looking forward to this one, but The Martian this isn't... maybe an unfair comparison, but sue the author for creating such high expectations following how great his first book was! 3.5 out of 5

In Andy Weir’s new novel, Artemis, everything that can go wrong, does.

Set in the lunar colony, Artemis, we follow the caper of Jazz Bashara - a twenty-six year old smuggler trying to carve out a life and make a buck. When offered a huge payday to sabotage the competitor of a client, the lure of money is too much and Jazz takes the job, only to find herself involved in a much wider conspiracy.

I was so excited for Artemis - The Martian was one of my favourite books of last year, and I absolutely loved Weir’s storytelling style in that book - and yet unfortunately this fell a little flat for me. There were plenty of things that I loved, but just as many things that didn’t work for me as a reader.

Artemis isn’t a bad book - if you like your space-action-adventure novels then this certainly has all of that. There’s a cinematic feel to it, and the way Weir built up the world of the lunar colony felt gritty and real, like it could actually exist. There are as many socio-economic tiers among the many domes that make up Artemis as there are on Earth, and industries are ruled by the nations that immigrated to the moon first and took hold of them. I loved the notion of Moon tourists and the sacredness of the first Moon landing site. I also loved the action sequences (but there’s no surprise there because it’s no secret I love action sequences, the higher the stakes, the better).

Jazz was a real let-down of a character; she felt quite juvenile - which is not a bad thing in and of itself, especially given her circumstances - but I had such a hard time connecting with her. A lot of her comments, behaviour and references were (I believe) supposed to make her appear like a tough and strong female character, but really felt forced. I also felt there were some negative stereotypes being reinforced, in a backhanded way, and that was disappointing.

I wish we got to know more of the side-characters a little better; Jazz was the narrator, and given how self-reliant she was, it made sense that she kept mostly to herself and had a habit of alienating her ‘friends,’ which works as a character trait, but doesn’t really allow for alternative character connections for the reader.

If I wear my for-fun reader hat, it’s not a bad read and there’s definitely enough to keep the casual sci-fi reader engaged. Wearing my more critical hat (which I don’t often pull out), this just pushed a few too many buttons for me to call it a great read. It hasn’t turned me off Weir as a writer - I’m interested to see what he writes next and whether it’s closer to The Martian than Artemis in style. Or maybe something completely different.

I rated Artemis 3 out of 5 stars.

I was so excited to get to read this book! I've been waiting for another Andy Weir story since I finished The Martian and Artemis certainly lived up to expectation!
Slightly slower to get started than The Martian, this book had some significant 'world building' to do in order to properly introduce us to Artemis - the first (and only) city on the moon. This wasn't a bad thing, I loved learning about it, getting to know how it came into being, its society and laws (or lack of in a lot of cases!)
Jazz was another winning character. She was smart, likeable and oh so humanly flawed and capable of making some really bad decisions. For all this you were rooting for her every step of the way.
readers of The Martian will be familiar with some elements of this book - EVA suits and lunar rovers to name a couple, but Artemis ia a whole new story - and well worth a read!

The Martian was freaking incredible so reading Andy Weir had a new book coming out made me hella excited.

The story takes place on Artemis, a new and super cool city on the moon. Our main character is Jazz Bashara, a young Saudi woman. She’s working as porter in Artemis. Well sometimes she’s more of a smuggler. There is nothing Jazz wants more than improve her living standard. So when she gets the chance to earn herself millions of dollar, she accepts a more than questionable offer.
While I thought Jazz was a very interesting character. She made a lot of mistakes in the past and is trying her best to right those. But sometimes I found her character to be lacking.
The other characters weren’t nearly as well written as Jazz. The merely seemed to exist to serve the plot. Although I found one character rather interesting and we don’t even meet him.

I have to admit I didn’t enjoy Artemis as much as I enjoyed The Martian. Nonetheless Artemis was an exciting and fun read.