Great beginning but then it lags. Building a world is never easy, but when it's foreign to the reader, it needs more description to be as visual in the reader's head as the writer's.

In the follow up to the highly successful The Martian, author Andy Weir fails to live up to the wonderful first book. In this second novel Artemis, his protagonist, a young woman named Jass, who works on the colonized moon as a delivery person, gets involved with helping someone to take over one of the many business ventures on the planet.

At first I was into this work as it reminded me of a favorite sci-fi film - Outland - but this book never lives up to its potential. Furthermore, in what appears to be a try at humanizing our character as we see pen pal conversations at the end of each chapter, do not help. In fact this latter story made me feel like I was reading a pre-teen young adult novel, and the tone of these excerpts did not balance with the rest of the novel.

Many an author does not do as well with his or her sophomore work, and the same goes for Weir. Here is hoping that with lessons learned he will continue in the fine work as produced in his first book. (I received a free ebook with the promise of leaving an honest review).

http://theliteratekitty.blogspot.com/2017/10/lunar-conspiracy-sciences-ht-out-of-me.html

So let's get this out of the way, right off the bat: anyone expecting a stellar follow-up to Andy Weir's immensely-entertaining debut, The Martian, with his sophomore outing (the soon-to-be-released Artemis), may be a little disappointed... not because it isn't a fun read, but because the bar was set SO very high from the get-go.

The Martian was in my top-five books for 2014, because it hit on all cylinders. Smart, funny, smart-ass, regular-guy hero? Check. Fascinating setting, depicted in glorious detail so that it felt like I was there, too? Check. Seemingly-impossible snafus to get out of? Check. Thrilling, edge-of-my-seat kind of ending... that also seemed plausible? Yep, check.

On paper, Artemis has most of the same kinds of things going for it. Bright, wise-acre, ordinary-gal hero (a young female protagonist who's on the shady side, but close enough)? Roger that. Cool setting, given ample descriptions to make it "real" (a little town on the moon)? Got it. Jams and scrapes aplenty (on the moon, as with Mars, it sorta goes without saying they're seemingly impossible, eh?)? You bet. Nail-biting ending? Yep, more or less.

Why, then, did Artemis leave me content to move on to the next read... rather than unwilling to pick up something new for a few days, as its predecessor did? Let's take a look...
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Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara is a porter in Artemis, the first permanent settlement on the moon ("porter" being a euphemism for smuggler, by the way). It's not so much that she's an outright criminal, more that she knows how to slide past a lot of pesky little legalities while trading in contraband, and in turn ekes out a very meager living for her efforts. So, although she's a huge disappointment to her welder father (who naturally wanted his talented daughter to follow in his respected footsteps), she manages to fill a necessary void (people who really want contraband-whatever are gonna get it somehow, after all, and Jazz does it without hurting anyone else, which is good for everyone) and mostly stay out of (serious) trouble.

When one of her regular (and more-lucrative) clients offers her a very different sort of job, though, everything changes. Things go wrong in a huge way, and Jazz finds herself at the center of a conspiracy worth gazillions to more than one party. Suddenly, she is in (seriously-big) trouble, not to mention hella danger... and finds herself in the unusual (and undesirable) position of having to ask others for help trying to fix the humdinger of a mess she has landed in.
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To Artemis' credit, Jazz is a feisty character with oodles of spunk (which plays nicely with her talents and skill sets, which I really appreciate). Additionally, there are several interesting characters for her to play off of (something The Martian had little of, given its structure), which allows for some humorous scenes. Artemis, itself, is a strong presence here, too, which further makes for good reading.

One of the biggest problems I had with Artemis, though, is the science... or rather, the amount of it. There were long passages when my eyes sort of glazed over, reading about pressurizing this or welding that. (Err on the side of being a bit skimpy on the tech instead of throwing it all in kitchen-sink style, I say.)

Another thing is that it seems to take an awfully long time to get to the "situation"... which (descriptions of the science around/behind it, aside) then doesn't take all that long to resolve, considering the build-up. I felt a little cheated at the end, sort of like, "Is that it?". (Again, this comes in stark comparison to The Martian, in which the entire story deals with handling one, always-growing, ever-changing problem.)

Finally, in the realm of "it ain't broke, so don't fix it", Weir may have only two novels under his belt, to date, but both follow a very similar pattern... which is notable, when that formula (for instance, the messages to a friend on earth) is so specific. (As it happens, it's a good formula that serves him well, but still...)

Am I glad I read Artemis? Yes, and I definitely enjoyed it (though I didn't love it). Is it something of a letdown, after the brilliance of Weir's first book? Well, yeah, that, too. (It certainly wasn't "meh", but it wasn't "OMG, wow", either.) Will I look forward to whatever comes next from Weir's head and pen (ok, keyboard)? Absolutely... so in the end, no harm, no foul (even if this outing wasn't his best work).

~GlamKitty

[Note: I received an advance copy of this book in return for providing my honest thoughts on it via this review.]

Andy Weir, a Campbell Award winner in 2016, had researched his first book, The Martian, starting back in 2009, then released it chapter-by-chapter on his website for free, compiled the story into a Kindle edition for $0.99, rose to the top echelon of Amazon's sci-fi bestsellers, after which the book was picked up by Crown Publishing in 2014. Presumably, some editorial polishing occurred. The book shined, hit the bestseller lists, became an Audie Award-winning audiobook, and was adapted into a film with Matt Damon. I’m sure that the pressure to live up to those results in a follow-up novel was and is immense. So I’m sad to say that I am sorely disappointed in reading Weir’s new outing, Artemis.

The exact cocktail that makes a book about a man struggling to survive as the sole occupant on Mars involved bravado, bluster, humor, 80’s music, geekery and hard science. Weir’s use of these things in The Martian paid off, as did the tight plot, time pressure and focus on survival. Mark Watney’s characteristics do not, however, drape handily into a barely female character like Jazz Bashara. Her character in this book is a thinly built, wise-cracking criminal with boobs (pretty much Weir’s own words), and the story of her criminal activities and gambit to survive their consequences is not well developed and isn't compelling. I was put off early in the book by the fact that Jazz appears to have been initially developed as a gender-neutral or possibly male skeleton character who was later given breasts to make her female, a female birth name (Jasmine), a nationality (Saudi) and religion (Muslim, but just barely). There is nothing about this character that reads as a female. (This is, by the way, stuff that currently makes female writers and readers rail vehemently.) We never find anything of depth or empathy in this character and her story. She is immature, risk-taking, shallow, and has few if any real friends, other than her pen pal. She is 26 years old, a criminal, unobservant, and even ignorant of important facts. For instance, if you are a smuggler operating in the equivalent of a small, enclosed city, it would behoove you to know about the major crime syndicate operating in your community, what they own, who works for them, and how to stay out of their way, assuming that’s even possible with a major crime syndicate. Jazz, we are led to believe by the end of the book, runs the sole smuggling operation on the Moon, working with the assistance a childhood pen pal employed back at the Kenya Space Corporation. The mob has no interest in getting a take of her profits evidently. (Because crime syndicates aren't interested in smuggling, natch.) She singlehandedly keeps the street drugs and guns out of Artemis, and the mob is just fine with that. The mob has a sole enforcer living in the Artemis base and even he doesn't have a gun. The enforcer and Jazz mostly stay out of each other's way until they don't. Jazz's biggest fear is getting deported back to the earth. Not because she's a Saudi woman who would have to live a more restricted life there if she remained in Saudi Arabia with family, which she seems likely to have to do if she's deported without assets, but merely because she has been raised since age six in a low gravity environment and will have to take treatments to build bone density and muscle mass. No consideration to her culture and potential social circumstances is given, presumably because that's just too complex. Jazz is supposed to be so smart and has so much potential. Where is the evidence of that in her actions and choices?

So much of the plot is implausible, and then we have the style in which this book is written. That old saw about writing- don’t tell me, show me- is ignored with an extensive epistolary element with her penpal Kelvin, which lazily explains the backstory of Jazz’s relationships (with Sean, with Tyler, and oh by the way, now she’s a slut because she has post-break-up sex with other men), and the founding of her/their smuggling operation. We never meet Kelvin, her partner at KSC, who sends up the goods she wants to smuggle into Artemis on the weekly shipments that leave the KSC launch site for Artemis.

Rooting for a blustery Mark Watney to survive and safely return home from Mars was something that engaged the reader, and in the story itself, an entire planet. Rooting for a blustering, liminal female criminal saboteur, who ignorantly gets caught up in a mob operation, is pretty hard to do. We could call it an anti-hero story, but honestly, with stretches of awkwardly written science separating complicated EVA action, and with hardly any real character development, it is difficult to engage the reader enough to make fine distinctions. I stuck it out to finish this book, but a planned buddy read of it was canceled to preserve the well-being of my blogging buddy.

A disappointing read.

As a big fan of The Martian, I was so excited to be approved for this ARC. I had already pre-ordered Artemis on amazon. I was not disappointed in that Artemis shares the same attention, technical detail, and incredible intelligence in world building and problem solving as The Martian, as well as Mr. Weir's signature humor. Unfortunately, I don't think things were done quite as well in this book as in his last. Although it was still an entertaining read.

Artemis is about a twenty something woman who's grown up for most of her life in the first colony on the moon. She accepts an industrial sabotage job in order to make the huge amount of money that she needs for mysterious purposes, and shenanigans ensue. Overall, I found this highly entertaining. Although the novel had a few issues and did start to lose me toward the end.

My expectations of Weir's writing might have been a little too high, based on The Martian, which made this fall a little flat in the end. I really appreciate Weir's dry, irreverent humor, but in this book it often felt a bit forced, and more crude than humorous. Our main character Jazz was way too smart/talented to be believable as a human being. She was like a super hero. Or super computer. Any problem could be solved easily by her super human abilities. The very few times she needed help she turned to her cast of cardboard cut out caricatures masquerading as secondary characters in the book. All of these characters seemed like that could be really interesting, had they been fleshed out at all. Unfortunately, they weren't. I appreciate Weir trying to write a female main character for this book, but I say trying, because I don't think it worked that well. I had a hard time connecting with Jazz or hearing her voice as anything other than Weir's. She was not much more fleshed out than her shallow side characters. I spent the entire book waiting to learn more about all of them and connect to them, but it never happened. I also remember two distinct spots in the book where Jazz describes something she had no way of seeing/knowing. It was jarring and strange. In one spot it has her describing a fight in great detail that is taking place on the other side of a door. The whole time I was like she can't see this, how does she know? And another time she describes her own death. I can understand that the information was necessary to the plot, but it took me right out of the moment and felt very odd to be told what was happening by a character who would have had no way of knowing.

For the most part I really enjoyed reading this book. I was able to look past the fact that Jazz sounded more like an older guy than a young woman and that she would low-key need to have super powers to accomplish the things she was doing. It was humorous and mostly entertaining. The technical descriptions only became tedious once or twice, and there was only one instance about 75% in, when I truly debated setting the book down and giving up. This didn't blow me away like The Martian did, but I enjoyed it and will still look for more of Andy Weir's work in the future.

*ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for honest review.

I really wasn't able to get into this. I don't know if it's me or the book. I did read and enjoy The Martian, but this felt like just a repetition of the same personality, but in a girl this time. Which just fell a little flat for me. I did not finish this though, so I feel strange giving this a full review. :c

I love his writing. It’s smart, sarcastic, and quick. He knows how to construct a hell of a plot and excellent characters and I enjoyed how this one was a thriller with a western feel but in space. But something fell flat. The breaking of the 4th wall was unnecessary, he tried too hard with the sarcasm, and dude, we get it. You’re smart with science. It was a quick read with strong female characters and I recommend it but it does fall flat at times.

An exciting, fast paced book, that readers will find hard to put down. Readers of "The Martian" will find similar explanations of processes, and procedures of life in space. Andy Weir's humor is prevalent through the entire book. Some of the situations the protagonist gets into may require some suspension of disbelief, but not to the detriment of the plot. Overall a great read, and recommended to anyone who likes science fiction, action, and adventure.

On the moon's only city, Jazz gets by from smuggling and delivering items to wealthy citizens. When she is offered more money than she can make in a lifetime to sabotage a company, she jumps at the chance. When she is caught, she finds herself in the midst of a conspiracy, where the stakes mean life and death for herself and the city itself. This was an well written and dynamic story. The characters and plot were creative and interesting. I look forward to reading the next book by Andy Weir.

It was always going to be difficult to replicate the insane success of The Martian, but Artemis holds up pretty well on its own. The characters are generally likable (I loved Jazz's personality) and the new world on the moon is fascinating. Science and economics take center stage here, which makes for an interesting lesson on how civilizations run.

I await the inevitable movie.

How do you follow up a mega hit? On the heels of <em>The Martian</em>, Andy Weir's breakaway hit that seemingly came out of nowhere, Weir does a wise thing and DOESN'T try to recreate the magic of his first book. Instead, he goes a slightly different route. Instead of a survivor-in-the-wild adventure story, we have a story that is more of a YA mystery. With a female protagonist. But the hard science that we loved in <em>The Martian</em> is still here.

<em>Artemis</em> is set on the moon. It is the name of the first, and only lunar city. Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara lives in Artemis and has since she was six - for two decades. She's got an incredible talent for welding and it's a trade that could serve her well, but Jazz is too much of a rebel to conform to a steady, union job. Instead, she scrambles for an existence by smuggling small-time goods into Artemis. She dreams of the day when she can lead tours on the lunar surface - a job only a very few, highly trained, individuals get to do, and they are well compensated for their efforts.

But things have been slow and Jazz failed her most recent EVA test on the surface. What she needs is a top-of-the-line space suit, but to get that, she needs money.

After delivery some smuggled goods to her best customer, Jazz is made an offer that she simply can't refuse. The customer has a plan to take over the production and delivery of oxygen to all of Artemis, but he needs Jazz's help in sabotaging the equipment that currently brings in the supplies. In exchange for her work of destruction, she'll be paid a small fortune - enough to buy the suit she desperately needs. Of course, she could wind up killing everyone on the moon while she's at it.

I really liked that this story was so completely different from the previous book. I thought about it quite often - making the comparison that is inevitable considering <em>The Martian</em>'s popularity. Jazz was a very different character and she was quite likable - not an easy feat given that she's a smuggler and saboteur. However, I was CONSTANTLY picturing her as a fifteen or sixteen year old. Everything she did and the way she spoke suggested a wise but immature girl, rather than a woman in her mid-twenties. I was fine with her being younger and it definitely seemed 'right' but subtle reminders of her age took me out of the story.

Jazz has a pen-pal relationship with a male on earth. These notes back and forth only add to the suggestion of Jazz being a teen rather than a young, mature woman. The notes are quite interesting, giving us a unique look into her personal life, and I did wonder, early on, why these missives were included in the story. It becomes clear later on.

The science that Weir adds is great and certainly part of what we readers have already come to like about his work. Yet this sometimes felt too much - that the science explanation for something was being offered just for the sake of showing off the technical knowledge and not because it was necessary for the story.

Still...I enjoyed my time in Artemis, with Jazz and those she worked with and those she worked against. In trying to rate this book on its own merit, and not as 'the next book following <em>The Martian,</em>' I would definitely find it flawed but enjoyable and something that would prompt me to want to read more by the author.

Looking for a good book? <em>Artemis</em> by Andy Weir is an adventure/mystery on the moon with plenty of interesting characters, solid science, and a decent story. It is definitely worth reading.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

A fun read with clear world-building, a strong and varied cast of characters, and Weir's conversational first-person narrative style. I could see the story clearly while I was reading, opening up this lunar caper for great book-to-screen potential.

Andy Weir is back! After the immense success of “The Martian”, Weir catapults another protagonist against nearly insurmountable odds. Unlike “The Martian” who had to survive alone in uninhabitable surroundings, his new character is up against a hostile environment as well as on the run from everybody around her. Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara lives in Artemis, the first and only city on the Moon and makes a less than decent living as a “porter” transporting goods arriving from Earth to the inhabitants of Artemis. Even eking out her income smuggling all kind of forbidden goods to the richer citizens of Artemis, she is far from assembling the money to fulfill her dream of opening her own shop. Then she gets an irresistible offer from one of her clients that would solve all her problems once and for all or put her in the deepest trouble ever. Naturally not all goes well and she finds herself in the middle of a shady conspiracy and on the run from law and criminals alike.
As in “The Martian” Andy Weir skillfully interweaves facts with suspenseful fiction which makes “Artemis” another gripping and unputdownable reading! His writing style is as witty and inventive as in “The Martian” and I can recommend “Artemis”to SF buffs and mystery story readers alike!!!

I really enjoyed this one! Maybe not quite as much as "The Martian" but this has more rollicking adventure in it. I loved our main protagonist! She is a fun and daring character, and I liked her immediately. The mystery is good, and keeps you reading to figure out exactly what is going on. I also loved the setting. Weir has a real talent for incorporating all the science into the story without it getting boring. The dangers of living on the moon really add to the suspense. A great read, and one I recommend!

This book is about a kick-ass smuggler Jazz Bashara. In order to make up with her father in which she is in debt to, she vandalizes the moon's oxygen making system. Her plan gets foiled and she realizes she is in deeper trouble than she thinks. And this time it's not just Jazz in trouble it's the whole moon community of "Artemis."
Overall I rated this book four stars out of five. This was an awesome well written book. The main female character Jazz is fantastically written. She is your strong, confident, kick-ass, sarcastic woman. We need more strong female characters in books. And this book gives it 100 percent. This book follows "The Martian" in a well told story.
I would like to thank Netgalley, Andy Weir, and Crown Publishing Group for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Crown Publishing for letting me read a digital ARC of this book.
I, like many others I think , LOVED The Martian. I'm an Astronomy teacher, so I particularly loved how specific and particular Weir was about the science he included in that book. In Artemis, I think I was looking for more of the same. --That is not what I got. Artemis is a totally different experience from The Martian, but if you can take it on its own merits, it's a fun book to read.
The story follows Jazz, a (young, female) smuggler in the only city on the Moon, she gets into some trouble & we see how she deals with that. There is once again some good science, and some nice historical nods to the Apollo program, which I enjoyed.

I enjoyed this book for the largest part. I found it easy to read and the flow of the story kept me interested. I particular thought the opening of the book was a good hook to get the reader's interest, without jumping you very far into the plot. I liked the heroine's character for the most part, strong willed, not afraid to be different, and unconcerned with most people's opinions of her. I don't really like how she was portrayed as slutty throughout by everyone, it would be one thing to see that side of her behind the scenes and see the inner dialogue where she has thoughts that lead us to the same conclusion about her sexual appetite, but the fact that half the town thinks she's easy seems pretty excessive. It just seems unrealistic really. Not a trait I find favorable for a heroine to have. Yes, you wrote a book with a heroine lead character, but no my daughters will not read this book if I have anything to do with it. Maybe in another decade I won't care because they'll be old enough and intelligent enough to make their own decisions, but most parents aren't going to like this portrayal for the young adult readers. I thought the book was relatively short and there seemed to be an effort to keep the foul language to a minimum, so other than my issues with the main character it would be a decent book for YA readers. Not that she isn't potentially realistic and her character is fine with me as a male reader, other than seeming unlikely. Her character development seemed good, you get a good feel for her mindset and that despite her being on the wrong side of the law she is very principled. I think most people will like her as the narrator. Her narrative voice and inner monologue keeps things interesting. Although, there are several times when I feel like she is more Americanized than a Saudi who lives on the moon with a handful of other Americans should be. There was plot and subplot which I thought helped keep the story interesting. The author's ability to throw in detailed information about the science of how things function is a great benefit to the story. I feel like he has simplified the complications of a low pressure pure oxygen environment, but it's sci-fi so at least it's reasonable. I know NASA ran many missions to the moon, as well as others this way, but living in it long term would be very complicated. The only mention of negative effects of reduced gravity were the reduction of bone density and muscle mass, such as in the arms and legs. Your heart would suffer from a low G environment in a currently irreparable way. The author mostly ignored this issue rather than offer a random solution, so unless the reader is already aware of potential long term effects, it probably has no impact on the story to them. Another issue I had with the world was that it was not as structured as I would believe life on the moon would have to be. It's kind of like the wild west up there in the story, but it wouldn't happen that way. Initially everything would be the same, same rules, same structures, same boring routines to ensure nothing ever went wrong and endangered the early inhabitants. This would carry over into the more economized world that this story takes place in. Of course economics would allow things to start to change overtime, but the initial look and functionality of everything would have been equitable, not all based on how much income you currently make. Safety and functionality always come first in these environments. I thought the ending was interesting and had some twists so that it wasn't entirely predictable. Overall, I would rate the book 3.75 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and Crown Publishing for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review. I am a big fan of both The Martian book and movie, so I was so excited to find out about Andy Weir's new book. He does a great job giving the reader a visual, fascinating picture of futuristic life on the moon. The story was full of suspense, action, and intrigue. I got a little bogged down at times with the scientific explanations, but his knowledge is impressive. I thought the book could easily be a young adult novel, minus the adult language and situations. The STEM aspect of the novel would present so many classroom lessons and opportunities. Although I enjoyed the book, I think this one will make a better movie. It would be a thrilling experience to see on the big screen.

I was so looking forward to Andy Weir's second book. But it really fell short. The plot seemed convoluted and I had a sense that the book was rushed. I couldn't really like the main character. Just because she "saved the city" (with help) doesn't excuse the criminal activity upon which she thrives.

Maybe book three will be better. Sigh