If you can get past the fact that this character feels the same as Weir’s main character in The Martian (I was able to) I think you’ll enjoy this story! I loved the adventure of it and the setting of the lunar town, Artemis.
Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher!

This is another humorous book of sci fi action from Weir. A great narrator leads you through a fun cast of characters to deliver you to a satisfying ending.

It was ok, at best. Like a lot of people, I read and enjoyed The Martian, and therefore had high expectations for Artemis.

The story was interesting, but some parts were explained too much, other parts not enough. There's a fair amount of cussing and juvenile insults. While not necessarily a turn off, in this case it was just too much. The main character is a smuggler in her mid-20s, who maintains she's got her standards in her dealings and what she brings in... you would think she wouldn't sound like a 14 year old teenager, pissed at the world. How is she expected to maintain a client base if she's insulting everyone? And she's definitely pissed at everyone too, except for her father, whom she dodges, and a friend she's too oblivious to notice he has feelings for her.

The ending sounds like he's gearing to make another story after this. While I'm not opposed to this, I hope he finds a way to improve on things a bit. It's unfortunate he missed the mark developing the characters the way he did, there's so little wiggle room to fix them. I hope he explains how things came to be a bit more, but I'm doubtful.

All in all, compared to The Martian, it was a letdown. More of a "borrow from the library" read, in my opinion. I look forward to his future books, but I honestly hope he moves away from this story.

I enjoyed this one. I liked the main character's "voice". I don't think we'd be friends, but if I were planning a space heist, top of my list.

The plot was good, moved quickly and had some good turns.

Andy Weir is not a one-book-wonder. Artemis, his follow-up novel from The Martian, is set on the moon and is a brilliant novel of humanity's "keep-on-keepin'-on" along with a smattering of avarice, greed, and survival. Highly recommend!

Disclosure: Received e-copy from publisher and NetGalley in exchange for honest review.

Ok, so friends said it wasn’t good. I read it anyway and I liked it. Jazz kicks ass and solves her problems with her brain; any strong female lead character is a good one in my opinion. Plus, any mystery/heist book that is set on the moon and therefore has to take zero gravity into account (and does it right!) gets my vote.

I would encourage anyone who has read “The Martian” or seen the blockbuster movie to put aside any preconceived notions about what Andy Weir’s second book “Artemis” will be like. “The Martian” generated so much advance buzz, in part because of the unusual way it achieved bestseller status, that it wouldn’t be fair to compare the two books.

Jasmine Bashar is a struggling independent delivery person on the moon base of Artemis where she engages in small-time smuggling in order to improve her marginal and mundane existence. Then she’s offered a chance at a big-time payoff and the wild ride is on. Essentially this is a fast-paced action caper with plenty of humor and science thrown in, but setting the book on the moon enriches the story. Jazz is a resourceful and clever problem solver (think a female MacGyver) and the perilous situations she finds herself in kept me racing through the book. I felt that the extensive scientific descriptions somewhat slowed down the pace, but other readers may appreciate that level of detail. “Artemis” is a fun and fast read that allowed me to focus on lunar shenanigans instead of the problems here on earth.

My review was posted on Goodreads on 11/26/17

4.5/5 Stars

Like a lot of people, I think The Martian by Andy Weir is one of the best books written over the past few years. It took a little while to become as popular as it did, considering Andy began releasing the book in parts on his website, but with the inclusion of a film starring Matt Damon, it garnered a ton of attention, and deservedly so. It had a perfect mix of hard science, space travel, humor, and a character you could really root for. So now we have Artemis, Andy's follow-up ( not a sequel to ) to The Martian which just so happens to also take place in space (surprise surprise).

Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara is a porter in Artemis, the first and only city on the Moon. Though it generally takes large amounts of wealth to enjoy the city's many hospitalities, Jazz scrapes by with her meager salary and side hustle, smuggling in contraband to some of the city's wealthy. One day, a client of hers offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make some serious dough, but getting caught can lead to her deportation back to Earth. What begins as a wonderment of life on the Moon unfolds into a life-altering and dangerous heist, one that uncovers more than she asked for, but one that could end up giving Jazz all she has ever wanted.

Weir does a fantastic job setting up the entire city in the first couple of chapters, beginning with Jazz attempting her EVA exam outside of the bubble to life in the underground and above. He also gives Jazz plenty of redeeming qualities that will resonate with a lot of readers. The only downside of the book is Jazz's personality: you will either love or hate her. While she is introduced as a twenty-six year old with genius level smarts, she comes off as a angsty teen in most instances which can be a turn off to some. But I will say, Rosario Dawson makes up for any shortcomings because she really brought Jazz to life in the narration.

Those who are looking for The Martian, Part 2 will be disappointed, but there is still plenty of sciencing to go around. Weir does not let up on the amount of over your head, over the top hypothesis/experimentation/success or failure and that is what I have come to love about his work. It gives me something to do when I finish the novel: research and learn. He also brings just enough humor for those who loved Whatney's antics. The "moon" building is fantastic and you can picture what life could really be like on its surface.

I had high hopes for this book after being completely engrossed by The Martian. Weir's storytelling and scientific writing is still A+, but I found myself lacking any interest or emotional connection with the characters themselves. Ultimately, I didn't even finish it. I've spoken with a few other patrons at my library that had the same experience. I would still recommend it to patrons who enjoy science fiction, but if they've read The Martian I'd warn them that they might not have the same experience.

It can never be easy writing a follow-up to a book as popular as The Martian but Weir nailed it. Jazz isn't quite as great as Mark Watley, although she's still a lot of fun. I appreciate her snark, her smarts and her ability to both take care of herself and also know when she needs help. It's heavy on the science and math stuff, which I tend to skim, but Watley still manages to make it palpable and even entertaining. Note: this is not a sequel to The Martian. Some people thought it was and were subsequently disappointed. Don't make that mistake. It's a solid, stand-alone book that will keep you entertained with its fast-paced plot and interesting characters.

It’s rare that a film adaptation is as good as the book and even more so for the movie to be better, but that, I thought, was the case for The Martian, and I’m guessing will be true as well for Andy Weir’s sophomore effort Artemis, the film version I’m assuming is just about ready to start shooting based on the huge success of its predecessor.

The title shares its name with the moon’s sole city, home to 26-year-old Jasmine Bashara, whose job as delivery person is a big plus for her real money-making job: smuggling. When one of her regular clients proposes a much more lucrative (and risky) job, one that is a big jump up in criminality, she takes him up on the offer. As one might expect, things don’t go as planned and soon she is running and hiding for her life, pulling friends and not-friends into the ever-escalating danger, and eventually risking the lives of everyone inside Artemis.

Though on the surface Artemis appears wholly different from The Martian – Muslim female vs. white male protagonist, working together vs. working (mostly) in isolation, big crime organization vs. big govt. organization — the two share a lot of the same DNA, for both good and ill. There’s a lot of sharp banter and internal quipping; a good amount of science, math, and engineering; both characters fix, jury-rig, or take apart a lot of machinery, often on the fly; there’s an urgent deadline or bad things will happen, and so forth. All of these are executed to varying degrees of success. If you loved The Martian, my guess is you’ll like Artemis, probably quite a bit. If, like me, you found Weir’s first book enjoyable but held back to just above middling thanks to its flaws, you’ll probably have the same criticisms here.

Jasmine is an engaging if not always likable (just the opposite on many occasions actually) character, and her voice is mostly fun to follow along with. But her character is marred by not really feeling like a 26-year-old Muslim (non-practicing) woman but more like a 19-year-old male version of one (maybe cutting down on her blowjob jokes would have helped ameliorate this). And she’s a bit too brilliant and handy, making it hard to feel any true concern when she ends up in a sticky situation.

Which she does. A lot. One of my criticisms of The Martian was the repetitive nature of the plot: crisis — “oh shit” explanation of just how bad it is — Math + Science + Tools + Handiwork — crisis solved —new crisis — repeat. The same pattern holds true here, and while individually the scenes are well done, the cumulative impact is that they start to pale and rob the later scenes of true suspense.

On the other hand, despite issues with Jasmine’s character and super-skill, I have to give props to Weir for stretching himself authorially, not just with gender and ethnicity, but also in the way he presents more of a dark/depressed side to Jasmine than we ever saw with Watney. Again, the execution is mixed, but her hardscrabble life, her estrangement from her father, her troubled love life and current isolation make her a richer character in lots of ways, and I would imagine this bodes well for his next work.

Beyond Jasmine, the other characters lack any real definition, serving more as necessary props to the action, sometimes in predictable fashion. The science is often interesting in itself (such as why coffee on the moon would be so bad), but often feels a bit clumsily inserted, and bogs the story down in too many spots. Similarly, Weir relies a bit too many times (or for too long at a time) on wholly expository scenes that also slow the pace. Finally, there were more than a few times where acts seemed just too implausible, beginning with Jasmine’s easy acceptance of the client’s proposal. As one more specific example, a hotel security guard explains that he didn’t chase someone because “He had a knife. Best to let him go.” This in a half-kilometer wide bubble in a city where two people were just brutally stabbed to death.

I breezed through Artemis in a single sitting, so despite the pacing issues it’s a fast read, and it’s certainly something I’d recommend to fans of The Martian. If you thought The Martian was just OK, I’d say you'd say the same here. But the film version on the other hand . . . .

Andy Weir the author of The Martian has just released his second novel, Artemis. This second book is not a continuation of The Martian. It is a standalone sci-fi crime novel.

As someone who enjoys mystery/thriller and also Sci-Fi, this book was a good blend of both worlds. The story takes place on the moon and deals with a young woman named Jazz. She is a delivery person who moonlights as a smuggler.

The plot involves her getting an offer from a regular smuggling customer to help with a shady business deal. She agrees but quickly her part of the plan goes sideways. Quickly she finds herself on the run from both the moon’s only cop and corporate hitmen. I don’t want to give any spoilers but there is more to the deal and the hitmen, you will just have to read it to find out.

Eventually to fix her problem she gets a group of friends together to help pull a scam. Her plan is very reminiscent of heist movies like Ocean’s Eleven.

The story has a good place. There is some decent world building without having heavy infodumps. There are also a number of action scenes each one building more risk to Jazz and her team.

My only complaint about this story was that Jazz seems like a YA character. Yet to appeal to older folks she has streaks of vulgarity and sexuality added. One moment she is just an insolent youth the next she is a foul-mouthed slut.

Overall I would recommend this Artemis to anyone looking for something to read. It has the right amounts of sci-fi, mixed with mystery and crime caper to keep the pages turning.

Solid sci-fi read. I enjoyed the setting of Artemis, a town on the moon. The author did a great job of making it feel real. As for characters, our protagonist Jazz was the only one we really got an in-depth feel for, which to me wasn't a negative since she was very entertaining. She definitely doesn't fit the mode of your typical heroine. In other words, she is bitchy, lazy, a criminal, and smart (feel like females really only get to be intellectually smart OR street smart-she's both- and she lacks emotional intelligence so yay getting past archetypes). Jazz definitely didn't set out to be the heroine either, her life goals are to smuggle, make money and be lazy. But when a heist Jazz is working on goes wrong, she finds that the alternative is even worse than her crime. She, and those she drags more or less unwillingly, make a plan to save Artemis to keep life the way it is in their little bubble. Definitely pick it up if you like sarcasm and action.

'Artemis' by Andy Weir is his follow up to 'The Martian.' I loved that book, and this one wasn't too bad either.

Jazz Bashara lives on the moon in a city named Artemis. The city is made up of a series of domes named after famous astronauts. There is a booming tourism business to visit the moon landing site nearby. But Jazz is struggling to make money. On the legal side, she is a courier. On the criminal side, she smuggles things in from Earth for citizens of Artemis, including a crazily wealthy client who likes his cigars. He proposes a job for Jazz that will make her a lot of money. If you think everything will go perfectly, you didn't read 'The Martian.'

Comparisons are inevitable. Mark Watney and Jazz Bashara are both wise-cracking protagonists who are also very good at solving problems. Mark does so with more discipline and rigor, Jazz, less so, but in both cases this is in keeping with her character. Mark is more of a loner by circumstance and choice, but Jazz has a whole group of friends, enemies, and former ex-lovers.

I loved 'The Martian' as well as the movie that was made from it. This book took me a bit longer to get in to. I really didn't care for Jazz's particular brand of coarse humor, and, I felt, it took away from the character. Still the book gets to a point where the narrative whips along and I found myself turning pages wondering what was going to happen. I wasn't disappointed.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Crown Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

Sell Me in a Sentence: I’m gonna have a hard time trying to sell you on this one, but if you generally like reading about space (and maybe other science fiction as well, although I love sci-fi and am not that into this), you’ll get some enjoyment from this.

Summary: Our MC, Jazz, uses her smuggling skills to provide for herself on the moon’s first city, Artemis. But one day, her smuggling and misdoings get herself and the rest of the Artemisians in trouble. In a delicate and lethal environment, will she be able to make things right?

Review: I walked away from this book by deleting it from my Kindle library and yelling, “Phew”! I really loved Weir’s previous book, The Martian, but Artemis for me often felt like a chore. I think this disinterest may be simply because I have never thought a whole lot about the moon (compared to other planets and galaxies). The structure and style didn’t do it for me. I did read Artemis all the way through though, as the concepts and ideas introduced about life on the moon ended up intriguing me.

Jazz is a smart ass with very few noteworthy traits besides maybe purposely defying expectations for young women in this city. Andy Weir is excellent at writing funny jokes and dialogue, and he puts a lot of that in Jazz’s internal monologue, but there’s just not as much bite here as The Martian had. Mark Watney used his sense of humor to essentially keep himself sane. His humor was biting because he realized his fleeting mortality and that he no longer could rely on the skills of the individuals from his mission’s team for support and survival. Humor here is not nearly as dynamic in the book; it is just used as a cheap device to keep the readers engaged without providing the audience with an adequate storyline to sink your teeth into.

I think I would like to read more stories about space colonies in the future, but the way in which Weir very quickly exposes his readers to the dark underbelly of this small society did not appeal to me. I think I would have been more interested in reading about this world from the perspective of the head of the Kenyan Space Corporation, for example, rather than from Jazz’s perspective. I think the management of Artemis would have been exciting to read about and could also feature intensity and action adventure.

I give Artemis at 2.5/5 STARS. Read The Martian instead (as if this isn’t my 8th recommendation of this book on Booklr already)!

Thank you Netgalley for sending me a copy of Artemis in exchange for an honest review.

I was excited to get into this book when I got it from NetGalley. But then I got even more excited when I found out that Rosario Dawson was going to narrate it. She's got a great voice. So I waited. What a fantastic job she did. She made Jazz and the rest of the characters come to life.

I was going to include the blurb but it's long so I'll give a quick summary without giving anything away.

Jazz Bashara is a woman who knows how to get what people want. She's a super-smart smuggler with many skills. Sort of a less strong Xena, if you will, but much more straight <g> and with lots of knowledge of science and metallurgy. When she agrees to pull off a job that will set her up for life, all hell breaks loose and she finds herself on the run.

If you read Weir's previous book, The Martian, it shouldn't surprise you that there's lots of science going on in the story. Initially, I thought that aspect was pretty cool, but it did get to be a bit much for my non-scientist brain. It gave a lot of authenticity to the story but, after a while, I could feel my attention waiver until something else happened.

I guess I should get the things I didn't care for out of the way and then I'll get to the things that really worked for me.

Besides the heavy science-talk, I found a lot of what happened very predictable, especially the last several chapters. I was talking back to the narrator to let her know what was going to happen because, surely, Jazz should have figured it out by then. The only other thing I can think of right now is that some things were repeated that didn't need to be. Just little things, but they still stood out to me. It's a weird thing that my brain does that very well won't bother the vast majority of readers but there you go...

Ok, now the good stuff! Weir builds Artemis so completely. Like I did with The Martian, I had to remind myself a few times that the city and characters were all pretend. Fantastic world building and Jazz is very well fleshed out. I was a bit sad when the book ended. I wanted to spend some more time with these people. And, of course, did I mention what a great job Rosario Dawson did?

Even with the little things that I didn't love, I will still read this one again. I enjoyed it that much. And Jazz is a character I'll want to spend more time with.

Big thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ebook. And thanks to Rosario Dawson and Audible for doing such a great job on the audio!

An ARC was provided by the Publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

I’m thrilled I was able to read this book before publication. I loved The Martian when it came out and I was equally charmed with this book. Here’s a short list of what I loved about the book:

First, the protagonist is a woman of color (specifically, she and her father are from Saudi Arabia), who is living on the moon and is probably a genius.

Second, for those who love this type of story: it’s a caper! Pleased with how this develops throughout the novel. So many specific skills are in play here because the novel is set in space. Adds a lot of drama and is (almost) educational.

Third, it takes place on the moon and there is a whole bunch of engineering, chemistry, and math that goes along with that, but, much like The Martian, the book didn’t feel bogged down by the science-heavy language.

What elevates this book from most stories set in space is that many of the tropes of space exploration and colonization are flipped. The person who founded Artemis, and remains its mayor is from Kenya. The team that primarily runs life support is Vietnamese. Jazz and her father are from Saudi Arabia, along with many of the welders who live within Artemis. The aluminum plant is run by Brazilians. All of these countries are primarily known within this lifetime as third world countries (not first world, at least), but in this future they are the leaders of a new technological age. The United States and other first world countries are not the primary drivers and creators. I expected the United States to play a more prominent role in the creation of Artemis (based on my preconceived notions), but it seems that Americans are mostly useful as tourists. As a side note, the novel doesn’t delve into what has happened on Earth to change the political landscape, however, it is largely irrelevant to the story.

The plot gets started when an Elon Musk-like character hires Jazz to destroy the Aluminum facility on the moon. She needs the money to make up for past mistakes, but the job is not as simple as it seems. Her one person operation turns into a team effort once the Brazilians discover she’s responsible and send for her to be killed. Artemis seems like a happy-go-lucky place, but it turns out there’s a lot going on in the underbelly of society, including Jazz’s smuggling operation.

Jasmine (Jazz) Bashara is a fun character. She’s incredibly smart; in one scene she learns about and designs a schematic for a piece of equipment in three hours, which impresses her kinda-sorta Ukrainian love interest, Svoboda. She’s also resourceful; knowing Artemis and the limits of the life support systems, she takes advantage of what she can and solves problems for what she can’t. Her biggest flaw is that she is stubborn and she isolates herself from people who actually care about her, but she is the type of person that will try to make up for her mistakes in her own way.

The rest of the cast is skimmed over in character development, since this is a caper story, we’re seeing the whole operation from only Jazz’s POV and we don’t know much about the other people on her team beyond what Jazz shares with us. What’s missing is a lot of their relationship history. We get some of it throughout the novel via interludes of emails between Jazz and her on Earth pen pal/ co-smuggler, Kelvin, but reader’s are limited to Jazz’s side of the story this way. It would have been more fulfilling to know all the characters outside of her perspective (maybe this will happen in the movie?). Also, near the end, that much of the “consequences” (to as vague as possible) were skimmed over or minimized. However, this didn’t impact my rating too dramatically. It’s a fun read and fans of The Martian will definitely enjoy it.

First off, I enjoyed the story. Living on the moon, how cool would that be? From the sound of it, not much. Jazz Bashara, is a 26-year old smuggler. Living in a room the size of a coffin, she is struggling to make money so she can pay for a debt she feels she owes. When a wealthy businessman offers her an illegal job where she will make a million slugs, Jazz can't refuse. However, things don't go as planned.

I only recommend this book if you loved The Martian. I enjoyed the movie a lot more than the book. Everything I disliked in The Martian is tenfold in this book. Once again all the science knowledge bored me. But the worst part about this book was the protagonist herself, Jazz. She was so annoying! Half the time I thought she was 16 years old and I had to keep reminding myself that she is in her 20s. Mr. Weir needs a lesson on how a woman's mind really thinks.

I felt like I was reading a YA sci-fi book. This is my 2nd read from this author and I'm not sure I will read any more from him.

Thank you to Netgalley and Crown Publishing for the opportunity to read a copy of Andy Weir's "Artemis" in exchange for an honest review.