Cover Image: Artemis

Artemis

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An underwhelming and very conventional follow up to the Martian. While Weir's first book was smart, unpredictable, and memorable, this fell flat, with unrelatable characters and a ham-fisted plot that left me rolling my eyes.

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Author Andy Weir faced a problem. His first book The Martian became a phenomenon that inspired an excellent movie. So how could he follow that up?

His solution was to write a book whose main character, Jazz Bashara, is a petty criminal, a smuggler who, while being exceptional smart, is also incredibly lazy who has wasted her every opportunity. This seems a long way from clean-cut all-American astronaut Mark Watney. At the same time, Artemis, named for only city on the moon, emphasizes engineering with lots of technical details and even a struggle to survive on the lunar surface that will make the book attractive to fans of The Martian.

Essentially Artemis is a caper book. It opens with an exciting scene in which the narrator, Jazz, has an air leak in her spacesuit, which she bought used, and barely makes it to the airlock. As a result she fails the test to join the EVA Guild, a requirement to lead groups of tourists on the lunar surface. This sets a pattern for the book, Jazz messes up and resorts to something even more dangerous, illegal, or both, to get out of it. Jazz makes most of her money by smuggling in goods thanks to a pen-pal on Earth. When she delivers cigars to Trond, a billionaire living on the moon because the gravity is easier on his crippled daughter, the businessman offers her a million slugs if she can wreck Sanchez Aluminum’s harvesters so he could buy the company. Although just a
smuggler, not a saboteur, Jazz agrees.

Though complex engineering and a great deal of creativity, Jazz manages to wreck three of the four, not enough to fulfill the contract but enough to get Sanchez’s mob owners to kill Trond and send an assassin after her. So Jazz has to figure out what is really going on, survive being chased by both an assassin and the moon’s only cop, and perform an even bigger act of sabotage, one that risks killing everyone on the moon.

Weir has thought a lot about the conditions of working-class people on the moon. If there are to be tourists and engineers building things requiring zero gravity, there will have to be cleaning and porting. Jazz is so poor that she lives in a “capsule domicile,” about the size of a coffin, eats “gunk” made of algae, and dreams of being rich enough to have her own condo with its own bathroom and shower. Jazz is an interesting character. Everyone keeps telling her that she has wasted her potential. Her pen pal even writes, “I would give anything to be as smart as you. But I’m not. That’s okay. I work hard instead, and you’re lazy as hell.” Even Jazz recognizes this failing. “…there’s no one I hate more than teenage Jazz Bashara. That stupid bitch made every bad decision a stupid bitch could make. She’s responsible for where I am today.” Still, she does have ethics. She won’t break a deal. When she lies to the head of security, he offers her money to tell the truth, knowing “You’ll lie all day if we’re just talking. But if I pay for the truth, that makes it a business deal. And a Bashara never reneges on a deal.” She also is good in a crisis and better at making true friends than she realizes.

Ultimately, Artemis is not up to the standards of The Martian. The author is a bit too heavy-handed with
the idea that Jazz is a mixed-up failure and sometimes allows the technical details to slow the plot. But it
is good enough to show that The Martian was not a fluke. I look forward to Weir’s next book.

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Nowhere near as good as The Martian (as if anyone would say it was), but Weir is a ton of fun. He's definitely a writer to watch, and I look forward to what he will put out next!

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Wasn't as enganging or entertaining as THE MARTIAN, so was a disappointment. Didn't catch my attention, and didn't warrent a full read.

I will not be writing a full review on this one, simply because it wasnt worth the work.

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This was a fun follow up of Weirs. I actually think I enjoyed this book over his previous writing. I wonder what kind of adventure in outer space he will take us in next time.

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I find it a bit fascinating all these people who said they loved The Martian and hate Artemis. To me, both are equally good.

What I think happened is that The Martian is sci fi that can be read by people who don't read sci fi. It may be Mars, but it reads a lot like a "man stranded on desert island" book, which we can all understand. Artemis, on the other hand, is set in a much more full-fleshed sci fi world.

Either way, recommended! Just not for people who say they never read sci fi.

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Ok, I know this one came out last year, and I got approved for an ARC copy over a year ago, but I never heard anything good from other people who got an ARC copy, so I just kept putting it off.

After finally reading it, I have to say I wasn't super impressed. I really, really, really wanted to like this book. And there were some really cool parts. I loved all the science and thought that was put into this book, and how it was all explained so that I could understand it. The whole premise of the book is brilliant, and parts of it had me hooked.

But I was so put off by Jazz that I couldn't enjoy the book. She kept making terrible choices that just seemed like someone who is young and inexperienced in the ways of the world would make. Not those of a 26 year old who is living on her own.

It wasn't terrible, but I wasn't blown away either.

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Thanks to Crown Publishing, the author, and NetGalley for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.

It took me a while to get into this book, but once I got past the initial set-up I was hooked. Similar to The Martian, there was a bunch of science involved and a main character whose schemes wouldn't always turn out the way they hoped. What I really liked about this book was the world-building - how would a colony get started on the Moon? What country would control it? What would people do on the moon? What laws would there be? Andy Weir came up with a pretty interesting take on how a country could start such an enterprise, and how it would be sustained over the years, and the type of society that would evolve there.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to more stories from Andy Weir in the future!

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Jazz Bashara is one of those characters that you know you shouldn't like. She's a criminal--smuggler and saboteur, yet there's no way that readers aren't cheering her on from one page to the next.
Jazz finds herself in the middle of a conspiracy in her hometown of Artemis, a city of 2,000 people on the moon. Jazz is far from innocent in the events that lead up to her knowledge of the conspiracy; however, she is ignorant of the larger conspiracy until she is in way over her head. While trying to take down the conspirators, Jazz nearly extinguishes the entire city and finds herself in a race against time to save the home she loves.
There's a mix of good and bad guys--a definite fight between good and evil set on the moon.
Some of the science/space terminology was a bit over my head, but the story is still understandable and suspenseful without the NASA/chemistry knowledge. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

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If you read The Martian, then Artemis will feel very familiar. This time Andy Weir tries his hand at a female lead though she is cut from the same comically irreverent cloth as Mark Watney. This keeps the read fun and it’s peppered with scientific detail to satisfy our inner nerd. The story takes place in the lunar city of Artemis. In addition to an entertaining story and characters, Artemis allows a glimpse into what living on the moon might be like. I only gave this 3 Stars because while there is good drama, the storyline lacks an epic quality. That said, it is well worth the read.

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Metaphorosis Reviews, 3.5 stars,

Summary:

Jazz Bashara, brilliant ne’er-do-well, has a get rich quick scheme on the Kenyan owned Artemis lunar base. Unfortunately, so do a clever entrepeneur, a mysterious cartel, and a host of others.

Review:

Sadly, in his second commercial book, Andy Weir doesn’t stretch, or even try to. After writing a technically accurate, hands-on, credible technology story on Mars, he now does very much the same on the Moon. It is credible, the story itself is fairly sound, and the characters are engaging. But it’s very much in the same lane as the Martian, except with more characters. Unfortunately, the characters are what trip him up.

Any book in 2018 that includes the phrase “I’m too gay to enjoy this [fight between two women]” suggests that the writer hasn’t quite caught up with the times. He might get away with the line if there weren’t so very many others. The book contineus the line of capable, slightly macho, can-do men writing about bright, irreverent teenage girls in space – Podkayne, Melpomene, Carmen – to name a few – and now Jasmine. Heinlein’s Podkayne was the only one that really worked, and that’s only because it was a different time. The rest have felt largely past their prime. While I have no issue with the idea of men writing women (or vice versa), Jazz never really feels credible. Perhaps if there had been fewer references to sex, or how she looks to men, it might have gone over better. The same is true of the one gay character, who spends a lot of time pointing out that he’s gay, so he’s not excited by Jazz undressing, etc.

Weir delights in getting his technology right, and he’s very good at it. But what was a strength of The Martian, with its focus on puzzle solving, fares less well here. Too often it’s clear that Weir turned up an interesting fact, and just couldn’t resist putting it in the story – for example, the thick electrical cable shifting due to magnetic forces caused by current. It’s really neat, has virtually nothing to do with the story, and doesn’t really fit. To his credit, I get the impression Weir genuinely thinks these things are cool – he’s not just showing off his research – but the jumble of them get in the way of the story.

I wanted to like Artemis, and I did, but nowhere near as much as I expected to. In the end, it’s a clever, well-told story brought down by an attitude that feels more 1970s than 2000s. Here’s hoping Weir steps a little further from his comfort zone next time, and aims for slightly more modern characters.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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I was not a fan of this. I heard so many people getting hyped about this and upon starting I just was not captivated. Of course my hopes would be that this would captivate me more than The Martian but that didn't end up happening

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I enjoyed it, but it didn't resonate with me the way The Martian did. I'm not going to compare the two, as this was a good read and is perfect for fans of heist stories and science fiction.

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I love heist stories, and a heist story in space combines a number of my favorite things. I particularly liked the main character's dynamism.

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On a scale from one to ‘invade Russia in winter,’ how stupid is this plan?

This was a great concept and for the most part a good story. However, I was so bored. Also, Jazz was a girl. I don't know why that shocked me so much but it did. I was reading the whole story thinking she was a man. Then there's talk about a ponytail and later someone mentions she's a girl. I was so confused. I don't think she sounded like a girl at all and for some reason my brain is staying on that subject. It's like a plot twist but not really. It's more of a trick. Also, all the talk of welding. WAHHHHH! I was so bored, did I mention that already. I needed more action less talk of welding. Or more welding and less talk about about welding. Or anything but mentioning welding a thousand times!

I almost DNF this. I only kept going because it was free and I needed to finally review it on this site or never receive a book from them again. It took me a very long time to get through this.

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I really enjoyed this book. It must have been daunting to follow up after writing The Martian, but Andy Weir gets it right. Jazz is a sympathetic protagonist who lives in such an interesting habitat on the moon that I was just sucked into the story.

The only negative for me was an excess of technical, explanatory jargon.

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As much as I adored The Martian, Artemis didn't hit me in the same way.

I wish I could be a little surprised by this, but to be honest, The Martian seemed like one of a kind. A book written by someone that was writing EXACTLY in their lane and with the perfect background for it. Artemis, on the other hand, just fell flat for me.

Maybe it was Andy Weir writing a woman that wasn't convincing enough for me. This happens plenty when men write women, and while he's not guilty of writing a woman terribly, he just didn't write her convincingly.

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I really liked this book! Ok - let's get it out of the way: this book is not The Martian. It is, however, a good story with an engaging and resourceful heroine. Can't wait for Mr. Weir's next book!

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This was a good old-fashioned science fiction novel, and I loved it! It’s not The Martian, but it’s hardly a second book slump that people are calling it. Very fun!

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Weir loves the tech! Jazz Bashara scrapes by on Earth's first lunar colony, Artemis, but she barely makes enough to afford the nasty algae compound that serves as her main food source. She doesn't want to rely on her dad, but she also hasn't passed her lunar guide test. As a messenger, her big scores come from smuggling. But she's run afoul of the law one too many times, and now she's managed to land the attention of some contract killers. It's not even about avoiding deportation to Earth, now--Jazz has to solve a mystery and stay alive. The story's here, if you can get past Weir's fascination with the mechanics of the setting. His first book, The Martian, was all about the mechanics of the setting, and hacking them to get along. In Artemis, Weir works harder to find a balance, and this affects the pacing of the book. Still, the words "enjoyable romp" were coined for this, and it would be hard not to like Jazz.

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