Artemis: A gripping sci-fi thriller from the author of The Martian

by Andy Weir

Ever had a bad day? Try having one on the moon...

'Fascinating' TIM PEAKE, Sunday Times bestselling author of Ask an Astronaut

WINNER OF THE 2017 GOODREADS CHOICE AWARDS FOR SCIENCE FICTION

*****

WELCOME TO ARTEMIS. The first city on the moon.
Population 2,000. Mostly tourists.
Some criminals.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. She lives in a poor area of Artemis and subsidises her work as a porter with smuggling contraband onto the moon. But it’s not enough.

So when she’s offered the chance to make a lot of money she jumps at it. But though planning a crime in 1/6th gravity may be more fun, it’s a lot more dangerous…

• ISBN10: 0091956943
• ISBN13: 9780091956943
• Publish Date: 14 November 2017
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 8 April 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Cornerstone
• Imprint: Del Rey
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[Ace]

Originally posted at https://alexandramtaylor.com/book-review-artemis-by-andy-weir/

Artemis is the first of Andy Weir’s books that I’ve read so, perhaps it’s a good thing I can’t compare it to The Martian like many other people seem to have done so. Set in the future, on our Moon’s colony, the book follows Jazz’s life as she continually fails to live up to the expectations others have for her. Except she still manages to succeed?

She’s young but determined but also willing to do nearly (emphasis on nearly) anything to get the Slugs (the moon’s currency) that she’s after.

Except of course not everything goes to plan and she ends up on the run and in a tiny base where nearly everyone knows everyone that’s really hard thing to do.

It was a predictable read and an easy one at that but it was fun.

It was also very lazily written at times. The MC is a female but she is very stereotypical female and while being a Muslim she doesn’t follow her religion to the point that she doesn’t know the basics that she really should know.

I really wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually did.

[jamiereadthis]

You would think space + heist could not go wrong, but it can, and this does.

[clq]

To start out with the elephant in the room: Artemis is not The Martian. But that's okay. Very few books can be The Martian. Despite that Artemis is an extremely enjoyable, energetic, easily consumed sci-fi romp.

The story is simple, fast-paced, and exciting, and is written in a manner which allows it to take centre stage and be those things. There is little unnecessary depth, and most of the exposition along the way relates to the story in some way.
And while all these things could also have been criticisms of a book, Artemis just does it so well. It's perfectly paced, it's crafted in a way where the setups go on just long enough for the twists to be perfectly baked when they come out of the oven, and it's never boring. And, impressively for a story like this, it never gets predictable. Most of the time I had no idea what would be coming next, and if I did the book proved me wrong. It also has some great characters. While none of them are given much depth, they are all that they need to be. The main characters are likable, smart, and very enjoyable to follow. As with the book itself, they're just good fun.

Sure, anyone expecting The Martian will be disappointed, but if you're looking for a quick, easy, satisfying, forgettable-but-fun summer read, you could do much worse than Artemis.

[anastasia]

Not what I was expecting, but I loved it.
Full Review on my blog

This is my first I've read by Andy Weir. Honestly, I didn't think I would like it, but it surprised me. I just realized that he wrote The Martian, as well, I had no idea that it was a book! I loved the movie! 

Artemis is based on the moon, and instead of a story of survival, what we have here is more of a caper-style plot with a female protagonist, Jazz Bashara. Jazz Bashara is a smuggler of harmless contraband on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon that's mostly populated by the super wealthy and tourists on a once-in-a-lifetime trip. After all, she's got bills to pay and her job as a porter barely covers the rent. She changes her tune when she's offered the opportunity to make a fortune by pulling off a seemingly perfect (and impossible) crime. Before Jazz knows it, she's walked straight into a conspiracy for control of the city and that her only chance of living relies on a plan that's even riskier than the first. The get-rich-quick-scheme involves the sabotage of company Sanchez Aluminium - who happen to play a part in supplying Artemis with oxygen.

Jazz isn't the typical hero, she is, after all, trying to bankrupt a company for her personal gain and that of a wealthy friend of hers, yet she has loads of endearing qualities and is a likable and feisty character perfectly portrayed by narrator Rosario Dawson. Her character was so fun, and it was great to have a woman of colour as the main protagonist in a science fiction novel. Whilst she does not practice Islam, we see elements of the religion through her father. I loved that Jazz was just so confident in herself and didn’t worry about others judging her, and she was a great, witty narrator. Even though she was living in relative poverty, at least in comparison to many of the Moon’s citizens, it really felt like she was making the most of what she had, and was so determined to reach her goal.

Overall, Artemis by Andy Weir is  a quick and addicting read that you want to savor for as long as you can. I can't wait to read more of his books! I highly recommend it!

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Based on the summary, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to enjoy this as much as “The Martian”. “The Martian” was just so special. What I do like about how he writes is the voice he gives the main characters. In this book the main character is Jazz and maybe because I listened to the audible version with Rosario Dawson narrating, Jazz really came alive for me. It was a fun story with a lot of humor but nothing super special which is why I gave it three stars. It’s a fun, quick read and that’s about it.

[adamfortuna]

Andy Weir hit it out of the park with The Martian - leaving me to wonder if he would be a one-hit wonder. He's not. Artemis sets a tone that's different enough to feel new, but still like Weir. The setting: a future where the Moon is inhabited by 35,000 people - mostly tradesmen and service jobs who support the thriving Moon tourism industry. Like The Martian, what makes this book great is the attention to detail in the science and world building. Ever details makes sense - down to the science behind why coffee sucks in space.

[Amber]

Along with everyone else in the world, I had been waiting for something new from Andy Weir with bated breath. I was completely ready to read more about Mark Watney because after reading The Martian he became one of my all time favourite characters. But Artemis is actually about a young woman called Jazz.

Jazz is a non-practising Muslim woman who has lived in Artemis (a city on the moon) since she was six years old. She’s very intelligent and into science, and she has a very foul mouth. I’ve seen some criticism regarding the bad language that Jazz uses as well as her sexual jokes, but I didn’t have a problem with it. I don’t think it was unrealistic or a bad attempt from a male author at writing a female character. Like, you should hear the way some of my friends speak.

So yeah, I liked Jazz. There were moments where I was a bit put out by how good she was at everything, but I figured that this is a book about a city on the moon, so I could suspend my disbelief a bit.

I don’t have anything to say about the side characters because I didn’t care for any of them. I did, however, dislike how few female characters there were. Especially prominent female characters. It would have been good for Jazz to have more female friends.

In terms of the plot, it’s a heist story. The first two thirds were great as they were completely action packed, and I loved exploring Artemis and learning about the economy and politics. But the ending wasn’t fantastic, to be honest. It’s a shame, but oh well.

One other problem I had was the reusable condom. I mean, it’s not my own personal problem, but a problem with that part of the book. One of Jazz’s friends invented a reusable condom and asked Jazz to test it out. It kept coming up again and again, to the point where I was wondering if this condom would save the moon or something. But it didn’t. In fact, I don’t know what the point of this condom or the constant nagging was. Could it have been a way for the inventor to keep an eye on Jazz’s sex life? That’s the only thing I can think of and that’s pretty gross.

I will definitely be reading more from Andy Weir in the future. I was excited to learn that he is working on more science fiction, and that he is reading reviews for Artemis and taking the feedback on board. That’s pretty great. Artemis definitely had some issues with pacing and the plot, but overall it was an enjoyable book with a lot of snark.

[ross91]

So, this book was ok.
Not great, not bad... just ok.
As expected, at times Artemis reminded me of The Martian: we are in space (not on Mars, but on the Moon), we follow a main character pov (this time a girl in her twenties) and there's a lot (A LOT) of nerdy talk (chemistry, physics... science stuff).
In the Martian tho, all these elements worked perfectly to create a wonderful experience for the reader: the setting was well thought, Mark was a believable and compelling main character, the science talk was informative and understandable, the humor was genuine... all was great.
Here... well, the pieces don't work harmoniously: Jazz, our main character, talks a lot about Artemis, the city where she lives, but the location seems distant and not thoroughly described, the humor is at times forced and all the science talk confused me so much!
And then there's Jazz.... she's a smuggler and we follow her in one of her heists, she's also a greedy person and she's not your typical perfect snowflake we usually have for a main character. On paper, she seems cool and refreshing... but, well, I don't think she was well written. I am 26 and I kept thinking "seriously? you behave like that? I wasn't that immature even when I was a teenager!"
Let's just say she is not only unlikable and irresponsible, but she seems fake and poorly written.
That's sad, because the other characters in the story are very interesting (Dale and Svoboda were my favorite thing in the entire novel)

Anyway, 3 stars. At least it was entertaining.

[remo]

Segunda novela de Andy Weir tras el megapelotazo que fue El Marciano. El mismo autor, en el prólogo, cuenta cómo le atenazaba el miedo de no escribir una novela tan buena como la primera. George R. R. Martin, cuando se lo contó, le dijo que a él le seguía pasando con la novela nº 28. Así que eso. Que el autor cree que esta novela no es tan buena como la anterior. Y probablemente tiene razón. La historia sorprende menos que la del marciano. En la luna hay una ciudad que se llama Artemis (Artemisa) y Jazz, portagonista de la historia, sobrevive en ella a base de complementar su sueldo de transportista con algo de contrabando de baja intensidad. Pero claro. Empiezan a pasar cosas. Cosas que requieren que se hagan otras cosas, que a su vez precipitan todo hacia un montón más de cosas.
El humor del autor, que tanto me gustó en la primera novela, aparece aquí algo más disuimulado, como si se hubiera contenido. Sigue abundando, por supuesto, pero ya no es tan protagonista como el megachou que monta Mark Watney en el marciano. Algunos ejemplos:

If my neighborhood were wine, connoisseurs would describe it as “shitty, with overtones of failure and poor life decisions.”

The room lights faded and a projection screen came to life on the far wall.
-“Are you a supervillain or something?” -I gestured to the screen.- “I mean, come on.”
-“Like it? I just had it installed.”

[Sobre el laboratorio de la ESA] Four hallways led off at odd angles. Some of the doors couldn’t be opened if others were open. The ergonomic abortion was the result of seventeen governments designing a laboratory by committee.

[...]workshop of Dad’s colleague Zsóka Stróbl, who was apparently named during a severe vowel famine.

Several families had obnoxious kids bouncing off the walls. In this case, “bouncing off the walls” is not just a figure of speech. The overstimulated kids were literally bouncing off the walls. Lunar gravity is the worst thing to ever happen to parents.

I’d have to blow the remaining two at the same time. Please don’t quote that last sentence out of context.

Oh. I stopped talking. This wasn’t a normal job. Tomorrow, his daughter’s life would rely on the quality of these welds. It slowly dawned on me that, to him, this was the most critical project he’d ever done. He would accept nothing short of his absolute best. And if that meant taking all day, so be it. Not everybody has the chance to quantify how much their father loves them. But I did. The job should have taken forty-five minutes, but Dad spent three and a half hours on it. My father loves me 366 percent more than he loves anything else. Good to know.

También mezcla ciencia con humor:

When she was Kenya’s minister of finance, she created the country’s entire space industry from scratch. Kenya had one—and only one—natural resource to offer space companies: the equator. Spacecraft launched from the equator could take full advantage of Earth’s rotation to save fuel. But Ngugi realized they could offer something more: policy. Western nations drowned commercial space companies in red tape. Ngugi said, “Fuck that. How about we don’t?” I’m paraphrasing here.

La historia es bastante lineal, hay pocos giros de trama y la diversión está más en el cómo que en el qué.
Otra cosa que me ha encantado es que de nuevo el autor empieza a explicar la ciencia siempre que puede, en plan muy didáctico. Me gusta cómo lo hace.

Earth’s air is 20 percent oxygen. The rest is stuff human bodies don’t need like nitrogen and argon. So Artemis’s air is pure oxygen at 20 percent Earth’s air pressure. That gives us the right amount of oxygen while minimizing pressure on the hulls. It’s not a new concept—it goes back to the Apollo days. Thing is, the lower the pressure, the lower the boiling point of water. Water boils at 61 degrees Celsius here, so that’s as hot as tea or coffee can be. Apparently it’s disgustingly cold to people who aren’t used to it.

Me he divertido bastante y aunque no he quedado impresionado, definitivamente recomiendo esta novela si la primera del autor nos gustó.
Como fallo (¿fallo?), el autor dice que como los servidores de Google están en la Tierra, cualquier pregunta a Google tarda al menos cuatro segundos en ser respondida. El ping desde el Mar de la Tranquilidad hasta la Tierra es de 2*384000/c= 2.5 segundos (era lo que tardaban las respuestas entre la Tierra y la misión Apolo XI), por lo que no sé de dónde se ha sacado el autor los 4 segundos. Tal vez en algún momento equivocó millas con kilómetros, como suelen hacer estos decreídos del sistema métrico, y para 384.000 millas sí que me salen 4 segundos en un viaje de ida y vuelta. Pero en fin. Entretenido y recomendable.

[kimbacaffeinate]

Caffeinated Aspects:

• We've colonized the MOON! Artemis is a futuristic city on the moon with residences and is a booming tourist resort.


• Weir is an incredible storyteller and his world-building while part geek beautifully brings the world to life. You could imagine the long thin corridors, see the chambers and experience first hand what it might be like to live on the moon.


• The story is well paced and follows Jazz a twenty-something woman who hails from Saudi Arabia but has lived on Artemis since she was six years old. She is brilliant and trained as a welder but currently works as a porter. She is estranged from her father, broke and makes money on the side smuggling in contraband. Snarky, temperamental and definitely marches to her own drum.


• Jazz is snarky, quick-witted and just tells things like it is. She made me laugh.


• Jazz is asked to perform a risky task but the payoff is too tempting and she takes the job. When things go amuck, she soon finds a much deeper problem that will affect the colony. Suspense, danger, investigations, collaborations and the risk of getting caught or worse blown up made for a page-turner that kept me listening.


• Secondary characters added interest and were unique enough that I could visualize them. Jazz has some history including an ex-boyfriend, ex-friend, fan, a few enemies, and a pen pal from Saudia Arabia that she considers her closes friend. All of them will play a part in this maddening caper.


• Diversity! I loved the diverse society that inhabits Artemis and the natural way they were present. From sexuality to nationality it was refreshing.


• Rosario Dawson is a new to me narrator and one who perfectly captured Jazz. Her males voices were well done, as well as her accents. I easily slipped into the story and enjoyed listening to her voice(s).


• I loved the thought-provoking physics, chemistry and political aspects of maintaining a thriving colony off planet.


• Scientific jargon and details fed my inner nerd and felt plausible. I loved each little detail and felt it helped build the suspense and danger while bringing Artemis to life in 3-D.


• Snark and witty commentary much like we found in The Martian were present. While I did not enjoy this as much as The Martian Dawson's narration made this better, I still totally recommend it for fans of Weir's work and science fiction thrillers.


• Standalone. In a world of series and trilogies, there is nothing more refreshing than a standalone read :)

Decaffeinated Aspects:

• Jazz is a lot like Mark from the Martian and I worried this would fall flat. Honestly, at first, she felt like a carbon copy of him and I worried that Weir only had one good character in him. Have no fear she does develops and I loved this spunky, take no prisoners woman. Outwardly she oozes confidence and in some ways, she is. This is because she depends on herself, but we also saw her vulnerability. I love complex characters who behave like a teen one moment and a friggin superhero the next.


• The ending was gripping, but I had a hard time believing reactions from others on Artemis.

This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Reviewer