The bestselling author of The Martian returns with an irresistible new near-future thriller—a heist story set on the moon.
Jasmine Bashara never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich.
Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity’s first and only lunar colony. Just rich enough to move out of her coffin-sized apartment and eat something better than flavored algae. Rich enough to pay off a debt she’s owed for a long time.
So when a chance at a huge score finally comes her way, Jazz can’t say no. Sure, it requires her to graduate from small-time smuggler to full-on criminal mastermind. And it calls for a particular combination of cunning, technical skills, and large explosions—not to mention sheer brazen swagger. But Jazz has never run into a challenge her intellect can’t handle, and she figures she’s got the ‘swagger’ part down.
The trouble is, engineering the perfect crime is just the start of Jazz’s problems. Because her little heist is about to land her in the middle of a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself.
Trapped between competing forces, pursued by a killer and the law alike, even Jazz has to admit she’s in way over her head. She’ll have to hatch a truly spectacular scheme to have a chance at staying alive and saving her city.
Jazz is no hero, but she is a very good criminal.
That’ll have to do.
Propelled by its heroine’s wisecracking voice, set in a city that’s at once stunningly imagined and intimately familiar, and brimming over with clever problem-solving and heist-y fun, Artemis is another irresistible brew of science, suspense, and humor from #1 bestselling author Andy Weir.
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)
