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Artemis

Andy Weir

Start date: February 2, 2018

Finish date: February 28, 2018

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Why we're reading this: February Adult Fiction Fantasy/Sci-Fi Book of the Month
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What Members Thought

Oct 21, 2017 Yzabel Ginsberg rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: arc-netgalley, science, science-fiction, crime, humour, heist-theft

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.]

I loved “The Martian”, so of course I was bound to request this one. To be fair, I didn’t enjoy it as much, but it was still a good, fun read in several ways.

I found the characters in general likeable enough, in definite ‘shades of grey. The ‘heroes’ of this story are seldom all white, and go about their business with good intentions and shady ways. The businessman who moved to the moon to help his ailing daughter, but is a crook on the side. Th [I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.]

I loved “The Martian”, so of course I was bound to request this one. To be fair, I didn’t enjoy it as much, but it was still a good, fun read in several ways.

I found the characters in general likeable enough, in definite ‘shades of grey. The ‘heroes’ of this story are seldom all white, and go about their business with good intentions and shady ways. The businessman who moved to the moon to help his ailing daughter, but is a crook on the side. The economist who almost single-handedly set a whole country as the only entry point to the Moon, and won’t shy away from closing eyes on criminal deals as long as they help keeping Artemis afloat. The city’s policeman (Artemis has something like 2,000 inhabitants, minus the tourists, so Rudy does the job) who’s keeping order by breaking a few arms at times if he deems it’ll be a better punishment than prison. And, of course, Jazz Bashara herself, porter by day, smuggler by night, of sorts, running her little operation with no one the wiser.

(Granted, not everyone is a complete a-hole here, Jazz’s father for instance is a law-abiding citizen who doesn’t want anything to do with his daughter’s shady side; on the other hand, Jazz clearly has him to thank for her own ethical side, the one that makes her never renege on a deal, and puts her in the (trustworthy criminal’ category, so to speak.)

The story itself starts in a fairly typical way for heist stories: Jazz needs money, her criminal activities aren’t bringing in as much as she needs, nor quickly enough, so when a dangerous but particularly juicy deal comes her way, she shoves her qualms in her pocket and accepts it. Only it turns out she’s bitten more than she could chew, and finds herself embroiled in an almost conspiracy, forcing her to gather all her wits, resources and allies in order to find a way out. All in all, the kind of story I like to read: maybe not the most original, but with high potential for action, fun, quirky characters, and, well, capers.

There isn’t as much technical detailing in this novel as there was in “The Martian”, so it’s definitely not hard to follow. The whole caper(s) resting on scientific knowledge and using the moon’s gravity and peculiar sides to work within the plan, that was really interesting for me. Maybe the welding-related descriptions were a little too long at times, though; at least, I didn’t care as much about those as I did about other scientific explanations.

I liked the overall diversity in Artemis. This small city has, from A to Z, a multicultural side that I think worked well, and didn’t rest on the usual ‘Western world colonises space’ (Kenya and its space company holds the entry door to the moon, Artemis’s administrator is a Kenyan woman, the policeman is Canadian, Jazz and her father are from Saudi Arabia, many of Jazz’s contacts are Vietnamese or Slavic, etc.).

I wasn’t totally on board with the way Jazz told the story, though. The wit didn’t work as well here as it did in “The Martian”, mostly, I’d say, because there’s too much of a dichotomy between Jazz’s ‘voice’ and her age: sometime in the middle of the story, we learn she’s 26, but from her tone, attitude, expressions and way of being, I would’ve thought her late teens/20, and not older. There -is- an immature side to her character, so in itself it’s not like her voice doesn’t fit at all, yet it didn’t feel ‘right’ either.

Conclusion: 3.5 stars. Disregard the author’s previous best-seller, take this story as it comes, and enjoy the heist parts, the assembling of Jazz’s motley crew, the description of Artemis, and the outings on the Moon in an EVA suit that can spring a leak just any time due to the characters attempting bold moves and daring rescues. ...more

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Aug 05, 2018 Vickie rated it really liked it

Shelves: booksthatmakemegowow, keeper-shelf, author-alphabet-reading-challenge-2

It is confirmed that I will happily read anything Andy Weir chooses to write. I luh-huvved THE MARTIAN and cautiously looked forward to ARTEMIS. I know sometimes the debut novel will shine and the follow up will be less sparkly. No worries, ARTEMIS is sparkly as heck!
I loved that the main character, Jazz, is less than stellar in her life choices. Simple needs, she wants to be rich enough so she can have a place of her own and her own bathroom. She is tired of her bunk cell and sharing the commu ...more

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Mar 05, 2018 Amy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is more like a 3.5 star book for me, but I bumped it up to 4 stars because I love hard sci-fi, and it was hard sci-fi.

There were a lot of things I loved about the books:

1) Good world-building. I knew how the colony on the moon worked.
2) The main character wasn't a Mary Sue. She was intelligent, but not the best fighter, and her overestimation of her own intelligence got her (and the entire colony) into a lot of trouble.
3) The other characters weren't dumbed down to make the main character l This is more like a 3.5 star book for me, but I bumped it up to 4 stars because I love hard sci-fi, and it was hard sci-fi.

There were a lot of things I loved about the books:

1) Good world-building. I knew how the colony on the moon worked.
2) The main character wasn't a Mary Sue. She was intelligent, but not the best fighter, and her overestimation of her own intelligence got her (and the entire colony) into a lot of trouble.
3) The other characters weren't dumbed down to make the main character look good. The engineering flaws were believable.
4) Tons of nerdy sciencey space stuff.
5) The security guy was competent, which is way more realistic than what normally happens in novels. Also, more interesting.

What I didn't like
1) The main character. I liked that she was flawed, but for her upbringing, elements of her personality didn't make sense. Why was she so smart and so unmotivated? Why was she so intensely focused on being rich, other than paying back someone? None of that was addressed. Also, she was not written well for a female character-- even a tomboy most likely wouldn't say some of the things she did.
2) Wasted characters. Bob and Rudy were interesting characters, which felt like would be more integral to the story, or had additional stuff to add, but those threads were dropped towards the end of the book.
3) Main character got off easy. Way, way too easy. She didn't have enough leverage at the end. Which goes back to number 1-- I didn't like her very much. She was selfish and irresponsible and treated her friends horribly. Though she eventually asked for help, I never got the sense she learned her lesson about trying to solve everything herself.
4) The romance was painfully shoved in. The book would've been better off without it. It was forced and unnatural. It was also completely unnecessary to the plot.

I loved the Martian. I didn't need this book to be the Martian. I'm fine with comedic first-person narratives. But the MC didn't evolve enough to make it worth it. She also skated by on consequences. Other characters were left undeveloped or underdeveloped.

But the science was cool! ...more

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Jan 13, 2018 Natalie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, physical, audible, mine, 2018

My brain can't stop itself from making comparisons to The Martian - Artemis had a similar irreverent tone and feel, but was missing the depth and a sympathetic main character. Weir is best at exploring character development and dialogue, so my hope is that in his next book he places his focus on those aspects of the narrative instead of dry action descriptions. Dawson's narration was on-point. I didn't fall in love with this book the way I hoped I would, but I would still say it is worthy of a r ...more

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