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.

With his debut, The Martian, such a success, there is plenty of expectation riding on Andy Weir’s second novel, Artemis. Artemis is also set in the near future, in space (on the Moon to be precise) and most of his characters seem a little too obsessed with science (or economics) but narratively Artemis is a very different beast to The Martian.
Artemis is the name of the small lunar colony, home to Jasmine ‘Jazz’ Bashara, down on her luck and looking to make her fortune. Jazz keeps her head above water running contraband into the colony but very soon finds herself in the middle of an economic war for control of the aluminium smelter which, as a by-product, produces unlimited oxygen for the station. With sabotage, murder and organised crime in the mix, things start looking bad for Jazz until she takes her life, and the future of Artemis into her own hands.
Given the number of big name science fiction authors who have successfully used the Moon as a setting, Weir has set himself a mammoth task from the outset. Artemis is a frontier town where almost anything goes and the law is often in the hands of the locals and there is a fair amount of technical explanation for why things work differently in Artemis. And while the whole package is not as sophisticated as Heinlein’s Moon or McDonald’s Luna, the setting itself feels like a believable, fully lived in environment.
Cut to the bone, Artemis is essentially a heist novel (a number of characters refer to their exploits as “capers”) where the laws of science creates problems for our heroes but being savvy about science also means any problems can be fixed. While the plot, characters and setting are different to The Martian, there are plenty of elements that make this a Weir novel. Jazz's overall snarky, sarcastic tone is similar to Mark Watney, everything can be fixed by solving technical problems and most of the main characters all seem come from the same geeky casting pool. But, like The Martian, Artemis is also a rollicking read and sure to appeal to fans looking for engaging, tech-filled but not too challenging science fiction.

Andy Weir
The Martian was the stand out hit, gaining a huge fan following and prompting a rather good Hollywood adaptation. So it’s with some hesitation that we approach author Andy Weir’s next science fiction book, Artemis. It’s definitely not the Martian, but it is very good, and shows the Weir has depth and flexibility in his approach.

Artemis is set in a near future in which Kenya (which has a unique position on the equator) has colluded with various corporate interests to build a moon-base, mostly as a way of making more money flow through Kenya. Artemis is not a nation, rather a collection of interests under five domes, named after heroes of Apollo programme.

The book focuses on the character of Jazz Bashra, a Saudi Arabian (lapsed) Muslim who regards the Moon as her home. Despite her considerable talent, intelligence and skill, the twenty-something has a job as a courier and petty criminal. Many things are banned in Artemis, especially anything flammable, so Jazz spends her time looking to make a quick buck here and there sneaking cigars and the like under the noses of the authorities. The de-facto currency is based on how many grams someone can transport onto the moon, and Jazz has been saving up her allowance for something special. So when an offer that seems too good to be true arrives, she grabs it and literal lunacy begins.

Artemis is the sort of science fiction work that wants to gush at you with all the cool science facts, but is desperate to avoid dumping loads of exposition on you. Much like The Martian, this results in a steady drip of story relevant science related coolness. Weir really does make science utterly fascinating and absorbing. It wraps science coolness up in delicious layers of crime adventure, making for a very geeky sort of heist tale.

The main character is quite interesting though a little annoying and narcissistic at points. Weir paints the picture of a care-free science nerd who is actually none of those things quite well, though she’s clearly written with the male gaze in mind. The supporting cast however, are fab and it’s nice that pretty much everyone has a proper motivation and feels like a real person.

Artemis is the book that Weir is the heir to the mantle of classic science fiction master. It’s an addictive, fast paced read, perfect for a long journey or bit of daily escapism. If you’re after a moon adventure (and you loved Have Spacesuit will Travel), book a flight to Artemis today.

Did you ever do any of those leadership tests where you have to get yourself and a team across an (imaginary) chasm with only two short planks and a bit of rope? Because that is how this book reads: Jazz is set a test, it goes wrong, she has to work out how to put it right and then go on to the next test. OK she is a smart tough girl but is also a bit of a wiseass. And I learned I learned more about welding than I really wanted to know, although if I ever have to fire up an arc weld in a vacuum I'm sure I will be glad I read the book.
Having said that, it is, overall not too bad a book. Characterisation is not its strong point but there is plenty of action and the basic plot is good. I would certainly read any further books about Jazz but would hope that she might have grown up a little.
I was provided with an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Andy Weir, the author of popular sci-fi novel The Martian, is back with his new novel Artemis. Previously, he wrote about a character on an explorative mission to Mars gone wrong and now he's back with a story of a young woman that has been living in a city on the Moon since she was a child. The entire area her and about 2000 other people reside in is made up of five connecting spheres called "bubbles" that are named after the famous astronauts involved in the moon landing and it's also about a 40km train ride from the Apollo 11 area of the original moon landing so there's a large tourism business. Some of the areas like Conrad are just for people that actually live there and it's not great with lots of plain buildings and people basically living on top of each other in tiny rooms with shared bathrooms but then in Aldrin, there are tourists with fantastic luxury hotels and widely expensive shopping districts. As you would expect, it's extremely expensive to travel to the moon for even a week and the people that live there struggle just as much to pay their bills on their small wages from technical and upkeep jobs.

Jazz Bashara came from Saudi Arabia to Artemis with her father when she was just six years old and it became her home. Jazz now dreams of being an EVA guide which means going outside the city and taking tourists out on tours that pay very well but she's currently living in a tiny room, barely getting enough money to get by and without the money for a proper suit she keeps failing the test to get into the Guild. Something that started off interesting was the fact that Jazz and her father are Saudi Arabian and her father is a devout Muslim but she stopped practising Islam before the events of this book most likely due to the environment and social norms being very different to Earth. I loved reading about a character like this in the lead on an awesome adventure on the Moon but then I wasn't really happy with something. When Jazz needed to disguise herself to get past people she knew she dressed in the traditional Islamic headwear but then she said, "Great way to wear a mask without arousing suspicion" and I just thought, that doesn't seem like something a Muslim would ever say or think because it's often used a really offensive remark towards them. I don't know, I'd be interested to know if someone who is Muslim finds this offensive or if it's just myself who finds it odd.

This book delivered on the same witty, smart-ass main character persona that I loved in The Martian but a huge difference is that in Artemis the main character is a female. Jazz Bashara is just as anti-rules and sarcastic as Mark Watney and I think Andy Weir feels very comfortable writing that type of role but the biggest negative in this book is that it's a man writing a woman so I felt there were some key moments that were just so out of the realm of woman that it tore my mind out of the story. Basically, it's that hilarious thing that you often see when men write women because the use of the word "boob/s" outside of a romance novel jumps from the average of say, five to at least forty or fifty! I mean, it's not like the use of the word boob is illegal but when you the characters say the word four times on one page it makes me a little annoyed. Also, in the midst of murder and corruption of a small population living on the Moon, it was a little frustrating how often the men around Jazz talked about her sexual activity and her body like it was the best form of conversation during a thrilling, mystery set on the Moon...

So, I discussed two big things I didn't like about this book, a weird paragraph about her niqab and the over-sexualised tone of the whole book, but aside from not liking the way the characters were written I did enjoy the actual plot of the book. I loved the attention to detail and the way things on the Moon and things they were doing were explained to the reader without being too obvious. One thing that Jazz mentions a lot is that their justice system and enforcement is more direct in Artemis with people getting the sense knocked into them instead of going through a big process of court and such and that is shown in this book because when things start escalating they just get straight into the action and it was a refreshing turn to other books I've read. I didn't understand why she was talking to the audience in her head so much when it wasn't written in diary format like The Martian but that must just be the writer's style. Overall, it was a fun, unique book that was also really addictive and well paced. The world building of the city of Artemis was my favourite part because it sounds like such an amazing place!

I have been looking forward to this book for such a long time, I adored The Martian and was hoping that Artemis would live up to expectations and, wow, it really did.

Artemis is a wonderful book which is much more than a sci-fi novel. It explores morals and social consciences, is an exploration of politics and power and is a whole heap of fun. Jazz is probably one of my favourite characters of the year, I loved her ballsy and kick-ass attitude and how she was in control of her life and destiny. The city of Artemis was wonderfully described (when can I visit please?) and the science was detailed yet accessible. Full of humour and unexpectedly emotional Artemis was pretty wonderful and one of my favourite books of 2017.

I'll be posting a full review on my blog, Goodreads, Amazon etc on publication date and shouting about how brilliant Artemis is on social media, because it really is!

Artemis by Andy Weir.
Published by Del Rey, November 2017
384 pages
ISBN: 978-0091956943
Review by Mark Yon
So: this is the follow-up to the New York Times bestseller, mega-selling, runaway-success debut novel and very profitable movie The Martian. The Martian was first published in 2014, after being online before that. Despite being only three years for most people, it seems like a long while ago… but it’s clear from this that Andy’s been busy.
Artemis (Definition: “a Greek moon goddess, often portrayed as a virgin huntress”) is set at a time in the near future when Mankind has colonised the Moon, but not entirely. There’s one city, Artemis, next to where Armstrong and Aldrin landed in 1969. It’s in this setting that we’re introduced to Jazz Bashara, one of the basic grunts trying to make her way upward through life as a porter to the many rich and privileged on the Moon.
Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.
Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself - and that now her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.

So: using Andy’s other job as software engineer to good effect, Artemis is on solid ground, all be it mainly Luna rather than Terra. It’s a book that combines entertaining aspects of different SF novels and tropes – there’s a near-future feel, a bit of a heist story going on, a bit of a Luna vibe (see also Ian McDonald, albeit less determinedly internationally global and less sexual than that) and a slightly worn, well used environment.
My first thought whilst reading is that Artemis has a rather Heinlein-esque feel about it. Heinlein had that difficult knack of writing seemingly simple and approachable text whilst also keeping a plot moving and at the same time not alienating the reader. It’s very tricky to get right, even now, but there’s a reason why Heinlein went from the SF pulps on to mainstream magazines such as the Saturday Post, and Artemis seems to echo it. In fact, it’s a surprisingly confident book for someone on only his second novel. The last time I remember such an ability to manage tech-talk without losing track of the characters and the plot in mainstream novels so obviously was probably Michael Crichton (before Jurassic Park.)
This confidence is also reflected in the characterisation, which is pleasingly and deceptively slick. Like in The Martian, Andy adds touches of humour that keeps things from getting too grim. Although we are only getting Jazz’s versions of events through her narrative, there’s fast-moving banter with a nice combination of bravado and self-depreciation. Jazz is a rogue, but a likable one.
I guess the counterview of this is that, for long time SF readers, there’s nothing particularly new here – see Heinlein (already mentioned), Ben Bova' Grand Tour started in the ‘70’s, and more recently Ian McDonald's Luna books, Neal Stephenson's Seveneves, even James S A Corey's Expanse series. (I’m sure that you can add others.) It’s a great read, as much of a page-turner as The Martian was, but it’s not exactly ground-breaking.
That sounds curmudgeonly, or perhaps at least a little unfair. Artemis is not meant to be ground-breaking, at all. I remember similar grumbles also being said about The Martian as well, and that criticism did that book no harm at all. Despite the negativity that may appear from some quarters, most importantly, what works here, as it did with The Martian, is that the characters are engaging, the setting understandable and the pace begins fast and continues throughout to the end. Above all, it’s entertaining.
Which is exactly what readers of The Martian, looking for ‘what Andy did next’, would want. It’s SF, but not too way-out, not too extreme so that readers are going to go all ‘2001’ and think ‘WTF was all that about?’ I’m sure that there will be places where some readers will quibble about ‘the science’, as they did with The Martian, but in the end the story’s told well enough for it not to matter to most readers.
And that is the crux of the book. I suspect that Artemis will do very well, as an SF novel read by readers who don’t normally read SF. Like his previous book, if it hasn’t been optioned already, it is very filmic and in my opinion would make an excellent movie, given the budget and the right director to bring its prose to visual life. There’s a definite Michael Crichton feel to this one.
I’m sure that there must have been enormous pressure on the author to create a book as good as his first. Writers will tell you that it’s not easy to manage such a feat, but he seems to have done it, admirably. Such enormous scrutiny has been the death of many other writers - well done, Andy, for managing to make Artemis as good as your first novel.

I never read The Martian but am aware that it is a hugely popular book and movie. I don't read much science fiction but I loved Artemis. Weir goes into a lot of depth and detail in his world building of a city on the moon that has adopted Kenyan time, with its 5 bubbles named after famous astronauts with their own distinct identities and linked by tunnels. What made this book such a great read for me is the complex character of 26 year old Jazz Bashara, a woman that breaks every stereotype of a Muslim Saudi Arabian female. She works as a lowly porter with a sideline in earning extra slugs (currency) from smuggling goods for her customers. She is intelligent, sassy, witty, knows how to hold a grudge and is funny. She has the street smarts to be so much more than a porter, but she is drawn to testing herself outside the conventional boundaries of society and sidestepping the expectations others have for her, particularly her father. For her, the thrill is in the challenge and the smuggling allows her to supplement her meager earnings as a porter which allows only for her to reside in a 'coffin', where she can sleep, but otherwise has to share communal facilities with others.

The wealthy Trond Lanvik is looking to acquire Sanchez Aluminium through underhand means and offers Jazz a million slugs to sabotage the company. Jazz is immediately drawn to the proposal because she wants somewhere better to live and more. She comes up with a plan that she is only partially successful in executing. It soon hits her that she has taken on more than she can chew as she comes to discover two murders and realises she is the killer's next target. This means she has to go underground and move amongst the shadows whilst she tries to understand what is going on and escape being killed. To her horror, she finds herself entangled with the Brazilian mob, and has to foil the looming threats to the community of Artemis. So armed with her outlandish and borderline crazy (lunatic?) ideas, and the help of those closest to her, Jazz finds herself in toxic and dangerous territory where the lives of all on Artemis is at stake.

Weir draws up a great supporting cast for Jazz in this tense and suspenseful lunar thriller. There is Jewish Evo guide Dale, gay and desperate to get back in Jazz's good books after a personal betrayal. Jazz and her father have a complicated relationship, which given her rebellious streak, is no surprise, but Weir subtly reveals the depth of their connection and love for each other, despite all that stands between them. Ukrainian Martin Svoboda, a technical whizz, is socially awkward but his commitment to Jazz left me hoping that their relationship would become something more. This is a fantastic read, and I hope Andy Weir has plans to revive Jazz as a character in the future. Many thanks to Random House Ebury for an ARC.

I enjoyed the first 50 pages and the last 20.

The rest I found really dull.

I didn't like that...
- the characters all sounded exactly the same
- not only was the writing uninteresting but so was the content of the writing
- it read like a textbook a lot of the time
- there were lots of gross comments that were meant to be funny but just felt out of place
- the main character was a woman but of course she had to be known as a whore and had to dress as a hooker as part of one of her dastardly plans
- also she had to be super flirtly with all the other characters (who were 90% male) even when her dad was around... gross
- the main character also was so super intelligent and had such a good memory that she was conveniently able to remember obscure facts and work out obscure problems that meant the storyline could continue
- there was just the one storyline, nothing else going on at all, so there was no savour from the dullness
- the characters' relationships made no sense at all at some points

I read Weir's previous book The Martian after seeing the AMAZING movie and was disappointed by how dry it was - but not as disappointed as with this.

Actual rating 4.5 stars. I think this was even better than The Martian.

Jazz Bashara resides in and adores her moon-colony-home, Artemis. She is one independent lady and clever individual, who uses these skills to alleviate her position. She is also a criminal, who isn't afraid to bend the laws that govern her world to her own monetary advantage.

But not even she could foresee the chaos and destruction that would ensue after she was tempted by her latest money-making escapade. With potential gang-infiltration threatening to disrupt the tranquillity of her home, Jazz's get-quick-rich plans are overturned, and she must sacrifice everything if she ever hopes to return her home to its former idyllic glory.

Jazz is such an intriguing anti-hero. Just like Mark Watney, it was her sassy and sarcastic self that made the entire reading experience for me. Character creation is truly Weir's forte and I was kept captivated throughout by this flawed yet lovable protagonist.

This could very easily have been overwhelmed by the political and scientific explanations that dominated throughout. It was, again, Jazz's dialogue that lightened the tone and alleviated the dense surrounding descriptions. These two elements worked together to make this a fast-pace and action-packed sci-fi, yet also a believable and authentic-feeling narrative.

I was really excited when I was approved by Netgalley for this book, The Martian was one of my favourite books last year and I was really looking forward to getting stuck into this. This one is a very different story, still with all the science and clever techie stuff that Andy Weir is making his signature style, but this time with a female protagonist and set on the Moon. Jazz is a fabulous character, a bit of a rebel and with a renegade spirit. She needs cash, fast. She lives in Artemis, the first and only city on the moon. Her Dad is the master welder (which is going to come in very handy) and because Jazz has been a bit of a rogue in her past she doesn’t work in the family business but works as a courier delivering packages. This allows her the opportunity to import forbidden items into Artemis. She is basically running an importation business. This means she meets some dodgy people.

The structure of Artemis is fantastically described and I loved reading about all the features of it’s bubbles and how the society is managed there. Life is pretty grim for many of the inhabitants but looks great to the tourists who visit for the opportunity to go out onto the moon surface with the qualified EVA people who take tours, Jazz has just failed her exam to become an EVA specialist when we meet her.

When Jazz is offered the opportunity to earn a huge pile of money she jumps at the chance. She is going to sabotage large machinery and enable her friend to pick up the contract from which he will make a fortune. This sabotage plan will mean danger and risk to Jazz and the story is about her planning and organising this and then putting it into action. It is really detailed. At times I was left a little underwhelmed by all the detail of the sabotage but while there is a bit of a lag in the middle of the book, it picks up markedly towards the end and I found myself completely absorbed as the book raced to it’s conclusion.

There is a heap to like in this book, The Martian was always going to be a hard act to follow and I think Andy Weir has done a good job on this one and I’m looking forward to the next.

"Artemis" is the new book from critically acclaimed, formerly independent author Andy Weir. Unlike its predecessor, "The Martian", "Artemis" is set on the Moon, in the same Universe, circa seventy years after the events of "The Martian". Needless to say, Mark Watney is history by this point, but this time, in the center of our action sits someone else: Jasmine Bashara, nicknamed "Jazz".

The name of the book comes from the Greek Goddess of the Moon, Artemis, one of the most vastly venerated goddesses of ancient Greece. She who was also the Goddess of the Hunt, the Forests, the Hills and of Archery. In the book, this name designates the first lunar city, Artemis, which Jazz Bashara is a citizen of.

Since Andy Weir likes telling stories in first person, this time he's evidently narrating cross-gender, and does so surprisingly well. This is one of the best examples of cross-gender narrative done well. Usually, they're less common, and when they exist, the quality is nothing short of questionable. For "Artemis", this is not the case. One of the strong points of the book is making you believe without any doubts that this story is told by a woman. When it's not.

While being a solid piece of Science Fiction literature, "Artemis" has the downside of living in the shadow of its older sibling, "The Martian". "Artemis" is a very good book, but with "The Martian" we had the opportunity to collide first time with Andy Weir's style and with the uniqueness of his technical and scientific explanations of the things the main character always did to preserve himself. We can find plenty of that in "Artemis" as well, because Jazz Bashara is, just like Mark Watney, a MacGyver of Outer Space, but this time the reader is already used to it, so "Artemis" brings less in the sense of innovation than "The Martian" did, while bringing more in the sense of storytelling, being a much more complex work structurally than "The Martian" ever was, through its higher number of characters and the relations between them. Adding to this are the cultural differences, because for those who cannot tell until now, Jazz Bashara is a Muslim. And she encounters barriers not only because she's female, but because of her religion as well, even though she wasn't necessarily a religious person, but people around her identified her as such because she was of Arabian descent. So "Artemis" not only does Science Fiction well, but also treats delicate themes with care, pointing out the problems in our society and their outcome in an eventuality of their persistence over time.

Leaving political aspects aside, "Artemis" is a very good read, threading at the point between relaxing and engaging, which makes it very fit both for the average reader, as well as for the more experienced one, whose expectations are generally higher.

And, just as "The Martian" became a movie, "Artemis" should do too at some point, because while the book doesn't necessarily surface over "The Martian", being somewhat its equal in terms of quality and its smaller sibling in terms of innovation, it would definitely be bigger and better as a movie. Much more visual than "The Martian", and more dynamic than it, hence better fit for the big screen.

"Artemis" should definitely be your go-to read for the month of November 2017.

I loved The Martian by Andy Weir so much it made my Top 5 list for 2014. Since then, I've been looking forward to his next novel, and watching Matt Damon in the film adaptation of The Martian managed to sustain me in the meantime.

Fast forward to late 2017, and the wait is over! Artemis is coming out next month, but unfortunately it's nothing like The Martian. Artemis is about a young woman living in a settlement on the moon. The Martian is about a man stranded on Mars. Sound similar?

They're both set in space, they both have a lot of science, but where Mark Watney is hilarious, Jazz is not. The science in The Martian is critical to the character's survival. In Artemis, the science centres around a heist.

I didn't warm to the character of Jazz at all. Her one liners and jokes weren't funny and I just didn't care enough about her welfare or what she was doing. Where I was laughing on every other page and marvelling at the science while reading The Martian, I was longing for Artemis to end.

I'm understandably disappointed, as this was a long awaited release I was really really looking forward to, but if you loved reading The Martian, do yourself a favour, and give Artemis a miss. The magic just isn't there.

People are living on the moon, a mountie is in charge of the almost-non-existent-and-usually unnecessary law, and there is an honest thief about to commit a huge crime that could put the whole planet and its inhabitants in danger.

Welcome to Artemis. (Mostly tourists)

The personal quickly becomes political when the only way for Jazz Bashara to make a lot of money for personal reasons is to commit a very dangerous act. The first rule of Artemis, however, is no fire. As Jazz says, “A fire in Artemis would be a nightmare. It’s not like we can go outside.”

Just as in ‘The Martian’, Andy Weir wades easily into the scientific reasoning behind the reality that would challenge earthians living on the moon.

The explanations are handled well and with a good dose of knowing that living on the moon is exotic and for those of us who don’t know about it, the mundane is thrilling. The tone is similar in that respect to The Martian. There aren’t many writers who could take what is essentially a one-act play and turn it into gripping Human vs Planet super-action. Weir did it then and he does it now. Better than anyone I’ve read, although I’ve not read much science fiction admittedly. Better than anyone I’ve read in most genres at least.

His characters talk to us not as scientists, but like knowledgeable friends.

The characters are real. They want things that are unrelated to the storyline. They live and breathe and exist in creative ways all of their own. The storyline builds around the current crisis faced by the protagonist, hedges a bit to the cultural and the practical – for example, immigration tends to focus in sector-specific work and from certain countries of origin (historically) and on Artemis almost all the welders are Saudis. “We’re just the people who ended up controlling the welding industry.”

Then Weir also brings in the political rulings and structures of earth, the future, the economics of trading blocks and the adjustments needed within the internal runnings of cities at the small and global level.

The intelligence of this intense and thrilling read is astounding. I can’t recommend this book enough. I loved the depth, the fun, the stress, the characters, and the action. And not to forget the science or the mountie who could just as easily have come out of a good Mills&Boon book.

One of my best reads of 2017.

Artemis by Andy Weir is published on 14 November 2017

Andy Weir has delivered another fun, absorbing and realistic science-fiction read. His 2011 novel, The Martian, could easily had been the most phenomenal success a self-published author can ever hope to achieve. Is this follow-up novel, Artemis, up to task of garnering such success? While that remains to be seen, I have confidence that fans of The Martian alone should ensure some measure of success.

Artemis is based on the moon, and instead of a story of survival, what we have here is more of a caper-styled plot with a female protagonist, Jazz Bashara. Written in first-person perspective again, Jazz has a voice that was initially quite reminiscent of the nonchalant humour of Mark Watney. But any similarities end here. While Mark was endearingly dorky, Jazz is geared towards the aggrieved smartass whom, truth be told, got on my nerves sometimes. Oh, and she is pretty much a criminal of sorts, albeit an honest one in her own words.

True to his style, the author managed to make the whole idea of a small city set on the moon highly believable by employing scientific explanations that seem logical. He is truly a science dork, who is not limited to only the field of physics and mathematics (and some botany), as the narrative in Artemis contained a lot of chemistry, and even mechanics and metalworking! One thing’s for sure, he sure knows his EVA suits well. While not as pervasive as The Martian, one can still expect a fair amount of scientific discussions and explanations. Even more impressive was how Weir managed to lay down completely sensible logistical and economic aspects around the creation, establishment and growth of a small city in another world.

While Jazz annoyed me with her petulant and belligerent attitude at times, her characterisation did make the story compelling. Fortunately, I loved most of the supporting characters, particularly her stalwart dad, Ammar, and the clichéd but adorable tech support dude, Shovoba. If you are one of the readers who appreciate diversity, this is the book for you as there is literally no American white-washing evident at all. Weir also mostly avoided controversial stereotypes when it comes to representing the different races. I’d say mostly because there is one character portrayed with the typical greed that personified this group of people. But then again, greed is generally quite universal.

The plot unfolded a tad slowly in the beginning, but once it hits the arc of hidden agendas and conspiracies, the pace picks up significantly and it became very hard to put the book down. And that’s all I can possibly say without spoilers as I conclude my review.

Even though I did not think it is equal to The Martian, Artemis is still an entertaining and engaging read which I’ll recommend for all readers, fans of science fiction or otherwise given its level of realism.

And by the way, duct tape is back!!

I like a lot of things about Artemis, Jazz is not one of them. The story would make a great movie, hopefully it is as successful as The Martian. Another great space story, featuring a person facing great adversity, and coming out stronger. Jasmine is a strong girl who has a goal in her life, and that is more money. But it is also money that landed her into a tricky situation.
Action packed and nail biting, Artemis is as good as The Martian

Special thanks to Netgalley for this ARC, because now I can boast that I have read something cool for the year.

I was so excited to lay my hands on this book! I loved The Martian and I was hoping for another great story by Andy Weir. Artemis couldn't live up to the Weirs first book though. It still is a good story but some things just felt off. Jazz is a badass young woman with a witty mouth and a brain working as fast as lightspeed - so to say. I liked her most of the time but she behaves childish and irresponsible at times. While I knew she was a 26 yrs old, she felt like a teenage girl to me. Also, the science talk. It worked really good in The Martian but for Artemis all the detailed explaining was weighing the book down somehow. It didn't seemed to be necessary to get so many details of how oxygen reacts with this and that. The science talk wasn't as necessary for this story as it was for The Martian and therefore much less entertaining. It even got boring now and then.

What I really liked (next to a story on the moon of course) was the wide diversity of Artemis. You have everything in it. Lots of people from different parts of the world living peacefully in the same bubble. You also get a gay couple and women kickin' ass and making the rules.

While Artemis wasn't a perfect read I still enjoyed it despite its flaws.

Artemis – the city on the moon. Two thousand people live in several connected domes in a close-knit community. Part of the colony is geared towards rich tourists but mostly it’s inhabited by ordinary people, workers, tradesmen, service folk. Jazz Bashara is one of them, scratching a living as a porter with a bit of smuggling on the side. One of her wealthy contacts offers her a huge amount of money for a bit of sabotage. Needless to say, things don’t turn out quite as planned; a metaphorical can of worms is opened and threatens to destroy everything Jazz holds dear.
I really enjoyed this fast-paced, joyful sci-fi caper. The characters are likable, Jazz is a feisty, sassy heroine with plenty of smartarse comebacks. Life on the moon is vividly portrayed and the workings of the city believable with plenty of entertaining science thrown in without being didactic.

So obviously there’s always going to be particular high expectations when it comes to this book because hello, The Martian is a phenomenal debut novel. This book, in my opinion, is not quite as strong as The Martian but it’s great in its own ways. But I think people going into this looking for another The Martian are going to be sorely disappointed.

The world building in this, for me, was great. I really had a great idea of what Artemis looked like and how it ran. There was a bit of an info dump in the first chapter that left me feeling a bit dizzy, and maybe some of that could have been spread out a bit but I’m pretty confident in how Artemis all works out.

One of the things that Andy Weir does best is the way characters speak to readers in this great conversational tone. It worked for Watney in his Mars Log, and in a way it works for Jazz in this. It definitely feels at times like she’s speaking directly to the reader (or to her penpal!) but Jazz is a very different character, and not quite as likeable. I kept changing my mind about her to be honest, sometimes I liked her and others times I didn’t. (view spoiler) The conversations between characters were good, humorous and felt very real, which is something I always need to see. Realistic dialogue is key for me!

I wasn’t crazy about the amount of explanation around the welding and the super smart things Jazz did to explode stuff and fix stuff etc. It was basically just all jumbled words for me and I had no idea what she was on about so it got a bit boring.

Overall, I wasn’t expecting something as amazing as The Martian so I wasn’t disappointed. This book is good in its own right but it’s not the best book I’ve ever read.

Thanks to NetGalley and to Penguin Random House UK, Ebury Publishing for providing me an ARC copy of this book that I freely chose to review.
I read Weir’s The Martian shortly after its publication (I discovered it through NetGalley. Many thanks again), before it became a movie, and loved it. Although I regularly recommend books to people I know, this must be one of the recent books I’ve recommended to more people. (In case you want to check my review, I published it on Lit World Interviews and you can check it here). Because of that, when I saw the ARC of the author’s new book was available on NetGalley, I requested it. A few days later I also received an e-mail from the publishers (well, their PR company) offering me a copy as I’d reviewed The Martian. Good minds think alike and all that. I read the book a while before its publication but I don’t expect there would be major changes with the final version.
So, how is the book? Well, I loved it. There aren’t that many books that make me laugh out loud, but this one did. Is it as good as The Martian? That’s a difficult question to answer. It is not as unique. It is very different, although in many ways it’s quite similar too. I suspect if you didn’t like The Martian you will probably not like this one either. The story is a first-person narration from the point of view of a young woman, Jazz Bashara. She lives in Artemis, the first city in the Moon, and has lived there since she was six years old (children are not allowed in the Moon until they are a certain age, although that had increased by the time of the story, so she’s probably one of the few people who has been there almost from birth, as most are immigrants from Earth). Nationality is a bit of an interesting concept in this novel (people are from wherever place on Earth they come from, but once in Artemis, they are in a Kenyan colony… I won’t explain the details, but the story of how that came to pass ends up being quite important to the plot), as are laws, work, money, economy, food… Based on that, Jazz is from Saudi Arabia, although she impersonates women from other nationalities through the book (even in the Moon, otherness unifies people, it seems). Like its predecessor, the story is full of technical details of how things work (or not) and how different they are from Earth. Jazz is a quirky character, foul-mouthed at times, strangely conversant with American pop culture, including TV series, music, etc., extremely intelligent, and like Mark in the first novel, somebody who does not express her emotions easily (she even admits that at some point in the novel). She also has a fantastic sense of humour, is witty, self-deprecating at times, one of the boys, and does not tolerate fools gladly. She is a petty criminal and will do anything to get money (and she’s very specific about the amount she requires), although we learn what she needs the money for later on (and yes, it does humanize her character). Her schemes for getting rich quick end up getting her into real trouble (she acknowledges she made some very bad decisions as a teenager, and things haven’t changed that much, whatever she might think) and eventually she realises that there are things we cannot do alone. Although she does commit crimes, she has a code of conduct, does not condone or commit violence (unless she has to defend herself), and she can be generous to a fault at times. On the other hand, she is stubborn, petulant, anti-authority, confrontational, and impulsive.
There is a cast of secondary characters that are interesting in their own right, although we don’t get to know them in depth and most are types we can connect easily with as they are very recognisable. (Psychology and complexity of characters is not the main attribute of the book). Most of Jazz’s friends are male (so are some of her enemies), and we have a geeky-inventor type who is clumsy with women (although based on the information we are given, Jazz is not great with men either), a gay friend who stole her boyfriend, a bartender always after creating cheap versions of spirits, a rich tycoon determined to get into business on the Moon, no matter what methods he has to use, and her father, a devoted Muslim who is both proud of his daughter and appalled by her in equal measure.
The plot is a caper/heist story, that has nothing to envy Ocean’s Eleven although it has the added complication of having to adapt to conditions on the Moon. Although there is a fair amount of technical explanation, I didn’t find it boring or complicated (and yes, sometimes you can guess what’s going to go wrong before it happens), although when I checked the reviews, some people felt that it slowed the story down. For me, the story flows well and it is quick-paced, although there are slower moments and others when we are running against the clock. As I’m not an expert on the subject of life on the Moon, I can’t comment on how accurate some of the situations are. Yes, there has to be a certain suspension of disbelief, more than in The Martian because here we have many characters and many more things that can go wrong (the character does not fight against nature and her own mistakes here. She also has human adversaries to contend with), but we should not forget that it is a work of fiction. Some of the reviews say there are better and more realistic novels about the Moon. As I’m not a big reader on the subject, I can’t comment, although I can easily believe that.
The other main criticism of the novel is Jazz’s character. Quite a few reviewers comment that she is not a credible woman, and her language, her behaviour, and her mannerisms are not those of a real woman. I mentioned before that she is ‘one of the boys’ or ‘one of the lads’. She seems to have mostly male friends, although she does deal with men and women in the book, not making much of a distinction between them. For me, Jazz’s character is consistent in with that of a woman who has grown up among men (she was brought up by her father and her mother is not around), who feels more comfortable with them, and who goes out of her way to fit in and not call attention to her gender by her behaviour and/ or speech. She is also somebody who has not been encouraged to be openly demonstrative or to share her feelings, and although she is our narrator, she does not talk a lot about herself (something that was also a characteristic of the Martian, where we did not learn much about Mark himself). In Artemis, apart from the first person narration, there are fragments that share e-mails between Jazz and a pen (e-mail) friend from Earth. Those interim chapters help us learn a bit more (however fragmented) about Jazz’s background; they also give us a sense of how things are on Earth, and, although it is not evident at the beginning, fill us into some of the information the narration has not provided us. Although she is not the most typical female character I’ve ever read, she is a fun woman and it’s very easy to root for her (even if sometimes you want to slap her). She does act very young at times, and hers is a strange mixture of street-wise and at times naïve that some readers will find endearing although it might irritate others. The book’s other female characters are as hard and business-like as the men, and often the most powerful and intelligent characters in the book are female (the ruler of Aramis and the owner of the Aluminium Company are both females, one from Kenia and one a Latino woman). Both seem to be formidable, although nobody is pure as snow in this novel and everybody has some skeletons in their closets. Although gender politics per se are not discussed (Jazz notes physical differences between her and other characters as is relevant to the plot, and makes the odd comment about her own appearance) one gets the sense that in Artemis people are accepted as they are and they are more concerned about what they can bring to the community than about their gender or ethnicity.
I agree with some of the comments about the dominance of references to American culture and even the language used is sometimes full of American colloquialisms. There is no clear explanation given for that, other than to assume that media and the Internet are still mostly full of content produced in the US, but even mentions of news and feeds about other countries are not elaborated upon.
I highlighted a lot of the book, but I don’t want to test your patience, and as it was an ARC copy, it is possible that there might be some minor changes, so I’d advise you to check a sample of the book to see if you like the tone of the narration. Here are a few examples:
If my neighborhood were wine, connoisseurs would describe it as “shitty, with overtones of failure and poor life decisions.”
My cart is a pain in the ass to control, but it’s good at carrying heavy things. So I decided it was male.
(Only Americans wear Hawaiian shirts on the moon.)
I left without further comment. I didn’t want to spend any more time inside the mind of an economist. It was dark and disturbing.
In summary, a great caper story, with fun characters, not too deep, but with plenty of technical and scientific information to keep your brain going. I’d recommend reading a sample of the novel, because, once again, you’ll either click with the style of the narration and the characters, or you won’t. I did and laughed all the way to the end of the book. And, if you’ve not read The Martian… well, what are you waiting for?