I really enjoyed The Martian by Andy Weir, and was looking forward to another funny hard-science sci-fi book. Artemis wasn't as funny or thrilling as The Martian, but it still delivered, I really enjoyed reading about Jazz's adventures. It was especially cool to see a brown skinned girl as the protagonist, because I don't see a lot of books featuring science-y women of color (like me!). I will say that the technical aspects seemed a bit more out of place in the context of this story compared to The Martian, and I was a bit more distracted by it in this story. I also didn't find the mystery aspect of the book as thrilling as I hoped for, but overall this was still an entertaining book.

Great follow up from Andy Weir. The details in regard to science and engineering are once again on point and make you question why we aren't already living in the rich worlds he creates. The suspense and mystery surrounding this novel are a nice change from the survival story of The Martian.

This was one of my favorite books I have ever read! I kept wanting more and this book kept on giving it to me!

Witty and smart, this book is full of Weir's usual combination of humor and science. I enjoyed the characters and the world building, and found myself completely transported.

OK, so it's like Andy Weir wrote this book thinking, "You know what The Martian lacked? Sex and sexual humor and sexual innuendo." We get it - Jazz has a lot of sex. Everyone makes constant sexual jokes. I liked The Martian, even though the main character could get on my nerves, and it's not always fun when LITERALLY EVERYTHING GOES WRONG ALL THE TIME. Artemis is like that, with an even less likable main character and just as much science. I was not impressed.

Andy Weir's first novel, The Martian, was absolutely phenomenal, and so of course I was so excited to read Artemis. Although not quite as good as The Martian, I still had a blast reading Artemis!

SUCH a good premise that unfortunately fell short. The dialogue felt forced, the characters were hard to connect with, and there were just too many cringey moments. The science was interesting, but this was just not nearly as good as The Martian.

Artemis was not the story I was expecting. I was a huge fan of The Martian and Artemis is a very different story both in scope and characterization. I actually did not enjoy it at first and it took more than one attempt for me to get through the story. Harder science fiction has never been my favorite genre which is why I liked The Martian so much - it was relatable and human regardless of the sometimes technical subject matter. However, once I finally got into the story, Artemis was a great read. The first third or even half don't match up to the end resolution which makes reading through the book worth it. I have mixed feelings about the read even now. But it's certainly worth a look for readers who think they may enjoy it.

I was really excited to have the opportunity to read this book a few months ahead of publication, especially since I LOVED Weir’s debut novel, The Martian. Unfortunately, this didn’t compare. The protagonist, Jazz, was a female version of Mark Watney – but the sarcastic, crude humor that worked so well in The Martian fell flat here. In The Martian, I got the sense that Watney was making crude jokes to take the edge off his dire situation, and I liked his optimism; in Artemis, it felt like Jazz had never matured since middle school and was overall a pretty obnoxious and self-centered person – I never really liked her, even by the end. Also, while I admittedly didn’t follow all the science in The Martian, it was central to the plot (and made sense for an astronaut to disclose). In Artemis, it seemed like a lot of the welding details could have been skipped rather than narrated in excruciating detail. Overall, the plot wasn’t nearly as compelling as The Martian, but it was a reasonably entertaining read if you skipped the welding bits. Decent, but disappointing in comparison.

I read this book out loud to my husband during road trips. It was so good that I wanted to finish it on my own, but he wouldn't have it! He needed to know everything that I did about the action and characters in this book. This book did a much better job at fiction than The Martian did in my opinion. The Martian was a great story, but the explanation of all the science gave it more of a documentary feel in big chunks. I like both books! Artemis just focuses more on the story and less on the science.

4 1/2 stars, this is a book that I really love and will probably give 5 stars to after a reread, but I never rate a book 5 stars that I've only read once. For me that last half star on a 5 star rating is for re-readability factor. I'll reread and rate again in November after I buy the book it's that good.

I approached this book was a fair bit of dread, I've been let down in the past by an author's second book and I was hoping that wouldn't be the case. Andy Weir knocked it out of the park, his book couldn't be more different from a lone astronaut to a domed city full of people. About the only thing that Mark Watney and Jazz Bashara share is their fierce intelligence and how they use that intelligence to handle a crisis. The plot is very fast paced and would lend itself nicely to a movie, which I'd love to see. Anyways it's a great book read it as soon as you can if you enjoyed the Martian, or like smart characters and science fiction with actual science. My pick for best SF book 2017 so far.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for giving me a review copy

This book was engaging and fun, but Jazz was horribly written. Weir tried way too hard to write a believable, strong and “funny” woman protagonist and failed at it. The plot was interesting nonetheless, but it’s not a must-read.

I think it is safe to say that any Weir book would be an enjoyable read. He is a master at creating interesting characters, the best are smartass and sarcastic. He is also the master of research. He takes a premise and researches the hell out of it so that it’s believeable. He creates a situation that you COULD imagine yourself in. And they are all an adventure! Here he has created the “Wild West” of moon colonization and what it’s beginning economy could/would be like. Jazz, like Mark in the Martian, is a real smartass with a great inner voice. I love Weir’s art of the inner voice.

3.5 stars

Now, this being my second try, I finally was in the right mindset to appreciate the story, characters and the author's fantastic way of combining facts with fiction.

Artemis is set on the Moon and as in The Martin, the author combined fiction with fact, and delivered a spellbinding story about life on the Moon.

Throughout the entire novel, it was easy to imagine the author's depiction of living on the Moon. This could be reality one day. It might actually be possible. I mean having a community on the Moon, and not just a one-way ticket to a planet too far away to ever come back again. An established kind of industry that wouldn't be possible to have anywhere on Earth. And a small, diverse and international community. I thought it was interesting that the Luna community on Artemis wasn't bigger than 2000 inhabitants. Which makes much more sense than a metropolis of millions.

Some of the facts the author used in this book went way over my head, but I still enjoyed the way narrator Jazz Bashara, Artemis's smuggler extraordinaire, figured it all out. She was one smart woman.

Most of the characters in this novel were fantastically diverse, distinct, intriguing, and entertaining. I especially loved Jazz's email communication with her best friend on earth, which also explained a major plot arc in a really unique way.

At the same time the action really brought this book together. Jazz has the opposite of a boring live. Working on the side of illegal, she is always aware that one wrong step can destroy it all. And even though not all of her ideas work out, she can certainly think on her feet.

So, even though some parts of the book were too technical for me, the rest was utterly entertaining. All in all a great audiobook, and for everyone who loves sci-fi this book is definitely one to consider.

A version of this review will be posted on my blog

This one is hard to rate. The parts I was into, I was really into, but there are a lot parts that I completely checked out of. Did we really need page after page of the description of welding? I feel like it should have ended a good 75 pages earlier than it did. You get to the climax and... but WAIT THERE'S MORE... OH AND HERE'S MORE .... AND MORE until it fizzles into a complete mess.

The humor was just not my thing. Yes, we women can be just as crude as men if we want to be, and there's nothing wrong with it, but every single vaguely sexual non-sexual remark doesn't need the "that's what she said" approach taken to it. (That specific phrase isn't uttered, but that's basically what it is.) It might have worked if it had been a character thing in actual conversation, but it's Jazz's inner monologue to us. At some point, you have to say enough.

I also dislike Sci-Fi in the future to have "current" (using the term loosely) pop culture references. While Star Trek in all it's forms may transcend time and space... Scooby-fucking-Doo should NOT.

I did like parts of it, but overall, I'm not feeling it.

Seth's Thoughts:
Back in June 2014, I was exposed to Andy Weir with his debut novel The Martian. I read that book in the space of one or two sittings. His novel Artemis was the same. It's a page turner of a different sort. Back with The Martian you follow Mark Watney, an astronaut who gets stranded on Mars. In Artemis, you follow Jazz, a young woman trying to find her way on the only established Moon colony. Early on in the book, she's made an offer that would make her rich enough to not have to worry about scraping by. What follows is one of the better books I have read in 2019. If it turns out like the last book I read by Andy Weir, it'll be a great movie.

Seth gives Artemis: 4.5/5.

Not as amazing as The Martian, which is my biggest critique. Weir set the bar so high that it might be impossible to match. This is a cool story about a female Han Solo-type character but it's not as immediately enthralling and engaging as The Martian.

After reading The Martian, I had to read Artemis. I love how Andy brings in science albeit some of it sounds quite believable, but that's what made this book fun to read.

On paper it sounds like "The Martian meets Oceans 11", but it fails in most ways. The main character is really cringey. I would chalk that up as Weir being unable to write a convincing female character but... the secondary characters are pretty cringey too. There's about two bad zingers per page that did nothing for me, and the science and engineering-heavy problem solving sequences, which worked well in The Martian, seem shoehorned in here.

I loved this book. I couldn't predict what would happen next. The character was likeable, but at the same time had a complicated personal history that gave her dimension. It was an exciting story and would make a really good movie.