Artemis: A Novel
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.
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Community Reviews
Content warning for death, violence, mass casualty events, murder, mob violence, threats, and related topics. I first want to start by saying that I am a huge Andy Weir fan. I loved the world-building in this novel, and it's still one of my favorite science fictions I've read so far this year, even with the world's most annoying narrator. I get that Jazz was supposed to be endearing in her own way, but by the end of it I was done. She wasn't believable as a fully grown adult. My frustrations about her aside, the world is so cool that I'm willing to overlook the narrator. I liked the heist elements, and I thought the science was really cool. If characters make you really mad, read this one at your own risk!
After "The Martian" I held too high of an epectation for Andy. The story was unique, science based, but I didn't connect to the lead, the story, or even the same sense of humor that Andy seemed to capture in previous works.
A fun and fast read, if a bit light, by the author of The Martian. Same comic writing style, which I enjoy very much. I'm not sure I like how he writes a woman -- I didn't even know she was a woman until the pronouns came in -- but it works for me because her life events have certainly not been stereotypically female either. Chock full of science-y stuff if you like that sort of thing, and I don't think I ever read a book about welding in space before (or if I did it wasn't as fun as this one).
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