Title: Artemis
Author: Andy Weir
Length: 384 pages
Publication date: November 14, 2017
Genre: Adult sci-fi
Rating: 4/5
I was kind of nervous going into this book, because I loved The Martian so much, and what if this one wasn't as good? While I didn't get immediately sucked into this story like I did with The Martian, overall I did quite enjoy Andy Weir's second novel.
The plot: Jazz Bashara is a smuggler in Artemis, the first city on the moon. Being well known (in the more shady community, anyway) for her skills at bringing in contraband, a life-changing opportunity presents itself. It may not be legal or ethical, but when you have large debts and you're living in an apartment the size of a horizontal closet, can you really afford to turn it down? Unfortunately for Jazz, what she stumbles into turns out to have bigger consequences than she could have imagined.
The cons: I didn't love Jazz. It actually took me a good chunk before I was visualizing a female, even though going into it I knew the main character was a girl. It took me a while to care about her as well. She was a bit of a stereotype of the "super brilliant young person that doesn't apply their potential, and they act all tough but they have a good heart" trope, which I'm tired of, but as far as that stereotype goes I guess it was okay here.
Andy Weir doesn't shy away from swearing, but I think this may have had less than The Martian. There was also lots talking about sex, but it was talking and not showing. Nothing actually happened in the book, but Weir wants you to know that Jazz has a sexual history and she likes it that way.
The pros: Everything else. It's got the awesome science that you don't have to be a scientist to understand. It has a fun heist story with a quirky cast of characters. The setting on the moon is so cool, and it added a lot to the stakes of the heist as well. If things got screwed up, literally everyone in the city would be affected. Things kept happening that I wasn't expecting at all, so I was on my toes until the end. All in all, I did enjoy this novel a lot.
