Sean

I liked this book. I didn't love it. I'd say closer to 3.5 stars than 4, but I like to give the benefit of the doubt. And after reading all the other reviews, I'm going to stick with 4. Furthermore, I'm going to continue to enjoy my life and not inject all this insane projection into books that don't deserve them. We live in [current year] where people get ostracized for portraying a different ethnicity or a transgender in a film or whatever other insane issue people are complaining about today. Girls that just want to have a pretty prom dress get called out for “cultural appropriation.”

So Andy Weir writes a novel that has a Saudi girl as the main character. One of her best friends is gay. Multiple highly influential and powerful people in the book are women, and non-white to boot. Hell, the KENYAN Space Agency is the main company. Kenya. Not the US. Not anywhere in Europe. Kenya. And back to Jazz, despite her father's religious teachings, she's sexually active (her body, her right, amirite?). She's also incredibly intelligent and literally reads new science for a couple of hours and seems to completely understand it. And she's spunky and self-reliant and nobody is going to tell her what she can or cannot do. Quite frankly, I've just listed off multiple personality and story traits that almost always annoy me about a book, because it comes off as nothing but virtue signalling. A “look at me, I care about diversity too!” characters and setting. Normally, I'd be the one 1-starring this because I hate the main character so much, and all the “progressives” would be telling me how misogynistic and white male privileged I am. Yet I liked Jazz, and I didn't care that she was female, or Saudi, or any of the things I listed. And here I am defending her to a bunch of people that would literally have their heads explode if they cast a white guy as Black Panther.

I think I know why. Because Andy Weir is a white male. So he obviously can't know how to write anything but a white male. I mean, let's forget the fact that authors have been writing wonderful characters of the opposite gender and differently nationalities, religions, and beliefs for centuries. Let's forget the fact that MANY of the female reviewers of this book (yes, I assumed their gender) have reviewed absolutely atrocious books (at least in terms of the female main characters) like Twilight and 50 Shades and any number of novels with a bare-chested man with flowing hair on the cover, and reviewed them HIGHER THAN THIS BOOK. Go ahead and verify that, I'll wait. Read the reviews too, but don't eat beforehand if you are squeamish. You know what I'm saying is true.

So which is it? Is a strong, diverse, independent, intelligent woman what you really want? Or is it a helpless, bumbling, sexually repressed klutz that finally meets that strong, virile man that sets them straight with a little discipline and tough (or is that rough?) love? Because you don't get to have it both ways.

Now, this isn't to say that people have to like the book. Honestly, it wasn't anywhere near as entertaining as The Martian for me. I'm a huge believer in everyone having their own opinions and shouldn't be called out for it. Like the one reviewer, if you don't like to read about welding, you don't like to read about welding. (There's honestly not anywhere near as much as the review would lead you to believe, but hey, you can think any welding is too much, and I'm ok with that.) But the number of people complaining about the main character not acting like a “real” person...that's why it's a freaking book!! I know there are probably a small number of people that want to read about someone doing normal everyday things, but most of us don't. Perhaps you would have liked a book from the perspective of one of the normal residents of Artemis who just experienced the events of this book, but had no idea why or how any of it happened? Me, I'd rather read about the extraordinary events of an extraordinary character. My life is super boring enough already, I don't need to read about it too. Of course Jazz is a freaking genius and precocious and even annoying at times; that's why she's the main character!

Next time I suggest that Andy Weir write a novel about a shirtless guy with flowing long hair, who meets a klutzy girl that only finds her true strength and spirit after much pining after the shirtless guy. Sure, I won't read it, but billions of women will, and they'll rate it higher than they did Artemis.

Loved this series, but I have to deduct a star from the final book because I felt it took a long, long time to tell a relatively simple story. I know I'm reducing an entire novel to absurdity, which isn't fair, but in the grand scheme of things, this book was literally 95% walking to the end. Sure, stuff happened along the way that mattered...but not enough where I felt it needed to take up that much time. I know I'm not a published author and Hobb is far more capable than I will ever be, but that's how I felt while reading it. I'm glad I finished it, and will definitely read the following several series, but this one fell a little flat for me until the end.

I greatly enjoyed the first 7 books (plus however many novellas) in this series when I read them all in a row pretty much. And I enjoyed this book for the most part.

However, and I know this will sound a little silly when talking about a book about Druids, I feel like I'm witnessing Mr. Hearne's coming out as a Social Justice Warrior with this book. Yes, get out the pitchforks, I'm sure I have immediately become a horrible person to a bunch of you.

Yeah, it makes sense that a book with a good third of its narrative from a female's perspective would at times deal with feminist problems, and the aforementioned Druids would worry about nature and man's destruction of it. But there are ways to do it that aren't practically beating me over the head with it. I could list off many strong female characters by other authors that (I'm assuming, since I'm male, boo hiss!) should inspire female readers simply through their actions and don't need to pontificate on why they did them. Similarly, Atticus worries about the fate of the earth (and to a lesser extent the people on it) regularly throughout the series, but only in this book did I feel that I was being forced to sit up and take notice, or else. I greatly enjoyed Granuile's character up to this point, but with this iteration it is as if nothing matters except getting the author's message across in her voice. I'm quickly growing to despise her character because of this.

I could be completely misreading things or attributing intent that isn't there, but that's the way it read to me, so at least something made me start thinking it. I felt it was pretty blatant too, but perhaps I'm just more sensitive to it now than before.

But here's a perfect example: you know who (to me) were the best female role-models in this book? The Polish witches. Not once did they talk about oppression or misogyny or any other buzzwords. They just were, and they were cool, and I respected them as characters. Not as women or men, not as activists or abusers, but as people. That's the way you show that women are strong. You don't tell me that they are and force me to comply.

I'll read the next one because 8 books is a lot of investment and I greatly enjoyed most of them, as evidenced by my ratings, but I fear that the next book will only get worse. I hope I'm wrong.

Oh, and I do want to say that the Owen chapters were absolutely wonderful. He's a breath of fresh air every time he appears.

I really, really liked the writing and the characters in this book. And I feel that I get the overall premise...but maybe I'm just not smart enough to understand what the whole point of it was? I don't want to go into spoilers, and again I really liked the book overall. It was easy for me to pick up and keep reading, unlike some books where it is a struggle to finish. But I feel like I'm missing some integral part that is preventing me from really understanding what is going on, and thus truly enjoying it.

This book just didn't do it for me. I'm sure it will for a lot of others, but not me. I literally could not stand the main character, and not for the reasons you might assume if you've already read the book (or at least some of the reviews). It wasn't because she was female, nor was it because she was gay. I don't care one bit about any of that as long as the character is interesting and compelling and someone I can root for. This main character was someone I rooted for, oh yeah I did...I rooted for her to be murdered so the rest of the characters could go on with their lives and not be in mortal peril due to her series of absolutely ridiculous actions. Without spoiling anything, every single conflict in the book arises from her getting angry and doing or saying the exact opposite of what everyone else in the book would have done. Because feelings.

Now don't get me wrong, there is a time and a place for “rebelling” or “challenging norms” or whatever virtue-signalling term you like. But if you grew up in a world like this where merely talking out of turn might end with you, or your loved ones, or maybe your entire village's violent deaths...you'd probably at least think twice about doing it multiple times in the span of a few days.

It is very clear that this was written from the very beginning to be about “female empowerment”, but to me at least it failed miserably. Everyone else pays the price for her stupidity, and if you really want to get analytical, she's “rescued” by a male character every time as well (except perhaps the last fight, but even then someone else provides the means). This is no Ripley from Alien or Sarah Conner from Terminator, some of the best female characters that jump to mind. This is Bella from Twilight, except instead of needing to be rescued due to being clumsy and dumb, this time she is dumb and can't keep her mouth shut for even the one minute that would have avoided every bad thing that happens.

Practically everything in the book is telegraphed way ahead of time too. You might not know exactly how things will happen, but you have a pretty good idea. You even come to expect that she'll say exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time and just roll your eyes and watch it unfold.

It gains the second star due to the one unexpected turn of events late in the book. That was well done. Still not enough to get me to read more in the future, but I did enjoy that part at least. I feel bad any time I “trash” a book, because I know writing is incredibly difficult and personal and if it were me reading what I just wrote above, after years of working on a book, I'd probably take it badly. But I also value honest reviews here, so at least someone might be a little better prepared if they do decide to pick up the book.