Artemis

Andy Weir has made Science Fiction one of my favourite genres.

I took a while to warm up to the main character, but grew to become very fond of her. The world-building is fantastic (as always) and intelligent. In the beginning, I did get the secondary characters confused as I didn't get a sense of their personality as quickly as I would have liked. Some of the science talk went over my head too, but it didn't break the flow of my reading.

The pacing of the book was just right, and it was an enjoyable and easy read. I was always happy to find pockets of time to pick the book up and continue reading.

“Read” the audio book version. Rosario Dawson is amazing I hope she continues to narrate books.

Great story.

I really loved this book. I think it's a shame it didn't get better reviews - another great book from Weir!

Great read, was perfect for our long drive. Cannot wait for the movie.

Não é todos os dias que oiço um audiobook de uma só vez, recomendo.

I hope you like welding and melting metal - it comes up a lot. As does a weird machine that recycles condoms - Checkov's Condom Cleaner?

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.

Some cheesy dialogue and scenes (I seriously had visions of Threat Level Midnight), but it kept me entertained enough on a long car ride. Some of the jokes were a bit repetitive and weak, but a couple made me laugh.

I mentally replaced the main character with Matt Damon halfway through the book, because the way she's written, Jazz doesn't actually feel like a real person. I wonder if Andy Weir has spent much time around actual women.

This book is not on the same level as The Martian (no surprise). I enjoyed the story, but didn't love it. I've been thinking about why.

Many people that have read The Martian didn't love it because of the excruciating detail it goes in to about a lot of the science in the book (perhaps “pseudo-science” in some cases, but plausible enough to be enjoyable). This is precisely what I loved about it.

Artemis doesn't go into nearly the same level of detail about almost anything. This is perhaps based on feedback the author received. However, to me, it's disappointing. I was looking forward to detailed explanations of how various aspects of life on the Moon works. Instead, I felt the story was somewhat generic, and was really just a caper pitting small-time individual against a big, mean corporation.

Like The Martian, the settings and situations in this book felt very real. The plot was a kind of a caper story with huge stakes but set in a small town where everybody knows you.
It was fun and fast moving and at times reminded me of one of my favorite books, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

I re-read this because when a friend mentioned it, I realized I couldn't remember anything about it.
While reading it now, it seemed almost entirely new.
I was surprised that the industrial sabotage wasn't treated more harshly.
After an earlier failure, the new plan seemed to hinge on something that wasn't true.
Well, I still liked it a lot, and I will probably get to read it for the first time again in another 3 years.

Metaphorosis Reviews, 3.5 stars,

Summary:

Jazz Bashara, brilliant ne'er-do-well, has a get rich quick scheme on the Kenyan owned Artemis lunar base. Unfortunately, so do a clever entrepeneur, a mysterious cartel, and a host of others.

Review:

Sadly, in his second commercial book, Andy Weir doesn't stretch, or even try to. After writing a technically accurate, hands-on, credible technology story on Mars, he now does very much the same on the Moon. It is credible, the story itself is fairly sound, and the characters are engaging. But it's very much in the same lane as the Martian, except with more characters. Unfortunately, the characters are what trip him up.

Any book in 2018 that includes the phrase “I'm too gay to enjoy this [fight between two women]” suggests that the writer hasn't quite caught up with the times. He might get away with the line if there weren't so very many others. The book contineus the line of capable, slightly macho, can-do men writing about bright, irreverent teenage girls in space – Podkayne, Melpomene, Carmen – to name a few – and now Jasmine. Heinlein's Podkayne was the only one that really worked, and that's only because it was a different time. The rest have felt largely past their prime. While I have no issue with the idea of men writing women (or vice versa), Jazz never really feels credible. Perhaps if there had been fewer references to sex, or how she looks to men, it might have gone over better. The same is true of the one gay character, who spends a lot of time pointing out that he's gay, so he's not excited by Jazz undressing, etc.

Weir delights in getting his technology right, and he's very good at it. But what was a strength of The Martian, with its focus on puzzle solving, fares less well here. Too often it's clear that Weir turned up an interesting fact, and just couldn't resist putting it in the story – for example, the thick electrical cable shifting due to magnetic forces caused by current. It's really neat, has virtually nothing to do with the story, and doesn't really fit. To his credit, I get the impression Weir genuinely thinks these things are cool – he's not just showing off his research – but the jumble of them get in the way of the story.

I wanted to like Artemis, and I did, but nowhere near as much as I expected to. In the end, it's a clever, well-told story brought down by an attitude that feels more 1970s than 2000s. Here's hoping Weir steps a little further from his comfort zone next time, and aims for slightly more modern characters.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

If someone starts this book expecting a reprise of [b:The Martian 18007564 The Martian Andy Weir https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1413706054s/18007564.jpg 21825181], they will be disappointed. Artemis ain't that. It is, however, a pretty good book in its own right. What we get is a pretty good caper story with a bit of action and some fairly interesting characters. The special twist is that it takes place on the Moon. And, as one would expect since Andy Weir wrote it, it is also a real nerdgasam.3.5 stars rounded up.

Overview: A tense murder-mystery in the first settlement on the moon. Filled with puzzles, humour, action, science and a great main character that I'd love to read more about.

After 1st Reading: Started it yesterday. Finished it today. There are so many things to make this book hard to put down. There's a good streak of humour, there's an interesting setting, then there's one detective-style mystery after another, just when you think you're onto solving one mystery - another pops up. Then there's the lovable-rogue main character, who you want to see is safe (so, just one more page) and then the faeces hits the rotary blade and our unlikely band have to deal with a huge deadly danger! Got to see if everyone is OK!

If a fire alarm went off, they'd probably have found me bolting out of the building while still reading...I'd evacuate of course...there's no way I'd let the book burn!

Yes, a good read all said.

After 2nd Reading: Was it as good as the first time around? Yes! This is a real page turner of a book with great puzzles that have you reading as fast as possible while your brain buzzes trying to put the clues together. While I don't think that the author has any plans for direct sequels, the main character, Jazz, is such a great protagonist that I would love to read about her further adventures I would just love the Administrator to blackmail Jazz into being Rudy's deputy. Not only would she be a great detective, but the Rudy vs Jazz friction would be hilarious I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more of the gardener either...

A really good read.

I was so disappointed in this book since I loved The Martian. His female character was completely unbelievable and I was galled by the credit he gave to all of the women in the acknowledgements for helping develop the character. He really didn't get it. And the plot line was straight out of Star Wars with just a bunch of technical info thrown in. Don't bother with this one.

Wow. I adored The Martian and read it within one day, raved about it to anyone who would listen and devoured that movie. I even considered listening to the audiobook after all that because I loved the book that much and I really don't enjoy audiobooks.

I wish I'd never picked Artemis up. Jazz wasn't written as a human being so much as the author's idea of a wisecracking protagonist. I could go on for a long rant about how your female characters should be noticeably female in a way that isn't the character or other characters talking about shagging her. Or how MCs who can do everything they need to do with ease isn't interesting or fun to read, especially if they over explain what they're doing while narrating. Or any other of the aspects to this book.

Basically I don't think there were any redeeming features to this book. 300 pages of absolute guff.

I liked this book, but Jazz as a character didn't exactly work for me. I kept thinking she was Mark Watney if Mark were a 26 year old Arab woman. Fun read. I bet it's better as an audiobook. I think I would've been very disappointed if I had read it. Rosario Dawson was amazing. Her accents were so good. I truly believed she was an African man.

It's a good story told well

The science
A city on the moon is interesting thing to contemplate, I've read many other sci-fi books about it, but this was the first one that didn't bypass the ever present dangers of maintaining a survivable life in the vacuum of space. I appreciated every detail of the ‘hard science' to help its plausibility.

The story
I was entertained by the viewpoint it was told from. The perspective of a small time smuggler working the remote Wild West system was irreverent and authentic.

The audio narration
I mostly listened to the book. I was curious how well Rosario Dawson would read it. I couldn't imagine she had a lot of range based on the parts I've seen her play. I was surprised and came to love her reading style. Her voices added so much to the characters. I will ding her for her Irish brogue, it needs more work. But I give her passing grade overall because she did such a superb job with all the other characters. I think that knowing Rosario grew up near the lower east side neighborhood of NYC. I have no doubt that she would have known the types of characters she was reading about. A petty thief, a marine, a cop. A nerd, a thief, a traditional Muslim father. The syndicate street soldiers. An Irish bar keep. If you knew the lower east side in the 70, 80' & 90's, it isn't hard to imagine the characters from that hood on the moon.

Andy's words read by Rosario = perfect.

I hope they create something else.

Decepcionante!!!

The follow-up to [b:The Martian 18007564 The Martian Andy Weir https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1413706054s/18007564.jpg 21825181], which is a lot of pressure. And now that we're past it, maybe his next book can be better again? This one only paled in comparison. It has similar elements - a setup in space, lots of science, technical procedures, high stakes - but is lacking in character and story. Once I got past my first disappointments with the book, I re-adjusted and still managed to enjoy the ride, but then somewhere in the last quarter I lost that joy again due to some character choices that kept bugging me. For example, I don't quite get why forcefully stealing a legal contract from a crime syndicate wouldn't lead to even more violence in the future? It felt like no one involved in the plot fully thought this through? And everyone was just too forgiving with Jazz and all the fuckups she caused. She got to stay so she can regulate the contraband underworld, really!?There was a little segment where the leader of the station talked about economics and the station's future, which I thought would have been a great subject to put some more meat into this. 2.5 and I am only rounding this up to 3, because I found it quite charming to imagine a not-so-distant scenario of the moon as a tourism destination.

Really wanted to enjoy this book because I enjoyed The Martian. It unfortunately turns out to be a jaunt down young adult literature lane littered with unnecessary amounts of profanity, 20-something year old angst, and a plot that starts off interesting but ultimately goes...well...not too far honestly. Here's to hoping the author's next book returns to The Martian style.

I adored The Martian, and I really wanted to like this book, but it felt clunky in places and the main character is odd and cringeworthy at times.

That being said, I would be happy to return to the world he has created, but with a slightly different collection of characters. Bring back Svoboda, Rudy and Bob!

This is good but don't expect a Martian level good. It's just a general heist and make do story which so happens on the moon and with all the fancy space terms and more. It does not blow your mind but it will be interesting while reading. Don't compare it with The Martian. It's not bad either

To start, I guess I should say I have not read The Martian. I honestly didn't even know who this author was, I saw: girl, new adult, space, heist annnnnddd I was kinda sold. When someone at the library recommended this to me I was even more excited, but I gotta say, I wasn't super impressed.

The beginning is quite slow for my tastes. I didn't really get where things were going and I thought much of the information was unnecessary, even for giving misdirection. So, the information and wording can be tough and feel like jargon at times, but this is a sci-fi... they live on the moon, this is something I just kind of expected so I'm not docking points for it.

As for the characters, I loved the diversity. There is a gay couple, the main character was born is Saudi Arabia (I think), there is friend from Kenya, and more. It was pretty cool to see. Yet, I didn't really feel connected to any of the characters and some of the representation is pretty shallow at best. For example, Artemis feels very American, even though it is run by Kenyans and no one actually acts diverse or culturally different from others.
Also, I didn't understand Jaz – sure I'm sure some girls act like her, but it her actions were strange to me at times, as well as the actions of those towards her. Although, I will say that no one ever told her she couldn't do anything so.... plus? More than anything I wish Jaz cared more about people or let the writing portray that so we could learn more about her friends and colleagues. Honestly, I felt like there was more to say about why she needed money, I seriously thought there were multiple things she wanted to do.... seriously, why were the letters to the friend in Kenya even introduced? Just to show Jaz isn't completely heartless and selfish? To show the difference on Earth and Artemis? To showcase Jaz's love life?

The heist! I love a good heist story. Once the heist was underway... things finally picked up. I'm not saying there weren't moments were I wanted things to pick back up, but for the most part I was engaged. I don't understand welding terms though, so there ended up being parts I totally skipped and some elements were introduced that honestly I ended up skimming. Soooooo kinda interesting, but considering everything that went down, a bit too HEA for me. I just don't see how the ending is possible.

Honestly, while writing this review, my rating has gone down a whole star. I probably won't read anything else by this author, but I do see the good qualities and aspects which could draw in readers, so I will recommend this to space sci-fi readers who like political intrigue, heists, and an anti-hero MC.