Review: Artemis

Artemis by Andy Weir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The ARC for Andy Weir's follow-up to The Martian is in pretty high demand behind the scenes at the Stanford University bookstore, as you can imagine, and I was lucky enough to get my hands on that ARC and call it mine for a moment before returning it to its friends in the storeroom. And I was able to read all of it, surprisingly short and digestible as it was, during my breaks on an eight-hour shift, a total of an hour of reading time.

Not unlike The Martian, here we get a Twenty Minutes Into The Future sci-fi story set on a world not ours - specifically, the Moon, and the first human colony on our natural nighttime satellite. Here, young and confident and humorous as hell smuggler Jazz Bashara gets involved in a heist that eventually gets her linked to a pretty staggering conspiracy involving new technology, questionable industrial practices, and the potential to turn life on this lunar colony upside down for pretty much, well, ever.

Also not unlike The Martian, we have a First Person Smartass narrator par excellence. Jazz snarks her way through every chapter with every bit the aplomb of Mark Watney, and even better, her narrative's not interrupted by long stretches of third-person narration taking place elsewhere as happens frequently in The Martian. My one issue with the narration is that Jazz sometimes throws out translations and/or definitions for common Arab-world garments (like niqab, for instance), which I hope is cleared up in the final print because it suggests that readers are either unaware of what they mean and can't be arsed to Google them, or can't figure them out from the context. At least there are these cultural elements to be had, though, especially given that Jazz is Saudi and was raised Muslim. I can imagine there are a few people in some of my circles who might take issue with a white guy like Weir writing a narrator like Jazz, especially since she acts pretty Westernized (liberal sexual mores, shying away from religion, etc.), and that brings to mind some of the recent controversy re: 27 Hours and characters' ethnicities being heavily highlighted but not so much their ancestors' cultures.

If nothing else, though, I'm glad to be able to point to a strong, memorable, lovable WoC main character.

It's a fast-paced story, perhaps a little too fast at times, with a lot of moments of padding - especially noticeable given the relatively short length. But it builds up masterfully to a bittersweet ending - bitter, but with that sweet spot of hope. Hope for a sequel, which I hope Weir graces us with sooner rather than later. Jazz is, if anything, even more iconic than Mark Watney ever was or will be, and she deserves to headline her own multimedia franchise, gorrammit!

Now I pass this ARC back to my manager and share the wealth behind the scenes for the next couple of months until the book comes out and I can start hand-selling it like a boss.

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