“A clumsy, awkward success is still a success.”
- Title: Artemis
- Author: Andy Weir
- Genre: Science Fiction
- Pages: 305 pages
- Publication date: November 14, 2017
I found Artemis on Goodreads or StoryGraph, and I clicked on it because of the title alone. Artemis is my favorite Greek goddess, so I looked at the book’s back cover, which also caught my attention.
Jazz is a criminal who lives on the moon in a town called Artemis. And it’s the most expensive place to be. With barely any money, she turns to smuggling. When a new job comes up for a million slugs (their currency), she can’t turn it down—even though it’s her most dangerous and catastrophic mission yet.
I enjoyed Jazz’s sarcastic tone, and I liked how the plot interwove. The chapter endings definitely like to keep the readers on their toes. The elaborate worldbuilding with how everything worked to live on the moon was a great touch. While I couldn’t 100% keep up with it all, it kept the setting vivid and present throughout.
My main critique is Jazz’s character in general. While she had—stereotypically—boy’s humor, it did get a bit much sometimes. Her appearance was described in a couple of unnatural ways as well. Not as much as I’ve seen before from other male authors, but still a few lines where one can tell a male wrote this book.
A few reviews also mentioned that Jazz sounds like the narrator in Andy’s other book—The Martian. I didn’t read that book to make a comparison, but I also don’t think Jazz, an Arab woman in her twenties, should sound like a forty-something American male. But again, I hadn’t read the book to know.
Overall, I enjoyed the story and its worldbuilding. Definitely a cool space concept for sci-fi lovers.
Score: 8.3
Average rating on Goodreads: 3.68/5
Robin LeeAnn 