Artemis by Andy Weir

Artemis by Andy Weir

Artemis is about a young lady who gets into all kinds of trouble on the moon. No, that’s not the premise of a new animates kid’s show, it’s Andy Weir’s new book!

I want to thank NetGalley and Crown Publishing for providing me with an ebook copy of Artemis in exchange for an honest review.

“Jazz Bashara is a criminal.

Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you’re not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you’ve got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.

Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she’s stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.”

Please don’t throw moon rocks at me, but I never read The Martian. That being said now, I had no idea what to expect from Andy Weir’s writing. Based on what I saw in the movie (yes, I saw the movie and didn’t read the book. Put those giant moon rocks away) I wondered if I’d end beat down by highly technical explanations of things I was just too dumb to understand.

I’m talking ‘next level’ smart stuff. I mean, most of us think we’re pretty smart people. I can work my computer pretty well. When it goes on the fritz, I know how to troubleshoot most software problems. I can even crack the thing open and replace most of the hardware parts. However, if you leave me in the middle of a forest with some silicon and a soldering iron, I can’t make you a circuit board, let alone a computer.

But I was pleasantly surprised to find that wasn’t the case. There were some highly technical things going on in the book, but I never felt lost in it. Everything was dumbed down without it feeling like you’re being talked down to. It also helped that the man character, Jazz Bashara, would combat the super-technical mumbo jumbo with some good old-fashioned cursing and maybe a dirty joke.

Speaking of Jazz, she was the real highlight of this book. Not just because she was the main character. She was just unique and fun. She was super smart, and fairly talented, but she came off as someone completely relatable despite the fact that I am neither super smart nor talented.

She was snarky, and sarcastic, and made me laugh even when I was right in the middle of worrying about her personal safety. Life on the moon is no joke, you know. There were lots of situations where she tells you that if she makes one mistake it’s near-instant death. Tense. But then she makes a comment that puts a smile on your face and for a few seconds, and you forget about the instant death thing… until it almost happens.

By the way, when they make this one into a movie (come on, we all know they will. Put down the moon rocks) I vote for Lindsey Morgan from The 100 to play Jazz. She’d be awesome.

The plot mixes science fiction with heist, which is a far better combination than I would have thought. It’s not complicated or convoluted and there’s no big twists to knock you on the floor, but it will pull you in, get you invested, and keep you guessing the entire time.

If you’re on the fence on this one, jump in. It’s a very fun, very easy read. You’ll find yourself breezing through it in no time.

On an unrelated note, if you want to read something by Andy Weir that is potentially life-changing, may I present to you, the short story known as The Egg.  And when you’re done enjoying that, some film students from the University of York did a fantastic video adaptation of it.

Fun fact about this post: Every time I type ‘Andy Weir’ my fingers automatically add a ‘d’ on the end. Seriously. It’s happened every time. Sorry, Andy Weird.