Artemis By Andy Weir: A Review

I love hard science fiction. I grew up with Clarke and Bova. Hard science fiction has this really good blend of real science pushed to the limit, with enough wiggle room to speculate just a bit further to get the plot where it needs to go. In recent memory, nobody really made the subgenre more amazing than Andy Weir.

I read The Martian a few years ago. Okay, I saw the movie with Matt Damon first, then I heard about this guy named Andy Weir. The movie was beyond badass, and it had to be the best science fiction I had seen since well... a long time. Think of it this way: Remember that movie Mission to Mars with Gary Sinese and Don Cheadle? My childhood brain loved the shit out of this movie, but my adult mind didn't warm up to it as much. For those of you that remember, Don Cheadle's Character gets stranded on mars for a long ass time because they woke up some ancient alien thing. Whatever, the plot sucked.

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Okay, imagine instead of the borderline-goofy plot that Mission to Mars gave us, we focused on what the hell Cheadle (I really don't remember his character name) had to do to survive basically not dying on a big ball of lifeless rust. Add in a bunch of really awesome scientific details, more realistic botany, and BOOM, you have the Martian. I love this book, Mark Watney was funny as hell, and by extension, Weir has a direct link to my funny bone. Humor, science, speculation, and space travel. Wow.

But that's not what this is about.

Weir's second book, Artemis takes us closer to home. There's a kick ass moon colony called Artemis, and its shaped exactly like you would expect a moon base to be shaped; a bunch of domes. Awesome. We are introduced to the beautiful scoundrel with a heart of Gold, Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara. She's got a temper, she is a smuggler, and she makes bad choices. Holy crap, she's a moonbase Han Solo. That's right, she is a hot female Han Solo. No doubt about it. Did I mention shes a genius? A genius that doesn't live up to her potential. And don't you dare tell her about it.

In any case, her aspiration is to be rich. She wants to be able to move out of her Coffin shaped home (yes they are called coffins) and live extravagantly! Her own shower, a nice cozy bed, and hell maybe even a kitchen! Remember, this is the moon. Space is limited. She also wants to pay off a ridiculous amount of debt and right some wrongs in her past. Her dad's a welder, and she wants to become an EVA master. How does the book begin? With her failing an EVA test. Damn.

So we have an underdog story. She gets caught up in a plot with one of her smuggling customers named Landvik, and if she's successful she will be able to pay off the debt and then some.

But then the shit hits the fan. I won't go into the spoilers, but it involves taking control of an industry, and something called ZAFO. What the hell is ZAFO? You have to read it to find out.

In the end, you see a great character arc with Jazz and some really satisfying resolution. The climax of the story will have you on the edge of your seat like very few novels I could tell you about. The level of detail and realism Weir brings to Artemis is on par with The Martian, if not more so. He goes into several details that are plausible for a real moonbase scenario. How is oxygen replenished? What do they eat? What kind of people go to Artemis? He even goes into economics and social hierarchy. And of course, there's no shortage of that signature Andy Weir/Watney humor that we loved from his debut.

One thing... and it was slightly off putting in terms of suspension of disbelief. This novel is a written in first person past tense, with a dash of epistolary mixed in. What exactly are we reading? Her memoir? Her memories? A retelling of her story a zillion years later? There's no actual explanation of this. To contrast, in The Martian, we are following Mark Watney through his personal logs. Third person limited is used for the the NASA/Earth scenes, and it really all makes sense exactly what is going on. We don't get the same for Artemis. I believe it to be a nitpick, but something that I consider enough of a problem to mention.

I give Artemis a super solid 8 out of 10. It's an amazing piece of hard sci fi. I bought the hard copy and it will be cherished on my shelf forever. Thanks Andy, please write more!

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