I’m pretty proud of the fact I managed to read Artemis the week it came out.
Artemis is the new full-length novel by Andy Weir, the man who shot to fame when he released his debut novel, The Martian.
The only problem when you write something that becomes so famous is that everything you write after will be compared to it. I think this is a safe case to make: Artemis is the spiritual successor to The Martian. It’s Mark Whatney’s personality, now stuck in a woman’s body, in a heist caper on the moon. If that sounds good to you, you’ll probably enjoy the book. If that sounds horrible, I’d recommend staying away.
Personally, I enjoyed the book. In my mind, I think of Artemis as candy with a side of sci-fi. It’s not designed to be taken too seriously. I have a very juvenile sense of humor (which I acknowledge – it’s one of the reasons you won’t find many jokes in my books), so I enjoyed the humor of the protagonist. Many reviewers have pointed out that the humor destroys the character. I can see where they are coming from, but it didn’t bother me, because I wasn’t expecting deep characterizations.
One aspect of Weir’s novels that I’ve always enjoyed is how he blends science so well into his stories. In The Martian, his skill was on incredible display. I’m not sure it reaches the same depths here, but there is still a wonderful amount of science baked into a fast-paced story. I’m impressed. Little details like how people would move, how regolith behaves, and even how pressurization would work are all parts of the story that teach us something but don’t draw too much attention to themselves.
I’ll conclude by repeating what I said above. If you loved everything about Mark Whatney, and want more of that in a light heist caper, then definitely read this book. If that description makes you want to run the other way – you might want to do that.
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