‘Artemis’ lacks the power of ‘The Martian,’ but it’s a fun read
Andy Weir’s second book arrived to great anticipation and middling reviews, but it’s worth checking out
I read The Martian on an impulse a few summers ago. I caught it before the movie adaptation had released, back when it still graced the front of Amazon’s Kindle store every morning, but not before it was a national sensation of a book. As many before me have noted, the book is phenomenal, and well worthy of the excellent movie that followed. When author Andy Weir announced his follow up, Artemis, I was interested to see what he’d come up with next.
Less-than-stellar book reviews led me to hold off reading Weir’s follow-up until this past week, but I still think Artemis is a good book. It falls sort of The Martian, but the snarky humor that marks Weir’s writing style is enjoyable. At times, the scientific details bog the narrative down, and Weir’s relentless sarcasm (which I just praised above) begins to grate upon readers near the end. Still, the ideas and plot points are enjoyable, and the attention to detail from Weir’s engineering background ensures that suspending disbelief isn’t too difficult.
The plot
The story of this book takes place on Artemis, a fictional city on the moon that is also the planet’s only habitable living space. Weir’s protagonist is Jazz Bashara, a Saudi Arabian woman who has turned to a life of semi-crime at the book’s opening. I admire that Weir (a white man) chose to tell a story through the eyes of a woman of color, though some have noted that his portrayal isn’t as accurate or thoughtful as one might hope. Regardless, Jazz has many of the same characteristics of the protagonist Mark Watney from The Martian and she’s a likable, unique character.
Jazz is smart, knowledgeable, and sarcastic, and faces a variety of challenges and enemies throughout the course of the plot. I won’t spoil any details here, but it involves some interesting scientific realities on the moon, a crime ring, and several other interesting characters. Weir fills this book with scientific asides and interjections, and it’s to his credit that they don’t completely derail the story.
The good and the bad
Artemis does many things well. The events move quickly, the setting is unique, and the plot takes offafter the first 100 pages or so. This isn’t a slow burn like The Martian — most of the events unfold at a breakneck pace over just a few days.
The book also falls short in several places as well. The first and most glaring flaw is Weir’s constant need to explain the science behind nearly everything. At first, I appreciated his asides about how oxygen would function on the Moon, or what type of material the housing was made out of. After a while though, it began to drag. I appreciate Weir’s commitment to accuracy, but he hasn’t found the right balance of how much to share, especially when the raw information gets in the way of more interesting dialog or plot points. In addition, I suspect that Jazz as a character might be polarizing. She’s funny and witty most of the time, but the constant jokes and sarcasm ran a bit thin near the end.
Final thoughts
I’d recommend Artemis. I enjoyed reading it, I think that Weir is a talented author, and it’s short enough to end well before it feels stale. Weir made a smart choice in not making the book any longer, and the overall pacing of the story is to his credit. This book has its problems — and I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as some of the other books I plan to write about soon — but this is a fun read that’s well worth a few summer nights to enjoy.
