Artemis

paperback

Published Jan. 1, 2018 by Del Rey.

ISBN:
978-1-78503-025-3
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3 stars (1 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" -- summary from author's web page.

4 editions

Review of 'Artemis' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I seem to remember reading a lot of reviews expressing disappointment with this book when it was first released, but, whilst not perfect, I thought it was actually a big improvement on The Martian, even if our protagonist is only a female criminal version of Mark Watney. It feels like Weir learned an enormous amount about novel writing between the two books; character development, differentiation and impact on plot are all enormously better. The plot is, by comparison with The Martian, a sophisticated and not entirely predictable thriller, holding more interest than purely survival/engineering problems.

That's not to say there aren't still flaws - Weir's love affair with exposition explaining how everything works is still somewhat out of control which makes for a first third that is slower than necessary. Some of it could be cut and explained in the relevant plot moment (because it is, causing a repetition) or …