Artemis: A Novel
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars | 43,645 ratings
Price: 12.99
Last update: 10-11-2024
About this item
The bestselling author of The Martian returns with an irresistible new near-future thriller—a heist story set on the moon.
Jasmine Bashara never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich.
Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity’s first and only lunar colony. Just rich enough to move out of her coffin-sized apartment and eat something better than flavored algae. Rich enough to pay off a debt she’s owed for a long time.
So when a chance at a huge score finally comes her way, Jazz can’t say no. Sure, it requires her to graduate from small-time smuggler to full-on criminal mastermind. And it calls for a particular combination of cunning, technical skills, and large explosions—not to mention sheer brazen swagger. But Jazz has never run into a challenge her intellect can’t handle, and she figures she’s got the ‘swagger’ part down.
The trouble is, engineering the perfect crime is just the start of Jazz’s problems. Because her little heist is about to land her in the middle of a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself.
Trapped between competing forces, pursued by a killer and the law alike, even Jazz has to admit she’s in way over her head. She’ll have to hatch a truly spectacular scheme to have a chance at staying alive and saving her city.
Jazz is no hero, but she is a very good criminal.
That’ll have to do.
Propelled by its heroine’s wisecracking voice, set in a city that’s at once stunningly imagined and intimately familiar, and brimming over with clever problem-solving and heist-y fun, Artemis is another irresistible brew of science, suspense, and humor from #1 bestselling author Andy Weir.
Jasmine Bashara never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich.
Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity’s first and only lunar colony. Just rich enough to move out of her coffin-sized apartment and eat something better than flavored algae. Rich enough to pay off a debt she’s owed for a long time.
So when a chance at a huge score finally comes her way, Jazz can’t say no. Sure, it requires her to graduate from small-time smuggler to full-on criminal mastermind. And it calls for a particular combination of cunning, technical skills, and large explosions—not to mention sheer brazen swagger. But Jazz has never run into a challenge her intellect can’t handle, and she figures she’s got the ‘swagger’ part down.
The trouble is, engineering the perfect crime is just the start of Jazz’s problems. Because her little heist is about to land her in the middle of a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself.
Trapped between competing forces, pursued by a killer and the law alike, even Jazz has to admit she’s in way over her head. She’ll have to hatch a truly spectacular scheme to have a chance at staying alive and saving her city.
Jazz is no hero, but she is a very good criminal.
That’ll have to do.
Propelled by its heroine’s wisecracking voice, set in a city that’s at once stunningly imagined and intimately familiar, and brimming over with clever problem-solving and heist-y fun, Artemis is another irresistible brew of science, suspense, and humor from #1 bestselling author Andy Weir.
Top reviews from the United States
Patti D C5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Masterpiece
Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2024
I fell in love with Andy Weir's "The Martian" a long time ago. I didn't think he could possibly equal that work but he did! It's another stroke of genius that brings the reader into a viable new world. The amount of research he has to do to write his novels is again, mind boggling but this reader benefited from it tremendously. I highly recommend this book not only for its educational, mind-stretching qualities but for its opaque plot, its believable characters and its sheer entertainment. Read it!!
Kevin T. Keith4.0 out of 5 stars
Hard Life in Hard Vacuum - a Rip-Roaring Lunar Caper
Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2017
Taught and engaging thriller set in an intriguing, demanding environment. Fun, fast read and a well-worked-out caper threaded through the technical constraints of its lunar setting. Another Weir home run.
The excitement of Andy Weir's brilliant "The Martian" was the grinding technical challenges its protagonist had to meet, and his ingenuity in doing so. The plot was essentially nothing more than an extended series of DIY plans under conditions that seemed impossible. "Artemis" highlights the same technical mastery but works it into a more traditional story-line - essentially a heist caper set in the underworld of cutthroat corporate competition in the unusual setting of the essentially piratical economy inside the air domes of the first-ever lunar colony. This gives the book more of a sense of narrative flow, but also de-centers the technical material that so fascinated many of Weir's fans in the first book. Although this book works very well in melding its multiple avenues of background knowledge - technical, economic, cultural, and personal - they serve to dilute one another so that the detailed exegesis of welding in lunar vacuum is intercut with the dynamics of clan- and guild-based feudal economies, complicated by the intergenerational religious and personal politics of the protagonist's family, the developmental economy of a frontier outpost with no atmosphere, the chemistry and physics of smelting lunar ore, the protagonist's relationship with her ex-boyfriend's new boyfriend, the running of a smuggling operation between planets, and finally the basic plot of corporate sabotage. Readers who find one of these storylines more interesting than the others will find that 80% of the book is about extraneous issues. Neal Stephenson pulls this kind of complicated didactic narrative off with aplomb; Weir is a worthy runner-up, but this book doesn't have the heft of, say, "The Baroque Cycle" (which it very slightly resembles), or the light-hearted drive of "The Martian". The early-stage libertarian economy of the colony resembles that of Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," but is worked out with much greater economic sophistication. The technical detail is fascinating and carefully considered (do you know how to light a welding torch in outer space? - read this to learn!). The unforgiving physicality of living in such a searing environment pervades every page (how do you control a fire, or an air leak, on the moon? - in both cases, by sacrificing however happens to be inside the closest airlock). Though I think it is less gripping than Weir's previous work, "Artemis" is a fun and exciting read, and the protagonist is a brilliant character with a sassy personality not unlike that of the main character of "The Martian".
As to the actual plot: "Jazz" (Jasmine) is a menial laborer in Artemis, the first and only lunar colony. She works as a porter, hand-delivering packages between the handful of pressure domes that make up the city; this also gives her access to the cargo delivery shuttles, which she uses to operate a small side-business in smuggling. She is widely recognized as exceptionally smart and resourceful, but chooses to isolate herself and refuses any assistance from her father, a successful welding-business operator. She is approached by a wealthy resident with an offer of riches in exchange for helping him to acquire the ore-processing concession from the one major corporation in the city. How she goes about it, what the consequences are, exactly what technical processes are required at each stage of the complicated plot, and how she, and the city, came to be what they are, are gradually unfolded. In the end, Jazz is nearly dead and nearly broke, but has an exciting future ahead of her. It will be interesting to meet her again.
The excitement of Andy Weir's brilliant "The Martian" was the grinding technical challenges its protagonist had to meet, and his ingenuity in doing so. The plot was essentially nothing more than an extended series of DIY plans under conditions that seemed impossible. "Artemis" highlights the same technical mastery but works it into a more traditional story-line - essentially a heist caper set in the underworld of cutthroat corporate competition in the unusual setting of the essentially piratical economy inside the air domes of the first-ever lunar colony. This gives the book more of a sense of narrative flow, but also de-centers the technical material that so fascinated many of Weir's fans in the first book. Although this book works very well in melding its multiple avenues of background knowledge - technical, economic, cultural, and personal - they serve to dilute one another so that the detailed exegesis of welding in lunar vacuum is intercut with the dynamics of clan- and guild-based feudal economies, complicated by the intergenerational religious and personal politics of the protagonist's family, the developmental economy of a frontier outpost with no atmosphere, the chemistry and physics of smelting lunar ore, the protagonist's relationship with her ex-boyfriend's new boyfriend, the running of a smuggling operation between planets, and finally the basic plot of corporate sabotage. Readers who find one of these storylines more interesting than the others will find that 80% of the book is about extraneous issues. Neal Stephenson pulls this kind of complicated didactic narrative off with aplomb; Weir is a worthy runner-up, but this book doesn't have the heft of, say, "The Baroque Cycle" (which it very slightly resembles), or the light-hearted drive of "The Martian". The early-stage libertarian economy of the colony resembles that of Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," but is worked out with much greater economic sophistication. The technical detail is fascinating and carefully considered (do you know how to light a welding torch in outer space? - read this to learn!). The unforgiving physicality of living in such a searing environment pervades every page (how do you control a fire, or an air leak, on the moon? - in both cases, by sacrificing however happens to be inside the closest airlock). Though I think it is less gripping than Weir's previous work, "Artemis" is a fun and exciting read, and the protagonist is a brilliant character with a sassy personality not unlike that of the main character of "The Martian".
As to the actual plot: "Jazz" (Jasmine) is a menial laborer in Artemis, the first and only lunar colony. She works as a porter, hand-delivering packages between the handful of pressure domes that make up the city; this also gives her access to the cargo delivery shuttles, which she uses to operate a small side-business in smuggling. She is widely recognized as exceptionally smart and resourceful, but chooses to isolate herself and refuses any assistance from her father, a successful welding-business operator. She is approached by a wealthy resident with an offer of riches in exchange for helping him to acquire the ore-processing concession from the one major corporation in the city. How she goes about it, what the consequences are, exactly what technical processes are required at each stage of the complicated plot, and how she, and the city, came to be what they are, are gradually unfolded. In the end, Jazz is nearly dead and nearly broke, but has an exciting future ahead of her. It will be interesting to meet her again.
Ian A. York3.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of promise; doesn't really deliver
Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2017
There’s a lot to like about Weir’s second novel, and plenty of signs that he can turn out more fun, exciting novels like The Martian, but Artemis is more promise than delivery. Weir’s strengths seem to lie in caper novels — The Martian was basically one long escape caper, right? — and when Artemis focusing on pure problem solving it’s plenty entertaining.
But fitting the problems into the a full-fledged story is harder, and he fails altogether to join them with real, believable characters. The heroine of Artemis was presumably intended to be a charming rogue, a quick-witted, quick-mouthed smuggler with a heart of gold. Instead, she comes across as a hodgepodge of quirks and gimmicks, some programmer dude-bro’s dream girl awkwardly merged with a half-dozen issues of Cosmo from 1980. She starts off irritating, but I gave her some slack because I assumed from her attitude and personality that she was probably a precocious 12-year-old or so and should be growing up soon. When I discovered that she’s supposed to be 26, I lost patience and interest in her.
The caper was disappointing. The details were all fine; solving the individual problems was fun. But the plan, as a whole, was just dumb. The heroine is supposed to be a genius (Weir goes out of his way to point this out, and then promptly forgets it), but the plan she comes up with misses so many obvious points that even Weir ended up having to lampshade it, having her plan fail the moment someone looked at it but then letting her get away with it for no good reason (except that the males in her life protected her and sheltered her). Maybe it was meant to be an ironic subversion of the hypercompetent protagonist? I don’t think so. I think it was just not thought through very well.
If I sound harsh, it’s because there’s enough gold in here (and in The Martian) to show that Weir genuinely does have plenty of talent, and I hope he continues to build on it. I really like that he was trying to stretch himself a little here, going with a female protagonist who is certainly more nuanced than The Martian’s Boy Scout. He missed the balance, and his characters didn’t really come together, but I want to see more books from him. Just better thought through than Artemis.
But fitting the problems into the a full-fledged story is harder, and he fails altogether to join them with real, believable characters. The heroine of Artemis was presumably intended to be a charming rogue, a quick-witted, quick-mouthed smuggler with a heart of gold. Instead, she comes across as a hodgepodge of quirks and gimmicks, some programmer dude-bro’s dream girl awkwardly merged with a half-dozen issues of Cosmo from 1980. She starts off irritating, but I gave her some slack because I assumed from her attitude and personality that she was probably a precocious 12-year-old or so and should be growing up soon. When I discovered that she’s supposed to be 26, I lost patience and interest in her.
The caper was disappointing. The details were all fine; solving the individual problems was fun. But the plan, as a whole, was just dumb. The heroine is supposed to be a genius (Weir goes out of his way to point this out, and then promptly forgets it), but the plan she comes up with misses so many obvious points that even Weir ended up having to lampshade it, having her plan fail the moment someone looked at it but then letting her get away with it for no good reason (except that the males in her life protected her and sheltered her). Maybe it was meant to be an ironic subversion of the hypercompetent protagonist? I don’t think so. I think it was just not thought through very well.
If I sound harsh, it’s because there’s enough gold in here (and in The Martian) to show that Weir genuinely does have plenty of talent, and I hope he continues to build on it. I really like that he was trying to stretch himself a little here, going with a female protagonist who is certainly more nuanced than The Martian’s Boy Scout. He missed the balance, and his characters didn’t really come together, but I want to see more books from him. Just better thought through than Artemis.