Andy Weir's "ARTEMIS"

A book review by Dennis D. McDonald

I was hankering for a science fiction novel. This popped up in my public library feed. I gulped it down in less than a week. I loved it.

If you read the Goodreads reviews you’ll see a lot of people were disappointed with Artemis especially after reading Weir’s THE MARTIAN and PROJECT HAIL MARY. Many reviewers were not pleased with Weir’s portrayal of the main character, a young woman operating on the periphery of the frontier town Artemis, a tourism-dependent lunar colony that has grown up outside the bounds of traditional Earth law and society.

Artemis has been able to grow partly due to the abundance of ores that facilitate production of aluminum and oxygen, and partly based on an influx of (some) shady Earth based investments. Our heroine is a young woman who has lived on the moon since she was six years old. For a variety of reasons she has chosen to operate on the periphery of Lunar society.

I won’t suggest that Jazz is a likeable person — she’s foul mouthed, independent, usually irreverent, and certainly not an example of refined ladylike feminism. But she is headstrong, determined, quick thinking, and she has a sense of justice and loyalty that serve her well in the end (sort of).

During the course of the novel she becomes party to some shady deals that thrust her into the middle of criminality and mystery that are initially way beyond her paygrade. Her petty smuggling—barely tolerated by the powers that be—pales in comparison with what she gets involved with and struggles to extricate herself (and everybody else) from.

As is usually the case with Andy Weir, the technical and scientific details that prove essential to important story elements are meticulously thought out. You will probably end up learning more about how welding works in a vacuum than you want (or need) to know, but Weir’s explanation is clear and patient. You’ll also get a neat example of orbital mechanics regarding travel between the earth and the moon that is worthy of Neil Stephenson.

Artemis’ physical elements are well thought out despite a few chance occurrences that operate like deus ex machinas. But this is a fun read. Recommended!

Review copyright (c) 2023 by Dennis D. McDonald