Artemis: No idiot-proofing can overcome a determined idiot

It has been a while so I was scanning through NetGalley to see what's new and I came across a new book by Andy Weir (aka the guy that wrote The Martian aka that book I love [well I mean, one of many BUT STILL, it's up there]), Artemis. So of course I requested it and was lucky enough to get a copy in exchange for a review.

First thing first, Artemis isn't The Martian. I mean, obviously. Different plot and all. But it's not an instant favorite for me like The Martian was. That would have been incredible if he could have pulled that off again. I was excited to start this but still tried to temper my expectations knowing I could easily set them way too high. I'm glad I kept that in mind because I did enjoy this book.

So with that disclaimer, here's what the story is about. I should also point out that I did NOT read a description before starting. I was doing jumping in and trusting whatever Weir did would be entertaining.

There's a city on the moon. It's sometime in the future (somewhere around 50-100 years from now. Maybe) and there's been a functioning moon city for what seems to be about 20 years. Jazz Bashara has grown up in the city since she was 6 and works as a porter, delivering packages around the city. And maaaaaaaybe some of these packages aren't exactly legal but what city doesn't have a least a little bit of smuggling going on. And it's not like the stuff is dangerous. No drugs or weapons. Just things like cigars for an eccentric billionaire. She's got debts to pay, don't judge.

Jazz is living in tiny quarters, keeping expenses down, and committing some light crime to save up some money. So when one of her clients offers her all the money she's saving for and more, for a little bit of sabotage, well, she can't pass that up.

Things don't go as planned (do they ever? Of course not, cos if they did you'd have no book), stakes are raised, conspiracies revealed, etc. etc. And there's science. A lot of science. Space science.

Weir should be commended for the cast he's created. It's not all white dudes. There's actually very few of those. Or I mean, few compared to other media where they are, just, all the people. If the cast had been mostly white men that would have stuck out. Artemis (the name of the moon city) is a global collaboration, headquartered out of Kenya. Jazz and her father are originally from Saudi Arabia and while Jazz doesn't seem very religious anymore her father is still a practicing Muslim. There are characters from Russian, Brazil, Norway, Kenya, Ukraine, all over. The characters seem pretty evenly split between men and women. Not all of the characters are straight (and those that are gay have more personality traits than just "are gay"). So WELL DONE THERE, SIR. He ever made sure in the acknowledgements to thank people who helped him when writing a female Muslim character from Saudia Arabia, a person he most definitely is not.

And beyond that, the story is interesting. I was engaged, there was SUSPENSE and some mystery. And yeah, a lot of science explanations that sometimes worked well and sometimes felt like a little too much exposition. But I skimmed over most of those because while I like the idea of that stuff in here, in practice I do not need the details explained to me. I believe you. That's not saying I necessarily think those should be taken out. This is a thing that works for him and there's definitely an audience for it. I am just not it, but I am able to enjoy the rest of the book.

Overall though, when compared to The Martian, it's just slightly less. There's less humor (though there are funny moments), the stakes feel lower, the danger less immediate, the science explanations a bit more shoved in. It's all still there and perhaps it's unfair to compare one book to another but too bad, I'm doing it anyway.

Overall, I liked. Would recommend and probably read again, although it unfortunately does not reach the same levels as The Martian which I will love forever and sort of want to reread again right now.

Gif rating:

(Is it mean to use a Martian gif for this? I only have so many space ones and this really captures my opinion on it. But I feel like this might be rubbing it in a bit. Oh well, too late.)

Title quote from location 1192

Weir, Andy. Artemis. Crown Publishing, 2017. NetGalley

Martian movie trailer: Trying not to get too excited (and failing just so miserably)

Remember The Martian by Andy Weir? My review is just a bunch of incoherent babbling about how much I loved loved LOOOVED the book. So news has been they would be making a movie out of it for awhile now. The trailer is out and I found out about it because my brother mentioned he saw it before Jurassic World. (I didn't get to see it before I saw JW and I'm a bit annoyed by this cos we saw trailers for a bunch of stuff that...I don't remember what it was but it all looked terrible.) So naturally I had to go find it and OH MAN, I AM EXCITED FOR THIS.

Did you see how awesome that looks? Did you see that they didn't totally whitewash the cast? Did you hear how he's going to have to "science the shit out of this" and yessss it seems they will be keeping the humor as well as the action and the tension?

I will try not to get too excited for this but if you can't tell, I don't think there's much hope in my achieving that. Plan B is just for the movie to live up to my expectations, please and thank you.

I was thinking at first that I should plan on re-reading the book around the time the movie is due out (October). Except now I'm thinking I might need to re-read it sooner. Like now. Right now. Like actually probably a few days before this post goes live, considering I'm writing it but don't plan on posting it in a couple days. Maybe I'll read this now and plan to read Mary Roach's Packing for Mars closer to the release date. Except of course that would assume I am good at planning my reading and I am not. At all.

I suppose this rambling post should serve as a warning that you will likely hear me babbling excitedly for this movie for the next couple months. Be happy you're not Tom who has to listen to this in person.

As you can see, this plan provides many opportunities for me to die in a fiery explosion

At first I was sitting down looking at this blank page trying to come up with excuses to not write a review and not that I don't LIKE writing reviews but they certainly take more effort than NOT writing a review so. Yeah. But then I realized I have no idea what book I'm supposed to be reviewing next because I am so far behind with that, so I skimmed through my past posts and HEY it turns out the next one up is Andy Weir's The Martian and YES, I am ready to review this.

Holy shit, I loved this book.

I feel like I heard a few people talking about this book, but naturally now I can't remember most of them. Except for Sarah's review which was the point where I said "Hmm yes, perhaps I'll put this on my TBR list." And then I was flying to the West Coast and needed to make sure I had enough to read for all of the plane rides and this one was probably slightly on sale, so I snagged a Kindle copy and was ready. No, actually, I was not ready. I expected to enjoy the book (I wouldn't have picked it up otherwise) but I didn't expect to looooooove the book. I didn't expect to smack Tom in the shoulder every few minutes to say "OH MAN, THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD JUST READ THIS PART". I didn't expect to laugh out loud so many times.

Why don't I back up and actually tell you about the book? Sound like a plan?

Mark Watney is the only man on Mars. By accident. He certainly wasn't supposed to be the only person on Mars. It was never the plan to just leave him there. But then a big dust storm hits the area Mark and his fellow astronauts are working, causing mass chaos (as dust storms are wont to do, especially on other planets) including making everyone think Mark is dead. Probably because it looked like he'd been impaled and none of his vitals were showing up. The others face a tough decision to leave him behind in order to get away. GOOD NEWS! Mark isn't dead! Bad news! Everyone thinks he is so now he's the only person on Mars and no one knows he's alive and out there and he doesn't have infinity food and there are NO good bodegas on Mars so...

Mark is pretty smart. I mean, he is an astronaut and all so those guys tend to know some things. Most of the book is entries from Mark's journal, which is great cos a lot of them start with "Almost killed myself again yesterday. Whoops." And then he proceeds to tell you what happened and how he figured out a solution. I realize now writing this that sounds like it could be very boring or very tech-heavy and it's NOT. Not to say I understood every science-y thing said but I never got bogged down or overwhelmed or lost. Mark is pretty clear as to "This is the problem. These are some solutions. These are considerations for each of those. And go."

Mark is funny. Having seen some of the quotes from the book, I knew there would be humor but I didn't realize so much of the book would be funny or that it would work so well. And really, you need the humor because the other thing the book has in spades is SUSPENSE. I mean, you spend a lot of time going "Holy shit, is he going to die up there? Will anyone realize he's there? And even if they do, how the hell are they going to get him back? Man, Mars really seems to want to murder anyone that walks on its face."

The book is funny and touching and suspenseful just sooooooo so so good. I don't know exactly who the best audience for this book is. Everyone? Possibly everyone.

Gif rating:

Title quote from page 29, location 491

Weir, Andy. The Martian. Broadway Books, 2014. Kindle.