Andy Weir’s Artemis has the same vibe as The Martian so I expected to enjoy it for all the same reasons, but many of The Martian‘s strengths become pitfalls when repurposed in Artemis.
Summary from Goodreads:
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.
Jazz is Mark Watney (the main character in The Martian). Not only does Mark’s voice make for a poorly-written woman, but his personality doesn’t suit Jazz’s situation. His endless internal chatter worked for someone alone on Mars—he didn’t have anyone to talk to—but why does Jazz speak the same way when she’s surrounded by others? Her long tangents, musings, and science lessons interrupt dialogue and reduce the supporting cast to yes-men. There’s little for anyone else to do but sit back while Jazz banters with the reader.
If Artemis preceded The Martian, it would be easier to evaluate Jazz without thinking of her as Mark-lite. Unfortunately, she suffers for the comparison because she’s half as clever and relies on her feminine wiles at all the wrong times:
In this scene, Jazz has just been asked to sabotage some machinery in exchange for more money than she’s seen in her life. The machinery is new to her, but she studies it to discover its weakness. And then:
“Okay,” I finally said. “I have a plan.”
“Yeah?” Trond dropped a socket driver and scurried over. “Do tell.”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about the details.”
“I like details.”
“A lady’s got to have her secrets.” I stood up. “But I’ll completely destroy their harvesters.”
“That sounds great!”
That sounds great is what I say when someone says, “I’ll have that report for you after lunch.” It is not what anyone would say in response to I know your entire fortune is riding on this, but A LADY’S GOT TO HAVE HER SECRETS.
The real reason Jazz has secrets is because Weir is hiding her cards from the reader to build suspense. He partially succeeds. The sabotage scene is briefly suspenseful when Jazz brings the wrong tools for the job (darn details) and can’t spark a flint in a vacuum. But don’t fret, Dear Reader! She remembers in time to deliver a lecture about oxidation while building a workaround.
Question: Why did Jazz forget to bring the proper tools for her secret plan?
Answer: Because Artemis doesn’t have a plot. It’s an after-school special where the host says things like “Look at this flint, boys and girls, it won’t make a spark and I’m going to tell you why.”
Unlike in The Martian where all the experiments worked toward one goal (leaving Mars), the end goal in Artemis isn’t immediately clear. There are some machinations by power-hungry rich people, some techno-babble, and a whole lot of contrivances built around Jazz’s awesomeness—no joke, most of the climax is caused by her welding abilities being too perfect.
I liked the concept of Artemis, the international city on the moon that uses weight as currency, but this idea has more wasted potential than payoff. Jazz tells us it’s the first truly international city, but the way it’s written makes it feel less multi-cultural than a midsize city in the U.S. Weir’s reliance on cultural stereotypes makes Jazz’s world narrow. He gets points for a diverse cast, but it feels less like representation and more like pandering when the characters’ actions are governed by shallow assumptions. This criticism extends to Jazz—Weir can say she’s a woman as often as he likes, but she never stops being Mark. Fortunately, every time I slipped up and started imagining Mark in her predicament, there was a reference to her sex life or something like: “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
If you read the first couple of chapters and it doesn’t bother you that a 26-year-old woman speaks like a 15-year-old boy—keep reading, you’ll have fun. But if it bugs you then bail early because it doesn’t get better.
Overall: 1.5 (out of 5) Every book gets at least a point. No matter how badly a book is written, the author still wrote an entire book. It’s like how everyone gets points for writing their name on the SAT.
This means Artemis joins the ranks of North’s The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Russell’s Sleep Donation, and Chabon’s The Final Solution as one of the lowest-scoring books on this site. Every time I think about the low scorers I consider shaving a point from The Night Circus because that is actually my least favorite book here.
NB: This book was provided for review by the publisher, Crown Publishing (via NetGalley).
Image Credit: Goodreads
You did better than me – I bailed after a maybe thirty pages. Not just the dreadful characterisation and awful dialogue, but the constant inane swearing. Somehow the swearing in The Martian didn’t bother me – if you’re stranded alone on an alien planet with only a potato between you and starvation, I guess you’re entitled. But Jazz just sounded stupid and childish. The whole thing felt like it was aimed at fourteen-year-olds…
I am so glad you disliked Artemis! If you’d given it a good review I might have felt compelled to give it a second chance.
Most of Jazz’s dialogue is cringe-inducing and it only gets worse as the book goes on. It’s possible for an immature person to carry a story but Jazz doesn’t exist outside her immaturity. Since you wisely stopped a few chapters in, here’s the best line that you missed:
[Jazz, in an EVA suit]: “I turned my head inside the helmet, bit a nipple (try not to get excited), and sucked some water out.”
I realize I have a limited ability to knock people for lame jokes when my site is named “That’s What She Read” but I think I can still mock this particular line. 😀
“If you read the first couple of chapters and it doesn’t bother you that a 26-year-old woman speaks like a 15-year-old boy—keep reading, you’ll have fun. But if it bugs you then bail early—it doesn’t get better.” 😆👍
😀 I was thinking about buying a copy just to post a SBIRIFY when the movie comes out, but now I think the movie could be pretty good… Unless they have voice-overs, viewers won’t have to listen to Jazz’s babbling.