Artemis by Andy Weir
Jasmine Bashara didn’t intend to become a hero. She only desired material wealth. Not like many of the tourists that come to her birthplace of Artemis, the first and only moon colony for humans. She was barely wealthy enough to leave her tiny flat and eat something other than flavour-infused algae. She is wealthy enough to pay off a long-standing debt.
Jazz can’t resist when a chance to finally make a big score presents itself. Yes, she needs to advance from being a minor smuggler to a serious criminal mastermind. It also requires a special mix of cunning, technical expertise, powerful explosions, as well as plain arrogant arrogance.
Artemis by Andy Weir
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Yet Jazz has never encountered a problem that her mind couldn’t solve, so she believes she has the “swagger” part down. Jazz’s troubles don’t actually begin with planning the ideal crime, which is the problem. And a plot to seize control of Artemis itself is about to involve her in a small theft.
Even Jazz is forced to realize she is in much over her head as she is caught between opposing factions and is being hunted by both the law and a killer. She’ll need to come up with a genuinely amazing plan if she wants to have any hope of surviving and defending her city. Jazz is a very capable crook but she is hardly a hero.
Andy Weir had a very lofty bar to meet with The Martian. A difficult act to emulate, perhaps. Artemis falls far short of The Martian in comparison. Period.
The Martian featured the “science drives the plot” aspect. In Artemis, I believe it turns into a situation where some technological advancement or scientific fact suggests where the plot should go rather than where the plot wants to go and there is scientific evidence to support that decision.
Low-pressure air is present there. This is true despite ongoing soldering, sparking, and illegal smoking. According to IIRC, a spark in an oxygen-rich, the low-pressure environment caused the Apollo 1 disaster.
The story’s final chapters heavily feature economics. The lunar city/colony Artemis is at one time compared to a massive Ponzi scheme. It required some time to figure out the logic behind that assertion. Parts of the tale will probably be challenging if a “Ponzi scheme” sounds like something from Happy Days.
