Review: Artemis - Andy Weir

WELCOME TO ARTEMIS. The first city on the moon.
Population 2,000. Mostly tourists.
Some criminals.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. She lives in a poor area of Artemis and subsidises her work as a porter with smuggling contraband onto the moon. But it’s not enough.

So when she’s offered the chance to make a lot of money she jumps at it. But though planning a crime in 1/6th gravity may be more fun, it’s a lot more dangerous…

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Review:
I absolutely loved The Martian so of course Artemis went straight to the top of my wish list the minute I heard about it. I'll tell you upfront that this is very different to Andy Weir's first story but it was still a great read that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Jazz is a criminal who makes her money smuggling contraband into Artemis, the first city built on the moon. She's not the biggest crime lord on the block but she's fiercely independent and smart enough to work the system in her own favour. When she's offered the chance to cash in on the job of a lifetime she jumps at it thinking she'll finally have enough money to start living the high life that Artemis is so well known for but it doesn't take long before things go horribly wrong when her contact is murdered. She soon finds herself in the middle of a war, caught between the mob on one side and the police on the other. Her only chance of survival is pulling of a heist that is so tricky it's just as likely to be the death of her rather than the salvation she desperately needs.

Artemis is such a fun read, very fast paced and full of action it was hard to put down once I'd started reading. I loved Jazz, she was snarky and sarcastic, a little too mouthy for her own good and very sure of herself but she has the skills to back up her confidence and I enjoyed seeing her work out how to achieve her goals. This story was a lot lighter than The Martian and a very different tone but Andy Weir still excels at making science interesting and including all sorts of fascinating information in his stories that just make his worlds feel even more believable. We have a larger cast of characters here and they all had their own personality quirks and added something unique to the story.

Although this story works perfectly as a stand alone I can't help hoping that the author will revisit this world again in the future, I'd definitely be happy to see this turned into a series. Either way Andy Weir has earned a spot on my auto buy authors list and I'm looking forward to seeing where his imagination will take us next.

Source: Received from Del Rey in exchange for an honest review

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