Artemis

By: Andy Weir

Narrated by: Rosario Dawson

Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's Summary

The best-selling author of The Martian returns with an irresistible new near-future thriller - a heist story set on the moon.

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.

Bringing to life Weir's brash, whip-smart protagonist is actress Rosario Dawson (Marvel's The Defenders, Sin City, Death Proof). With the breathless immediacy of one realizing they're one cracked helmet visor away from oblivion, Dawson deftly captures Jazz's first-person perspective – all while delivering sarcastic Weir-ian one-liners and cracking wise in the face of death. And with a cast of diverse characters from all walks of life calling Artemis home, Dawson tonally somersaults to voice Kenyan prime ministers, Ukrainian scientists, and Saudi welders. It's a performance that transports listeners right alongside Jazz, matching her step for step on every lunar inch of her pulse-pounding journey.

©2017 Andy Weir (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews

"Everything you could hope for in a follow-up to The Martian: another smart, fun, fast-paced adventure that you won't be able to put down." (Ernest Cline, New York Times bestselling author of Ready Player One)

"An exciting, whip-smart, funny thrill-ride…. one of the best science fiction novels of the year." (Booklist)

"Narrated by a kick-ass leading lady, this thriller has it all – a smart plot, laugh-out-loud funny moments, and really cool science." (Library Journal)

"[A] superior near-future thriller.... Weir leavens the hard SF with a healthy dose of humor." (Publishers Weekly)

"[Narrator Rosario] Dawson makes Jasmine sound like the lovable rogue she is.... Dawson makes listeners care about a diverse cast of characters with quirky mannerisms." (AudioFile)

A ferrari with no motor

On the outside, everything about this audio book looks good. The much anticipated sophomoric novel from breakout sci-fi author Andy Weir read by Rosario Dawson is a great preface in itself. Add to it the promise of the first moon colony, some corporate espionage, a lone wolf heroine saboteur and the possibilities are endless. Then it just sits there. And all the aspects that could make it great are that much more annoying. Dawson does a fantastic job narrating. The problem is the characters have no depth, the storyline is swiss cheese and the dialogue is juvenile to an infuriating level. The protagonist delivers wannabe witty sarcasm endlessly and has hardly any likable moments. Humor falls flat at every attempt and there are many, many attempts. Very disappointing. The science is interesting but that can only go so far. If you're looking for the best sci-fi and you haven't done it yet, check out The Expanse series.

664 of 745 people found this review helpful

The opposite of the Martian...

One of the things I really enjoyed about the Martian was a main character who dealt brilliantly with unfortunate circumstances that were caused by forces out of his control. By contrast- Jaz - the main character in Artemis- is totally responsible for one mess after another. Artemis is a story about a supposedly smart person who consistently make very stupid decisions. Jaz attempts to solve each of her problems (which she largely creates) by creating situations that are worse...and each disaster is worse than the last. She’s a liar and a thief - and while she’s very creative in her solutions she is a destructive force in her own life. Not a fan. I listened to Artemis because I enjoyed the Martian so much. If I had listened to Artemis first I doubt I would have picked anything by the same author.

397 of 448 people found this review helpful

way over hyped.

I really loved The Martian. This didn't even come close. It wasn't terrible, but it just sort of sat there....
I have a thing where I feel compelled to finish a book, even if I'm not enjoying it. I had to force myself to finish this one.

27 of 30 people found this review helpful

A Book I Truly Wanted to Love

Andy Weir has shown once again he is a master at researching and building a truly amazing sci-fi universe. Unfortunately, his dialogue is juvenile and his story boring. Scientific details aside, the book read like a pre-teen thriller. The characters were all one dimensional and dialogue was appallingly simple. The story was boring at best and read more like a screen play than a rich, deep, and enthralling book.

I honestly wanted to love this book. There is a lot of good substance here, and I hope Andy finds the time to take everything he’s learning to write a book to truly remember. For now, it looks like all we’ll get is a book perfectly suited for a 90 minute movie.

191 of 218 people found this review helpful

Really wanted to like this

This has all the right ingredients. Written by Andy Weir, read by Rosario Dawson - what can go wrong?
A lot apparently.
The book is bad. Weak story, awful main character and the science feels artificially placed. It’s good science but it does not drive the plot nor it is very interesting.

As for the performance - I am conflicted. Something was not working. Rosario has great voice, good accents, and the production is very well done. But the overall result is bad. I just don’t know if it’s because Rosario is missing something or just the bad story and awful main character comes to life through her voice and projecting on the performance.

I am still very hopeful and Weir’s next book. The Martian was great and I very hopeful this book is a temporary setback.

82 of 95 people found this review helpful

Formulaic

The Martian was a book while reading you thought this will make a great movie some day, Artemis on the other hand feels like it was written for todays movie audiences as a forethought.

With a great concept, Weir falls short with his heroine, he shows us plenty at how technically astute he is but not so at writing from a woman's perspective, which made the protagonists development weak, leaving less empathy for her actions. The overly ambitious plot has too many holes in it to make Artemis more than just ordinary and to me it had a chance to redeem itself but Weir opted for more of a hollywood ending.

Rosario Dawson has a wide range and delivers a solid performance but the stereotypical accents of some of the characters does not seem accurate for people living in the most diverse city ever.

Artemis just tries too hard not to be The Martian and ends up becoming more like Die Hard on the Moon .

191 of 224 people found this review helpful

I was surprised at how mediocre this was

I became a huge Andy Weir fan when I read "The Martian" and later the short 6 minute story called "The Egg". I was so excited for this new Andy Weir book. The first 3 hours I hated it. It was boring, and nothing was done to bring the reader into the characters, especially the main protagonist. After that, the book picked up the pace. It's a short book, so throw out the first 3 hours and it's really short. However, it still amounted to nothing more than an average sci fi story. Had this been my first Andy Weir book, I would have never read another. The reader was good, but her inflections of the main character's voice would not have been the choice my mind would have gone to if I had read this instead of listening. Some of the time she had this so called street smart girl sounding like a dumb valley girl. I could not get into this one. Not at all.

83 of 97 people found this review helpful

Entertaining; Fun Moon Adventure; Not the Martian

Based on the reviews I've seen, I would suggest listening to this BEFORE the Martian, otherwise, you might be somewhat disappointed with Artemis. If you have read the Martian, I would suggest dialing back your expectations for this one and just try to enjoy it versus comparing it to another one of Weir's books. Sure Weir is very talented - but this isn't Martian 2 - there is going to be some variations on characters, plot, etc. Not every book by an author is going to be spun gold perfection. And it is hard to follow up the success of something like the Martian.

For one, you are not going to be nearly as sympathetic to our protagonist, Jazz, as she is not a stranded scientist struggling to survive until help arrives. Jazz is an under-achieving smuggler hustling her wares within a tiny community of 'loonies' (don't call them that they hate it) colonizing the moon in a cluster of acclimatized spheres [Artemis]. She's lived there nearly her entire life, has a few interesting social connections, and is laboring in near-poverty in hopes of paying off a debt/righting a wrong that has her and her father on the outs.

There is a lot of science, moon, and some space travel stuff to geek out about - much of it sounds rather plausible. But I didn't nitpick, I just tried my best to enjoy the book.

Some bark about the idea of the producers hiring a famous voice to narrate the book when there are plenty of extremely talented voice-actors who could have done a 'better' job. Sure, I agree there are plenty of very talented people who could have read this - they could have treated it like an audio drama and hired a full-cast. Regardless, I think Dawson captured Jazz's brash, rude personality rather well. The other characters, at times, did blur a little, but her overall performance was listen-worthy.

I enjoyed this book. I hope you do too.

187 of 220 people found this review helpful

Future of the past! (Not many spoilers)

A story developed in a moon base, in the middle 2070s, without any mention to robots or AI??? With convenience store cashiers? Welding guilds??? Seriously??? A brasilian cartel named O Palácio? A mob scientist from Manaus???

Look, I’m brasilian and it’s all the dumbest thing I’ve ever read! Total lack or research about Brazil. Lame plot, old, sterotyped characters: The Barman, The Cop, The Nerd, The Strict Father, The Evil Assassin... Contrabandists, oh, please...

I’m returning this book. I wish I could get my listening hours back!

36 of 43 people found this review helpful

Disappointingly Juvenile

This audiobook should have come with a "Young Adult" sticker, warning those in search of grownup fare to steer clear! The introductory blurb on the audiobook gives no indication that the lead character is a kid . . . and because most of her actions are juvenile and her relationships immature and the plotting of the tale is rather plodding . . . I'm posting this as a public service announcement to warn the unsuspecting that this book is not very good. Also, Rosario Dawson does only a so-so job of narrating.

45 of 54 people found this review helpful

Jazzed Up Sci-Fi Crime Caper

As The Martian Mark Watney was a real star of a character, his struggles and internal monologues really brought his whole situation to light. He was one of the elite, in the space program and with multiple degrees to his name. Jazz is the same in that she also indulges her narrative in the same low humour but she's progressed a lot less and through rather more dubious routes. If you buy into her you'll likely buy into the story.

This is a fast-moving sci-fi crime caper that gets increasingly out of control as it goes along. It's fun, it's laden with interesting science which I won't try to validate because cleverer than me people are still debating The Martian! I do think Weir lets himself go just a bit more with this one and the final part of the adventure does stretch things a bit but not any more than many authors do.

I'm quite shocked, genuinely, to read some early critical reviews of the narration. I think Dawson is an absolute star in this. She delivers Jazz pretty much perfectly for me and the other characters are easily distinguishable. If you have doubts listen to the audio sample of course and come to your own decision but I'd definitely recommend giving it a chance and not being put off even trying!

So, maybe not quite the all-time classic that The Martian was with of course the great RC Bray but definitely a highly entertaining read if you like this style of humour. Sure, the story has some weaknesses but I still found it thoroughly entertaining.

66 of 78 people found this review helpful

Hmmm...

Written from a female perspective but is tone deaf in the details; reads more like a male fantasy of the way that a woman thinks and there are some really cringey bits. So...she is a hot, genius, welding, space engineer, smuggler, sci-fi tv geek, who can turn her hand to literally anything and has a smokin’ body: it just got really annoying to read someone’s teenage fantasy of a cool woman rather than a nuanced, developed character.
I loved his first book but this one just drove me crazy and the plot was rather dull, because an arsehole (sorry: anti hero) attempting to commit a crime is not as gripping as someone trying to save their own life by escaping from an impossible situation.
The narration was good - Dawson gave the character as much credibility as she could.

157 of 192 people found this review helpful

Standing on the shoulder of The Martian

This didn’t work for me. Not the detail of his previous work and the voice actor just didn’t connect. Poor.

24 of 29 people found this review helpful

Very weak. Poor plot, poor central character

What did you like best about Artemis? What did you like least?

Great voice performance, some interesting ideas about the moon base itself.

Really good voice performance by Rosario Dawson, she makes the most of the weak material.

What was most disappointing about Andy Weir’s story?

This is a very immature book, with a plot filled with holes and truly hopeless characters. The choice of language and speech patterns for the lead character are like a middle aged mans idea of how a "sexy young woman" would talk.

Only a man could write a female character like the lead.

She's like a Tesco Value Mark Watney, with needless sexual elements shoe horned into the text in a clumsy manner.

The plot itself is very weak too, failing to stand up to the most rudimentary application of critical thought.

You can see the benefits that Andy Weir had from the long development and continual peer review of "The Martian". none of which is demonstrated in this. The best use I can think of for this book is as an example of why writing a character from a totally different culture/background to yourself is very hard to get right, and painful to read when you get it this wrong.

Do you think Artemis needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Absolutely not.

31 of 38 people found this review helpful

Not as good as The Martian

It was ok, but The Martian casts a large shadow, it’s hard not to compare premise, realism, narration, humour, protagonist etc and find Artemis lacking.

I likely expected too much, but hoped for science fiction that didn’t lean on the tropes of distant future technology/infrastructure - no matter how well backed by scientific theory - when the authors previous work had tapped into the realisation that an amazing story can be told without too much hand waving, and leaves the audience believing the authors world is one they could live to see and be in.

20 of 25 people found this review helpful

A book about living in a vacuum that doesn't suck.

I don't get why some people have been giving this only one star. Yes the main character has many failings. However the storyline is compelling and the last half of the book I could barely put down. To be honest I am now hoping for a sequel...

18 of 23 people found this review helpful

Predictable

The story seemed like it had promise, but every step was predictable, nothing to make you think.

The narrator did a good job with the material, but overall I found this book very disappointing considering the hype audible gave it.

22 of 29 people found this review helpful

Brilliant listen

I dont understand the bad reviews.
I have listened to loads of rubbish on here lately and was pleased to have a great book to listen too for a change.
Rosario does a fantastic job with the characters and I totally get the plot.
shes offered a get rich quick scheme it all goes tits up and she has to think on her feet for life or death.
BRILLIANT.
well done Andy weir and well done Rosario Dawson you had me hooked from the start.

30 of 42 people found this review helpful

Captivating start, didn’t make it to the end

I bought this book because of The Martian. I consider The Martian one of the best audio books ever released. Artemis doesn’t come close. The performance is excellent and so the first part of the book is alright: good setting and a complex main character.

At one point, however, the mystery unfolds (one of the characters just says why certain things happened and what the other character has to do to solve it) and for me that totally breaks the suspense in the story. I have tried to listen for 1 or 2 more hours, but at 80% of the book I decided to just stop. Such a shame, because the first part of the book was good and I absolutely loved The Martian (by the same author).

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

A Woman antihero to love

Jazz Bashara is a character that is not afraid to guide its audience and explain what is happening while living a very unorthodox life in low gravity but full throttle, all the main characters in the story are female and strong, the men are secondary but well described and instrumental to the story, also there is one Canadian and some one American tourist with one line but the rest of the cast is from countries not commonly mentioned in bestsellers except as cannon fodder or evil villans; very refreshing because Andy Weir humanises them and even makes them humorous.
A good plot with a very likeable character and cast that runs like clockwork and entertains while keeping you interested in what is an alien environment.
This book is a good read for anyone even those that don't enjoy science fiction because it is a character-driven plot and the environment is explained with ease and in what a pear to be a very natural way.

18 of 27 people found this review helpful