Artemis

By: Andy Weir

Narrated by: Rosario Dawson

Length: 8 hrs and 59 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.

450 of 506 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.

153 of 172 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.

146 of 166 people found this review helpful

Jazz, girl on the moon

My impressions are mixed. The outstanding narration by Rosario Dawson as first person Jazz Bashera is much, much better than the novel itself. The science is really cool; without it my rating would be 2 stars. There is the humor which tends to be infantile but is occasionally funny. Jazz, the protagonist, is a whip smart but bumbling criminal with a foul mouth. She would be a hero for saving Artemis, but she is also the one who put the lives of every person there at risk.

Artemis is a city of 2000 people established in the year 2060 by the government of Kenya on the moon. The time of the novel is some point in the 2080s. Author Andy Weir has gone to great effort to make Artemis as scientifically valid as possible; that is the real strength of the plot.

I enjoyed Artemis. Comparing it to The Martian: the quality of the science is equal. The creativity of the plot is equal. The Martian plot is far, far better than the Artemis plot. The quality of the R.C. Bray and Rosario Dawson narrations is equal.

19 of 21 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 .

162 of 186 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.

50 of 57 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.

53 of 61 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.

146 of 171 people found this review helpful

Disapointing

Let me start by saying that the Martian is one of my favorite books. I didn't think Artemis could possibly be as good but I still expected something solid. Unfortunately Artemis just disappoints. The characters are very thin, the plot is not even average. I honestly never really cared what happened to the characters. The whole book felt lazy. Unlike the carefully crafted details of the Martian, this just said "pass" every time the writing got hard. It does not even feel like it was written by the same person.

If you are buying this book because you loved the Martian, I would say, just skip it. There is so much better Sci-fi out there.

42 of 49 people found this review helpful

Much like Cline's Armada, Weir Struggles here

There's really nothing wrong with being nostalgic, nor the qualities that made us love something in the first place. With that said, sometimes one can try too hard, leaving them with something that fails to live up to, or come anywhere close to the original.

Andy Weir is going to do well with this book based solely upon the success of The Martian, but don't confuse those numbers with actual quality of this book. At best, it's a quick read (or listen) of something new, but it's not going to be something that you want to experience more than once.

As to Rosario Dawson’s narration… Much like Wheaton (and other celeb narrators) she shows a lot of promise, but is clearly not experienced enough to have the nuances of the job in hand (awkward sentence endings, slipping out of character, etc..) that the professionals have down pat.

33 of 40 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.

40 of 48 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.

74 of 95 people found this review helpful

Disappointing, in fact, terrible. Avoid

I was really looking forward to this following The Martian. The combination of detail, style and story was the hook.

Artemis falls short. I debated quitting this book at least 4 times.

The female lead is 1 dimensional, is too much like a guy writing as a woman and the performance doesn’t help. There’s no real performance, it’s soap opera stuff with stereotypical characters- middle eastern or Russian bad guys, matriarchal king pins, rugged enforcers. I cannot bring myself to elaborate on the ‘English’ pub owner and the accent or the ‘token’ gay friend.

Terrible.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Great performance overall

Terrible English accent for the bar keeper - but great overall, really enjoyed the whole thing.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Rebel without a clue.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

This could have been an awesome book but the main character is just so bratty and annoying! It was meant to be written from a female perspective but I just don't think that it was executed well.

Throughout the book she just acts like a child and doesn't seem to mature after all of the experiences she has in the book.

The sciencey bits were cool but over all not great.

4 of 5 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.

23 of 32 people found this review helpful

Not the Martian

A light and fun listen. A slightly kitsch action packed detective adventure novel. Incomparable to the Martian. I enjoyed the narration and the fast paced story line.
A perfect throw away after you have finished book for a long journey or a listen by the pool on holiday.

1 of 1 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.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Bit Disappointing

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

The author creates a very interesting and believable habitat on the moon, but really did not have a very interesting story to tell. In particular, the characters in this book are not likeable or even convincing, especially the protagonist, who is just annoying, with very few redeeming features.
A good book needs more than just convincing science.

What will your next listen be?

Not sure.

Have you listened to any of Rosario Dawson’s other performances? How does this one compare?

NA

If this book were a film would you go see it?

Possibly

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Great listen.

Really enjoyed listening to this book. The author has maintained the same level of detail as he did with the Martian with another great story underpinning all the technical delights. Also really enjoyed the narration one of the best audiobooks I’ve listened to. And I’ve listened to a lot.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful