Artemis: Silly Sciencey Fun...But Mostly Silly

There's just no way Andy Weir could've been as good as he was in his debut, The Martian. That novel is the most fun I've had with a book in a long, long time. So even though the hype for his follow-up was feverish, you just had to know Artemis wasn't going to be quite as good. And, sadly, it's not. But if you liked Weir's schtick in the The Martian — wisecracking smart ass is also brilliant MacGyver-like sciencey schemer — you'll probably find enough fun here to keep turning the pages

The story, which takes place on the moon, is about Jazz, a spunky woman who makes ends meet by smuggling contraband to rich guys on the moon's first permanent colony, Artemis. One of those guys proposes a big pay day for her if she can sabotage some of a big company's big moon rock harvesters. Of course, things go awry, and Jazz uncovers a plot that goes much deeper than simple corporate espionage and malfeasance.

Weir ranges from legit hilarious to silly and Beavis-ish (which I love!) to just dumb. Part of the silliness in this book is that I'm not sure he's exactly comfortable writing a woman character. Jazz seems less like a woman and more like a geeky dude's ideal robot woman. She talks and thinks like a nerdy virginal dude in his goofy dorky fantasies would hope women think and talk like (but don’t actually ever). Sometimes it's funny, often it's not.

And then the science and "did you know?" stuff ranges from genuinely fascinating to “Huh. Cool story, bro” to WAY-too-in-the-weeds. There's one scene in particular near the end, that, unless you want to know a bunch about pressure valves and the metallurgy of welding, is INTERMINABLE. And that's too bad because that's supposed to be mid-rush-to-the-end of the novel. It's slows it down considerably.

Even so, I was still mostly entertained. It’s an inventive story that probably feels smarter than it actually is. Certainly a step back from The Martian, but how could anyone be that good twice in a row?