Sky and Telescope - April 2018 - 64

BOOK REVIEW by Janine Myszka

Of Heists, Lies & Truth
ARTEMIS: A Novel
Andy Weir
Crown, 2017
320 pages, ISBN 9780553448122
$27.00, hardcover.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF The Martian
comes another high stakes extraterrestrial adventure. Its billing as a "heist
on the Moon" doesn't quite encapsulate
the entirety of Artemis - it's part heist,
but it's also part whodunit and part
hard science ﬁction, all told through
the eyes and past emails of the main
character, Jazz.
A compelling read, Artemis displays
Weir's penchant for getting the science
right. From detailing how the difference
in gravity affects lunar residents and
visitors, to time delays in interacting
with Earth's internet, to the delightfully complicated solutions with limited
resources The Martian presented so
well, it's clear that Weir took the time
to ﬁnd explanations that would obey
our universe's laws of physics - without
getting lost in the minutiae and miring
the novel's pace.
Weir creates a working economy,
society, and currency that are both
internally consistent and fascinating to follow through to
their logical completion.
. . . it's part heist, but it's
Refreshingly, Artemis, the
also part whodunit and
lunar colony and setting
of the novel, is run not by
part hard science fiction,
a utopian United States
all told through the eyes
exploring the vastness
and past emails of the
of space for the sake of
knowledge, but rather by
main character, Jazz.
Kenya, thanks to a clever
economist. It feels completely different from the perspective
of other science ﬁction novels while at
the same time seems absolutely normal
because that's just how this world is.
In large part, this normalcy is
achieved by the book's underachieving
lead, Jazz. While she has an astronomical intellect, Jazz has no aspirations of
being part of the intelligentsia. Instead,
she runs a small smuggling ring in her

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low-paying porter job, consorts with
denizens of the Artemesian underbelly,
and dreams of having enough money to
pay her debts and join the EVA Guild.
Jazz lies to herself throughout the novel
about what does and doesn't matter to
her, which at times makes the characterization feel false and clumsy - a
woman's experience told through the
eyes of a man. But in the end, that
falseness adds authenticity, because this
novel is as much about codes of ethics
and how they frame our experience as it
is about a heist.
Although the falseness and clumsiness of Jazz has the ring of truth to it,
Weir's inclusion of a tertiary romantic
subplot adds nothing to her characterization. The lead in The Martian had no
such subplot, and I was left wondering if he thought that Jazz needed a
romance just because she's a woman,
as if her attitude towards love is the
indicator of her brokenness. As she
heals, her attention to romantic love
returns. It's a shame, because the shift
in her relationship with herself and her
father was plenty to signal that healing
without the addition of a romantic love.
What Weir does well, of course, is
craft a heist. A heist with a perfect solution that only the most brilliant brain
with exactly the right skills could come
up with - and since it's Weir, you know
something goes wrong. It's thoroughly
delightful, refreshing, and well worth
a read if you enjoyed The Martian (and
perhaps even if you didn't). Oh, and I
didn't see the end coming until, well,
the end. Of course, all the clues were
there . . .

¢ Digital Content Strategist JANINE
MYSZKA is often found with her nose in
a book - when she isn't managing the
S&T social media accounts, that is.
Sky and Telescope - April 2018

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