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.
Having not read Weir's previous book, The Martian, I didn't know what to expect. Would it be too science-y to get into? Would I get lost in too much detail? I heard it was about "a heist on the moon" but would it be enough to keep me engaged? Well...yes.
I'd heard a little about the main character being a bit nasty and hard to root for. I absolutely loved her. Jazz Bashara was definitely a criminal, but not to the detriment of other people. She was a smuggler, but had a strong moral compass and a business etiquette that was unrivaled. I loved the snark, but then I love snarky characters. She's seen the underbelly of their society and revels at being one of the best in it.
It did take me a while to get through this one, so I don't think it quite hooked me until the halfway point. Once the chase began, it was hard to put down.
The story did a great job incorporating everything back into itself. There never seemed to be any erroneous characters - everyone played a part. Unfortunately my slow reading pace made that a bit hard to follow. Having a character introduced 50 pages ago suddenly pop back in wasn't the easiest to remember, especially with so many simple names, like Bob and Dale. But Jazz's letters back and forth with Kelvin, which served mainly as chapter breaks, eventually came to be an integral part of the current plot, which I thought was a great way of framing "I've got a friend on Earth who can help" as more than just a hand-wavy explanation.
The world of Artemis was fun to read about, too. You don't really think about all the complexities that living on the moon would entail. Just thinking about where your air comes from, or how explosions work in a vacuum, or the fact that you have 1/6 Earth's gravity all the time... Now that's a place I wouldn't mind visiting!
Overall, I'd definitely recommend Artemis to anyone who likes snarky heroines, a little bit of science, and a lot of heist-style action. There is colorful language, and a few innuendos, but no sex to speak of (despite a condom being a major talking point). A little Ocean's Eleven, a little Apollo 13, and a whole lot of fun.
No comments :
Post a Comment
Let me hear you howl!