Artemis: highely enjoyable new novel from the author of The Martian

As you might expect from the author of The Martian, there’s a detailed and (to my non-expert mind) plausible scientific background to the world created for Artemis, the new novel by Andy Weir.

The plot, based on a human colony on the moon where a porter-cum-smuggler gets caught up in a major criminal plot, takes a little while to get going as the world is set out for the reader/listener, but is very enjoyable once it does.

There’s one moment where the cast of main characters is assembled in a room for a briefing that feels like it was written with half an eye on a future film adaptation, and likewise, near the end there’s a twist in the plot that feels like it sets up the sort of conclusion that Hollywood prefers. But very enjoyable even so.

Narrator Rosario Dawson is excellent for the audio book version, using subtle changes of pace, tone and accent to help distinguish the characters and to bring out the personality of the main persona (so much so, that I suspect this works rather better than reading the book).

If you like this, you might also be interested in Charles Stross’s Halting State.

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Buy Artemis by Andy Weir here.