Artemis
Andy Weir
Science fiction
In the beginning there was Andy Weir's self-published book The Martian. And the self-published book The Martian beget the mega-hit novel The Martian, which begat the Oscar-nominated movie The Martian. And I looked upon these things, and saw that they were good, and also that Andy Weir made a ton of money. Which, to be fair, he richly deserved.
Artemis is Weir's first novel since. (It's not a sequel.) Its plot is quite unlike The Martian's, but the writing is quite similar. It's deployed in service of a caper story rather than a survival story, which makes it a fun, fast read. Weir's humor is still humorous, his science is still scientific, his events are still eventful. It took me a while to warm up to Jazz, our protagonist, but I liked her better as the book went on.
Really, what Artemis is is a Heinlein juvenile, except with an older main character, some off-screen sexual references, and swearing. It reminded me quite a bit (very minor spoiler coming up) of Podkayne of Mars. It's jolly good fun. Go read it.
Read it, recommend it. Similar issue with warming up to the protagonist. And the expository foreshadowing was necessary, it called too much attention to itself.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked it. It was in no way as impactful as The Martian, but it was a good read. I'm surprised that some people seem to have gotten a mad on about it.
DeleteI liked it, too. Not perfect, but very good. Good science, good story, character. I also understand how some of his fans would be disappointed. It is also the best reason for him to write a different genre for his second book. If he wrote a similar story in his second novel then he could never write anything different. Now was his chance to write something different, so he could break out of the genre (or sub-genre, really, of survival space adventure). Smart move, honestly.
ReplyDeleteHaving lots of trouble posting to your site lately. Very weird. A while back I tried to post that I understand the "mad on" about Artemis. That doesn't mean I agree. I just think that most readers wanted the same genre (maybe even same story). I think it was pretty smart for him to write a different genre. Otherwise, he'd be stuck in a single genre/story forever.
ReplyDeleteI haven't changed anything about the site, but I do know that you need to permit cookies in able to use Blogspot comments. Also, I pretty much have to use Chrome.
DeleteAs far as Artemis goes, I agree that he needed to write something different. The whining reviewers that I've seen are mainly whining that he didn't write something different enough. I.e., Jazz doesn't sound enough like what the reviewer's idea of a teenage girl should sound like. Or it's the same story as [insert other story here]. Or it's got too much science-y stuff and too many one-liners. Or something.
By the way, it turns out that one of your posts was classified as spam. Not that I'm judging.
ReplyDelete