AUTHOR: Andy Weir
STARTED: December 24, 2017
FINISHED: December 31, 2017
PAGES: 305
GENRE: Fiction
FIRST SENTENCE: I bounded over the gray, dusty terrain toward the huge dome of Conrad Bubble.
SUMMARY: [From BN] Jasmine Bashara never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich. Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity’s first and only lunar colony. Just rich enough to move out of her coffin-sized apartment and eat something better than flavored algae. Rich enough to pay off a debt she’s owed for a long time. So when a chance at a huge score finally comes her way, Jazz can’t say no. Sure, it requires her to graduate from small-time smuggler to full-on criminal mastermind. And it calls for a particular combination of cunning, technical skills, and large explosions—not to mention sheer brazen swagger. But Jazz has never run into a challenge her intellect can’t handle, and she figures she’s got the ‘swagger’ part down. The trouble is, engineering the perfect crime is just the start of Jazz’s problems. Because her little heist is about to land her in the middle of a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself. Trapped between competing forces, pursued by a killer and the law alike, even Jazz has to admit she’s in way over her head. She’ll have to hatch a truly spectacular scheme to have a chance at staying alive and saving her city. Jazz is no hero, but she is a very good criminal. That’ll have to do.
THOUGHTS: Weir's second book does suffer a bit from "sophomore slump," but only if you were expecting to read a repeat of The Martian. If you go into this book looking for a space western, you'll love the story.
Artemis is basically a wild west boom town, and Jazz is one of the locals. She's smart, crafty, and sassy with a skepticism of authority and rules. Which is great... but Weir used the same formula in The Martian. She's basically a female version of Mark Watney. I was able, however, to set my disappoint of that aside and enjoy the story for itself.
This is a bit more of a narrative mystery than Weir's previous work. It is the same sort of "competency porn" as The Martian, but the plot of this is a bit more of a story. Weir isn't simply trying to solve problems to save someone. There is more world building, narrative, and backstory in this book. I liked that.
The one thing I really didn't like is Weir is a bit more info-dumpy in this book. Sentences just fall into paragraphs for the sake of showing "Hey, look! Science I learned!" It's rough and distracting. I'm glad Weir's level of research and realism is the same, but many did it lack finesse at times. There was one parenthetical aside to the reader (during a tense moment!) that had be groaning.
All in all, this is a good second book. Weir has a knack for writing hard science fiction. I hope he sets his next book exclusively on a ship in space... maybe going to Titan or something.
RATING: 7/10 [Very Good]
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