Artemis

Andy Weir has already proven he can do multiple genres well. He wrote a tight, grounded personal survival story with The Martian, and then followed it up with Project Hail Mary, a full-blown sci-fi epic that balanced heart, science, and spectacle that never shys away from venturing off the beaten path.

Artemis does not live up to those levels of enjoyment. Not ambitious, not terrible, just dull. The heist is small scale having the most engaging moments being....checks notes...welding under pressure (that's a double entendre btw).

This is Weir’s attempt at a lunar heist story mixed with societal commentary (the happenings of societies just forming), and it never really comes alive. Corporate greed is inevitable? Class standing is not really fluid? There's interesting concepts here but they're never explored.

The book is short, which honestly might be its biggest strength. Nothing here is offensively bad, but almost nothing is engaging either.

The stakes are low and MUCH too convenient. Blow up a machine, expose a shady corporation, everything wraps up cleanly. Laws are broken, damage is done, and then it is basically “be good from now on.” Even the daddy issues storyline wraps with nothing more than a "for once can you"..."ok sure". And let's not ignore how our of character it would be for Jazz's father to accept dirty money.

No real consequences, no lasting weight. In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, “everything is wrapped up in a neat little package”.

The plot resolves too easily, too quickly. Problems appear and disappear on command, and the world never pushes back hard enough to feel dangerous. Spoiler alert Jazz "sacrifices herself in the vacuum of space, only to wake up one page later, fine, because she was only out there for 120 seconds before someone gets her. C'mon.

For a story set on the moon, it feels strangely safe.

The biggest issue is the protagonist. Jazz is painfully one-dimensional. Daddy issues rule her life, but why? He father seems nothing short of respectable and loving, if not a bit conservative.

It feels like Weir was aiming for edgy and clever, but landed on angsty instead.

This is not like Zeke from The Faculty, a charming slacker-savant. It is a character defined almost entirely by attitude, with very little growth or depth.

After spending time with Andy's other characters from other novels, this feels like a giant step, if not a giant leap backward.

They can’t all be winners, kid. But Artemis does not make me write Andy Weir off. It just feels like a misfire between two much stronger books.I'll still grab whatever he plans next.