Short Summary is an original series in which I write brief reviews of movies, TV shows, video games, books, and more. Hey, my first book review!

I first watched the movie The Martian, adapted from Andy Weir’s debut novel of the same name, and I loved it. I then got around to actually reading The Martian, and probably to no one’s surprise, I loved it. And I’ve finally read Weir’s sophomore effort, Artemis, and I’m sitting here wondering when the hell someone is going to adapt this novel into a movie (wait, the movie Artemis has been in development since 2017?? Give me my Artemis movie now!).

It’s safe to say that I also loved this book.

Weir himself has had my attention for quite a while. I mean, he and I have so much in common: we’re both writers, and we were both employed at Sandia National Laboratories. We’re practically twins! In all seriousness, though, he’s so incredible at writing hard science that all three of his books have freaking film deals (yes, his latest, Project Hail Mary, is also currently in development). Weir arguably stands alone in his realistic, practical descriptions of missions to Mars, a colony on the moon, and space as a whole. Although they’re filled with details and explanations of complicated subject matter, the pages of his books fly by with ease because he writes them expertly. His intelligent, capable characters handle anything that comes their way and keep everything grounded and straightforward so that you never feel lost in any of the jargon. Speaking as someone without a STEM degree, I didn’t feel like I needed one to stay on track. As someone with an arts degree, though, I can definitely appreciate the monumental effort it must’ve been for him to put this all down in writing three separate times.

But I think I’ve made my point about Weir’s mastery of science fiction in general. Artemis has a likeable protagonist, a lived-in setting with its own unique history and society, and a suspenseful storyline that keeps you hooked all the way until you’ve reached the back cover. The novel certainly starts as a slow burn, introducing you to Jazz Bashara and following her as she goes about her daily life in Artemis, the sole lunar colony in this fictional world. She doesn’t apply herself to anything in particular, despite having the skills and smarts to, so she gets by as a porter and smuggler. Yet she does have ambition; she wants to achieve the seemingly far-off dream yet simple goal of having a bigger bed to sleep in and not having to share a communal bathroom. She wants to get rich and live like it. Suddenly, however, the inciting incident happens, and Artemis is off to the races from there. Jazz is not only forced to apply herself when it matters most, but she has to work together with family, friends, and enemies alike to save her own life and even the entire colony. The mystery unravels, and the heist begins!

As far as main characters go, Jazz shares more than a few qualities with Mark Watney, the protagonist of The Martian. Weir appears to like his main characters especially big brained and big mouthed. Yet whereas Mark is forced to become a survivalist when he’s literally stranded on Mars, Jazz has always been that way, since she was born and raised on the moon. Mark seems more white collar as an established botanist and mechanical engineer, while Jazz comes across as a lot more blue collar, as she has learned how to weld from her father and starts Artemis by taking an exam to become an EVA guild member, trying to work her way up. Jazz is at her strongest as a character when she’s skirting around the law to ultimately uphold the law, as great anti-heroes do. She has an interesting background, a fraught relationship with her father, and various dynamics with other side characters that are all riveting to read in their own ways.

Artemis itself is a fully realized fictional setting, with maps included at the start of the book to identify all of the locations Jazz and other characters are name-dropping throughout. The lunar colony is replete with names of American astronauts like Armstrong and Aldrin. There’s even an Apollo 11 visitor’s center, which I thought was one of the book’s best standouts. What time zone does Artemis use? Turns out it’s GMT +3, or in simpler terms, Kenya Time. What does Artemis use for money? Who provides oxygen for the citizens of Artemis? What sort of people immigrated to and live on Artemis, and what kind of people just visit? The worldbuilding of Artemis is so rich because Weir takes the time to think of and include these details.

I honestly found Artemis to be a light read that ultimately ended far too soon, and that’s only because it was so fast-paced in the latter half. Every chapter seemed to end on a cliffhanger that just could not wait another day. Weir literally builds the foundation of the book up until it’s so tall and barely maintaining balance before he smacks it with a bat and brings it all crashing down. Life on Artemis for Jazz and every other person there is upended, and it becomes a race against the clock to keep it all from ruin, leaving little to no room to even breathe. In retrospect, I’m glad that just half of the book was like this, or else Artemis would have been a pretty tiring read for me. However, for the first novel that I’ve read in full since The Martian, I was totally here for an easy, entertaining read much like it. And Artemis obviously fit the bill!

So until we finally get Artemis the movie and I write a review about it, I’ll have to pick another book to read among all of the movies and TV I watch. It was refreshing to get back to reading a physical book (that wasn’t a parenting book)!