Book Review: Artemis

When I read Andy Weir's The Martian five years ago, I must admit I loved it. Granted, the writing was amateur at best, but the very idea that you could be stranded so far away from everything and possibly not make it back safely to Earth was as thrilling as it was nerve-racking. But remember our cool guy Mark Watney? Not only was he unusually chirpy (which could perhaps be chalked down to the man's need to stay optimistic amidst what was happening around him), the heavy-handed treatment of it all began to get on my nerves after a point. Sadly, if you were hoping for something different this time around, you're out of luck — for Artemis' protagonist Jazz (short for Jasmine) is an exact insufferable replica of Mark in female form, with Weir resorting to juvenile humour, replete with sexual innuendos that's downright cringeworthy. As the novel swings from sci-fi jargon to corny over-the-top implausibility, the characters become reductive stereotypes and the narrative turns into a convoluted, vacuous exercise in suspending disbelief. There is still a skeleton of promise in here — the lunar colony is run by Kenyans and the narrator is a Muslim (albeit non-practicing), but Weir fails to capitalise on these strands, instead banking on cultural generalisations and ridiculous subplots (a reusable condom, really?) to carry the story forward. As a consequence, any hope that Artemis might improve is replaced with relief that it's finally about to get over. Ultimately, it ends up being a really dumb heist thriller. But worse than dumb, it's boring. But worse than boring, it's just lifeless.