STORY STUDY - MEDIUM: BOOK “Artemis”

Being poor is already hard enough. Imagine being poor living on the moon.

Written by Andy Weir, Artemis is the story of a smuggler living on Artemis, humanity’s first and only lunar colony. She aims to get her EVA license, despite limited funds to get her a proper suit to do so.

She lives her life as a porter and part time smuggler, barely scraping by.

One day, one of her wealthy, regular clients hires her to do a job that’ll make her extremely rich if she’s successful: sabotaging harvesters that provide oxygen for the colony from a competitor so he can step in as Artemis’s replacement.

The smuggler is able to destroy three of the four harvesters, barely getting spotted. When she returns to her employer to inform him what happened to the botched plan, he finds his dead body instead.

Now on the run, she has to find out what is going on, slowly discovering a criminal conspiracy surrounding this little colony on the moon.

You don’t have to be a science expert to enjoy the book because as someone who isn’t, the story and characters is what’s important, and that’s easily understandable. I don’t actually know if the science that’s being thrown around is even plausible, but this is a sci-fi story, so… maybe?

The story has a clever twist in that it has the beats of a heist film, but the goal isn’t about stealing something, it’s destroying something.

The smuggler learns that there are just some things that she can’t do alone. She needs to get past being angry at the people around her, and accept their help.

I found out about the book just before it was published, but after having watched The Martian, based on Weir’s first novel (previously covered). I was glad to find out that the film and the book has the same humorous tone and sarcastic character, which carries over to Weir’s follow-up novel.

Artemis is a thrilling story with fun characters, and a cool setting. I also recommend listening to the audiobook of it read by Rosario Dawson.