"Artemis" Book Review

 Weir wrote the book “Martian” which most people know as the blockbuster movie with Matt Damon. I never read it but imagined how difficult it would be to create a story on an environment which we know so little about. Weir is not “us” though; he is more engineer than novelist and sometimes gets lost in the science.

What I found interesting about “Artemis” is the economy that develops on the moon around the citizens. It’s similar to any small country or homogeneous society where one or two big companies dominate and everyone else works to support them. I’m a bit deficient in science so I had to take most of his descriptions at face value. Especially details related to oxygen in the atmosphere, what is required for welding in space and how to deal with fires on the moon.

At its core this is a story about protecting a colony from invaders. Not aliens invaders from another planet, just the usual corporate interests hoping to expand their holdings and crush the competition.

Imagine a small town with a steel mill in pre-World War II America and Artemis as an economy starts to make more sense. The mill employs most of the people in the town, they’re able to buy on credit and they exist as a community, with their own standards and laws. Artemis is the name of the moon city with around 20,000 people who call it home. Any self-sustaining group needs hospitals, banks, schools and anything required for living. Artemis has tradesman like welders and iron workers, retail employees to sell trinkets to tourists, and bartenders to help folks forget where they live.

One way it isn’t like a mill town is the tourism that keeps the place going. Tourists pay for once in a lifetime visit to see the city and see the famous 1969 landing spot where Neil Armstrong stuck a flag. The earth tourists stay in hotels and eat in restaurants like any other other vacation trap. The city itself is largely underground. The obvious lack of oxygen on the moon makes venturing out in EVA suits the purview of professionals, in this case a guild of trained astronauts.

The hero of the story is a Saudi girl (by birth) who has lived on the moon with her dad since she was six years old. Jasmine (Jazz) is a porter, skimming small amounts for herself and smuggling in contraband for wealthy residents. One day she gets a request from one of the city’s rich entrepreneurs to destroy some equipment owned by the only functioning aluminum plant. Apparently the moon is rich in bauxite which can be broken down to make aluminum. As a trained welder Jasmine is perfect for the sabotage; she can move around easily and access the pressure locks unsuspectingly and walk on the surface of the moon in her EVA suit. I won’t give too much else away but the basic plot involves locals (Atemisians?) fighting off the encroachment of crooked interests.

Andy Weir is a geek, so he is best when describing how to spot weld in a vacuum or how to rig a copper safety in an aluminum smelter so it malfunctions and boils the container (sorry, spoiler). He isn’t great at dialogue though and his heroine (Jazz) is a bit too selfish for someone concerned with the general welfare of the city she lives in. She holds grudges and is on bad terms with nearly everyone including her dad. Readers need to relate to the protagonist, sadly she wasn’t likable.

   

I could tell right when I started reading this would soon be a movie. Not because the characters are rich and entertaining but because of possibilities presented by a moon city. Think all the cool tech Hollywood will create for this. It’s exactly what made the “Martian” such a readily adaptable story for the screen. Take all the problems of a regular heist movie and put it on the moon. Add airlocks and pressure chambers, some cool rovers that can climb hills and tell a great “against all odds” tale.

Weir is the perfect writer to walk us through the technical glitches of working on the moon and explain the why’s of structural design.  I am betting this film is better than the book however. It’s a rare thing when anyone can say that but in this case the movie should at least be fun. The last few chapters of the book are perfect for action sequences.