Artemis by Andy Weir - A Reread - See Post #227

 

As mentioned in my last post, my good friend sent me a care package of books.

I didn't mention to him that I had already read Artemis.  Sorry Steve. 

But since I respect him so much, I reread the book.  This is something I very, very rarely do.  Life is too short.  There are so many stories to discover.

I was curious.  Would I like it as much as I did the first time around?

Yes.  More so even.

I found Jazz Bashara more well-rounded than I did the first time I read the book.

Near space is something I like very much in my science fiction.  By that I mean our solar system.  Sure light speed is cool but come on!  We haven't even been back to the moon yet.  

We need more science fiction like this, to inspire us to explore the Moon, Mars, the asteroid belt, Jupiter's moons.  Interstellar travel will come, but we need to get out there first.  We need to explore, fail and learn before we can ever take a trip on the Enterprise. 

The Expanse is a series that is also fulfilling that need in our SF.  More on that later. 

Yes.  I enjoyed my second time in this book.  I am happy to say that my previous post about it stands.  Feel free to read Post #227 to hear what I thought about it. 

Thank you Steve.  I had a lot of fun.  Hope you enjoy the book I sent you in return.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - Book Review 332

 

A good friend of mine sent me this book in the mail. And I am so glad he did.

Andy Weir is a terrific voice in Science Fiction.  He makes being smart, industrious and creative the hallmarks of his stories.  They are just as inspiring as they are entertaining. 

Learn all you can.  Follow your passions and interests.  You just never know when what you know can solve the problem.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor of a deep space mission sent to save all life on Earth from an environmental catastrophe.  Don't worry, it's not what you think. 

Trouble is he has no memory of his mission or who he is.  Never mind the two dead bodies that are in the ship with him.

Then he is faced with a first contact situation with another race from another star system. 

It's a terrific story of survival, solving the mystery of why Grace is on this mission, finding a way to communicate with the alien in the ship next door, and cooperation between them.

At 476 pages, I found myself going back to it for just a few more pages just to see what happens next.  The pace was quick without being frantic.  Kind of like space.  Things are so far away that time takes on a whole new scale.

Problem solving is still at the heart of Weir's writing, but this is different from his previous two books. It's his first interstellar story and I was glad his aliens were not humanoid.  Why would they be?  This presented a whole new set of mysteries to solve.  Communication. Environment. Technology.  But they had physics and mathematics in common. 

I look forward to the next adventure Mr. Weir takes me on.

Artemis by Andy Weir - Book Report #227

This was just the kind of science fiction I crave.

Jazz Bashara is a 20-something resident of the moon colony, Artemis.  She isn't a scientist or an engineer, no she is a smuggler.  Working as a courier between the bubbles of the colony she manages to eke out a living.  Which is why she brings in some contraband to supplement her income

When one of her customers, a very wealthy business man, offers her a lucrative payoff for doing a crime outside her usual realm, she takes the job.

Of course, things don't go quite as planned, there would be no story if it did.

For me, it's not the caper itself that drove me to turn the pages.  It was the setting.  Artemis is essentially a frontier town set on the Sea of Tranquility, 40 kilometers away from the Apollo 11 landing site.  The colony survives on tourism (a visitor centre is built at Tranquility Base) and by producing oxygen and aluminum from the regolith.

The place is populated with people who are making a living keeping the base operating and expanding.  It has its own economy, even it's own currency.

What I like in the story is how Weir answers the question; "What would it be like to live on the moon permanently?"  Well, you'd need to make it a place people would want to go - hence the tourism aspect, it brings in much needed money to build infrastructure. 

In order to build all of that you'll need trades people, who will bring their families or create them as relationships are formed.  This is how our character, Jazz has come to Artemis, she was born there. 

Back to the story.  All the stuff that makes humans so darn messy and interesting is on the moon too.  Greed, ambition and deception are all present during and especially after the caper is done.

There is an aspect of Weir's previous book, The Martian, here too.  When things go wrong, and lots of things do, the problems need to be solved one at a time.  Sometimes fixing one thing breaks another.  Which was almost comical but the stakes were too high for it be so.  Solving the problems required skills, knowledge and teamwork.

And ultimately the story was about people rising above their current situations. 

The dialogue was smart and sassy.

Artemis proves that Andy Weir will be with us for a long time, writing adventures and inspiring people to work toward a bigger future.

Andy Weir's website: http://www.andyweirauthor.com/

Andy Weir

Book Report #126 - The Martian by Andy Weir

Book 50 of 52
Page count 369

This is my kind of science fiction.  It's known as Hard Sci Fi in that it is rooted in current science.  What I loved about this story is that it was firmly rooted in today's engineering.  Yes, the nuts and bolts of it all.

If you remember the movie Apollo 13, then you remember the scenes where the crew and engineers on the ground, would come up with all kinds of unique, ad hoc solutions to problems.  Well, this book is a lot like that, but on Mars.

Astronaut Mark Watney's crew leaves him behind during a mission-ending dust storm.  He was hit with some flying equipment and and blown down wind.  All his environmental suit instruments indicated that he had died and his crew mates were forced to evacuated the surface without him.

What follows is a story of survival filled with problems, interesting solutions, setbacks and dark humor.

I loved this book.

Andy Weir's website is here:   http://www.andyweirauthor.com/

Andy Weir