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It's the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place.
Zack Lightman is a dreamer. He fills his days with wishful thoughts of life on other planets and spends hours playing videogames, neither of which have helped him make friends or find a girlfriend. His refuge from the daily disappointments of life is Armada - an online space-fighter simulator based on defending Earth from an alien invasion. It’s when he’s playing that he feels closest to his father, a champion gamer who died when Zack was a baby.
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he's alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plainold "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.
The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the Native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon came ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There went the good old days, when humans got killed only by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits. When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved.
Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street. Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets.
Collected for the first time anywhere, the nine tales in The Egg and Other Stories highlight Andy Weir's trademark wit and unexpected twists. For the few who have yet to experience The Martian, it's a perfect appetizer. For passionate Weir fans, it's a delicious dessert.
It's the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place.
Zack Lightman is a dreamer. He fills his days with wishful thoughts of life on other planets and spends hours playing videogames, neither of which have helped him make friends or find a girlfriend. His refuge from the daily disappointments of life is Armada - an online space-fighter simulator based on defending Earth from an alien invasion. It’s when he’s playing that he feels closest to his father, a champion gamer who died when Zack was a baby.
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he's alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plainold "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.
The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the Native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon came ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There went the good old days, when humans got killed only by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits. When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved.
Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street. Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets.
Collected for the first time anywhere, the nine tales in The Egg and Other Stories highlight Andy Weir's trademark wit and unexpected twists. For the few who have yet to experience The Martian, it's a perfect appetizer. For passionate Weir fans, it's a delicious dessert.
Four hundred years from now mankind is strung out across a region of interstellar space inherited from an ancient civilization discovered on Mars. The colonies are linked together by the occasional sublight colony ship voyages and hyperspatial data-casting. Human consciousness is digitally freighted between the stars and downloaded into bodies as a matter of course.
The Greek myths are amongst the greatest stories ever told, passed down through millennia and inspiring writers and artists as varied as Shakespeare, Michelangelo, James Joyce and Walt Disney. They are embedded deeply in the traditions, tales and cultural DNA of the West. You'll fall in love with Zeus, marvel at the birth of Athena, wince at Cronus and Gaia's revenge on Ouranos, weep with King Midas and hunt with the beautiful and ferocious Artemis.
On the edge of the galaxy, a diplomatic mission to an alien planet takes a turn when the Legionnaires, an elite special fighting force, find themselves ambushed and stranded behind enemy lines. They struggle to survive under siege, waiting on a rescue that might never come. In the seedy starport of Ackabar, a young girl searches the crime-ridden gutters to avenge her father's murder; not far away, a double-dealing legionniare-turned-smuggler hunts an epic payday; and somewhere along the outer galaxy, a mysterious bounter hunter lies in wait.
The survivors have come to settle in the mountains of Wyoming, fighting day in and day out to establish a home for themselves in a near-empty world. Things are good at first; scavenging is a workable, short-term solution that seems to be providing all they need. But they know that it’s only a matter of time before the food runs out. They need to scramble to find a sustainable solution before the clock stops, and for a little handful of people up in the mountains, the odds don’t seem very favorable.
Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.
In the thousand-sun network of humanity's expansion, new colony worlds are struggling to find their way. Every new planet lives on a knife-edge between collapse and wonder, and the crew of the aging gunship, Rocinante, have their hands more than full keeping the fragile peace. In the vast space between Earth and Jupiter, the inner planets and the Belt have formed a tentative and uncertain alliance still haunted by a history of wars and prejudices.
The great Norse myths are woven into the fabric of our storytelling - from Tolkien, Alan Garner and Rosemary Sutcliff to Game of Thrones and Marvel Comics. They are also an inspiration for Neil Gaiman's own award-bedecked, best-selling fiction. Now he reaches back through time to the original source stories in a thrilling and vivid rendition of the great Norse tales.
A Russian honey trap agent targets a young CIA operative to uncover a mole at the Russian Intelligence service. Dominika Egorov, is sucked into the heart of Putin's Russia, and spat out as the twists and turns of betrayal and counter-betrayal unravel. American Nate Nash handles the double agent, codenamed MARBLE, considered one of CIA's biggest assets. Will Dominika be able to unmask MARBLE, or will the mission see her faith destroyed in the country she has always passionately defended?
Firefly meets Mass Effect in this thrilling self-published debut! When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that's seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past. But Rosemary gets more than she bargained for with the Wayfarer.
This omnibus edition contains Survival (book 1) and Humanity (book 2) of the After It Happened series.
The Wizard's Council of Tarador was supposed to tell young Koren Bladewell that he is a wizard. They were supposed to tell everyone that he is not a jinx, that all the bad things that happen around him are because he can't control the power inside him, power he doesn't know about. The people of his village, even his parents, are afraid of him, afraid he is cursed. That he is a dangerous, evil jinx.
Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.
The best-selling author of The Martian returns with an irresistible new near-future thriller - a heist story set on the moon.
Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.
Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself - and that now her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.
Bringing to life Weir's brash, whip-smart protagonist is actress Rosario Dawson (Marvel's The Defenders, Sin City, Death Proof). With the breathless immediacy of one realizing they're one cracked helmet visor away from oblivion, Dawson deftly captures Jazz's first-person perspective – all while delivering sarcastic Weir-ian one-liners and cracking wise in the face of death. And with a cast of diverse characters from all walks of life calling Artemis home, Dawson tonally somersaults to voice Kenyan prime ministers, Ukrainian scientists, and Saudi welders. It's a performance that transports listeners right alongside Jazz, matching her step for step on every lunar inch of her pulse-pounding journey.
I loved The Martian. I have listened to it at least 7-8 times over the years so naturally I expected a lot from Andy.
I feel that no book was ever going to be able to follow The Martian. Will I listen to this book 7 more times....no. Probably won't ever find myself listening to it again to be honest. But I didn't dislike it.
I found 50% of the book just felt like filler. The pen pal story telling was just mostly nonsense and barely added anything to the story. It had a very predictable character arc for Jaz. But it was easy to listen to it in long spells and it was not a long book at all.
Rosario was competent at her narration, though her accents were horrible but didn't make me want to stop listening.
I look forward to Andy's next book.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful
Sadly a weak story and lacking respect to science.... Well read though.... A waste it could have been good
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
Andy weir is an incredible writer and this book was great. The voice actor was superb and I couldn’t stop listening from the start.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
This is a wonderful addition to the Andy Weir collection. Perfect for SciFi and action lovers alike. would recommend!
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
I enjoyed this mostly but some of the thought processes of the female main character were,... well, a male author making reference to the way the main character looked as a female from a male's perspective. Women don't really say some of the things Jazz says about herself and that took me out of the story on occasion.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful
Great story that kept me intrigued from start to finish. Rosario Dawson does an amazing job bringing the characters to life with unique voices/accents making it easy to tell them apart.
Highly recommended.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
The Martian was always going to be a tough book to follow up. Artemis is well written with much of the style I loved in The Martian. The humour and technical detail are very much in the same style.
6 of 9 people found this review helpful
the story was silly and the protagonist was frustrating and annoying. i felt the story was rushed.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
fun story, good performance, great setting. the action didn't really work that well in audiobook form
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
greatly enjoyed. Weir solidifies his ability to give a compelling narative coupled with fascinating real science detail. Dawson's characterisations were a treat to listen to.
On the outside, everything about this audio book looks good. The much anticipated sophomoric novel from breakout sci-fi author Andy Weir read by Rosario Dawson is a great preface in itself. Add to it the promise of the first moon colony, some corporate espionage, a lone wolf heroine saboteur and the possibilities are endless. Then it just sits there. And all the aspects that could make it great are that much more annoying. Dawson does a fantastic job narrating. The problem is the characters have no depth, the storyline is swiss cheese and the dialogue is juvenile to an infuriating level. The protagonist delivers wannabe witty sarcasm endlessly and has hardly any likable moments. Humor falls flat at every attempt and there are many, many attempts. Very disappointing. The science is interesting but that can only go so far. If you're looking for the best sci-fi and you haven't done it yet, check out The Expanse series.
449 of 505 people found this review helpful
One of the things I really enjoyed about the Martian was a main character who dealt brilliantly with unfortunate circumstances that were caused by forces out of his control. By contrast- Jaz - the main character in Artemis- is totally responsible for one mess after another. Artemis is a story about a supposedly smart person who consistently make very stupid decisions. Jaz attempts to solve each of her problems (which she largely creates) by creating situations that are worse...and each disaster is worse than the last. She’s a liar and a thief - and while she’s very creative in her solutions she is a destructive force in her own life. Not a fan. I listened to Artemis because I enjoyed the Martian so much. If I had listened to Artemis first I doubt I would have picked anything by the same author.
152 of 171 people found this review helpful
Andy Weir has shown once again he is a master at researching and building a truly amazing sci-fi universe. Unfortunately, his dialogue is juvenile and his story boring. Scientific details aside, the book read like a pre-teen thriller. The characters were all one dimensional and dialogue was appallingly simple. The story was boring at best and read more like a screen play than a rich, deep, and enthralling book.
I honestly wanted to love this book. There is a lot of good substance here, and I hope Andy finds the time to take everything he’s learning to write a book to truly remember. For now, it looks like all we’ll get is a book perfectly suited for a 90 minute movie.
145 of 165 people found this review helpful
My impressions are mixed. The outstanding narration by Rosario Dawson as first person Jazz Bashera is much, much better than the novel itself. The science is really cool; without it my rating would be 2 stars. There is the humor which tends to be infantile but is occasionally funny. Jazz, the protagonist, is a whip smart but bumbling criminal with a foul mouth. She would be a hero for saving Artemis, but she is also the one who put the lives of every person there at risk.
Artemis is a city of 2000 people established in the year 2060 by the government of Kenya on the moon. The time of the novel is some point in the 2080s. Author Andy Weir has gone to great effort to make Artemis as scientifically valid as possible; that is the real strength of the plot.
I enjoyed Artemis. Comparing it to The Martian: the quality of the science is equal. The creativity of the plot is equal. The Martian plot is far, far better than the Artemis plot. The quality of the R.C. Bray and Rosario Dawson narrations is equal.
19 of 21 people found this review helpful
The Martian was a book while reading you thought this will make a great movie some day, Artemis on the other hand feels like it was written for todays movie audiences as a forethought.
With a great concept, Weir falls short with his heroine, he shows us plenty at how technically astute he is but not so at writing from a woman's perspective, which made the protagonists development weak, leaving less empathy for her actions. The overly ambitious plot has too many holes in it to make Artemis more than just ordinary and to me it had a chance to redeem itself but Weir opted for more of a hollywood ending.
Rosario Dawson has a wide range and delivers a solid performance but the stereotypical accents of some of the characters does not seem accurate for people living in the most diverse city ever.
Artemis just tries too hard not to be The Martian and ends up becoming more like Die Hard on the Moon .
162 of 186 people found this review helpful
This has all the right ingredients. Written by Andy Weir, read by Rosario Dawson - what can go wrong?
A lot apparently.
The book is bad. Weak story, awful main character and the science feels artificially placed. It’s good science but it does not drive the plot nor it is very interesting.
As for the performance - I am conflicted. Something was not working. Rosario has great voice, good accents, and the production is very well done. But the overall result is bad. I just don’t know if it’s because Rosario is missing something or just the bad story and awful main character comes to life through her voice and projecting on the performance.
I am still very hopeful and Weir’s next book. The Martian was great and I very hopeful this book is a temporary setback.
50 of 57 people found this review helpful
I became a huge Andy Weir fan when I read "The Martian" and later the short 6 minute story called "The Egg". I was so excited for this new Andy Weir book. The first 3 hours I hated it. It was boring, and nothing was done to bring the reader into the characters, especially the main protagonist. After that, the book picked up the pace. It's a short book, so throw out the first 3 hours and it's really short. However, it still amounted to nothing more than an average sci fi story. Had this been my first Andy Weir book, I would have never read another. The reader was good, but her inflections of the main character's voice would not have been the choice my mind would have gone to if I had read this instead of listening. Some of the time she had this so called street smart girl sounding like a dumb valley girl. I could not get into this one. Not at all.
53 of 61 people found this review helpful
Based on the reviews I've seen, I would suggest listening to this BEFORE the Martian, otherwise, you might be somewhat disappointed with Artemis. If you have read the Martian, I would suggest dialing back your expectations for this one and just try to enjoy it versus comparing it to another one of Weir's books. Sure Weir is very talented - but this isn't Martian 2 - there is going to be some variations on characters, plot, etc. Not every book by an author is going to be spun gold perfection. And it is hard to follow up the success of something like the Martian.
For one, you are not going to be nearly as sympathetic to our protagonist, Jazz, as she is not a stranded scientist struggling to survive until help arrives. Jazz is an under-achieving smuggler hustling her wares within a tiny community of 'loonies' (don't call them that they hate it) colonizing the moon in a cluster of acclimatized spheres [Artemis]. She's lived there nearly her entire life, has a few interesting social connections, and is laboring in near-poverty in hopes of paying off a debt/righting a wrong that has her and her father on the outs.
There is a lot of science, moon, and some space travel stuff to geek out about - much of it sounds rather plausible. But I didn't nitpick, I just tried my best to enjoy the book.
Some bark about the idea of the producers hiring a famous voice to narrate the book when there are plenty of extremely talented voice-actors who could have done a 'better' job. Sure, I agree there are plenty of very talented people who could have read this - they could have treated it like an audio drama and hired a full-cast. Regardless, I think Dawson captured Jazz's brash, rude personality rather well. The other characters, at times, did blur a little, but her overall performance was listen-worthy.
I enjoyed this book. I hope you do too.
145 of 170 people found this review helpful
Let me start by saying that the Martian is one of my favorite books. I didn't think Artemis could possibly be as good but I still expected something solid. Unfortunately Artemis just disappoints. The characters are very thin, the plot is not even average. I honestly never really cared what happened to the characters. The whole book felt lazy. Unlike the carefully crafted details of the Martian, this just said "pass" every time the writing got hard. It does not even feel like it was written by the same person.
If you are buying this book because you loved the Martian, I would say, just skip it. There is so much better Sci-fi out there.
42 of 49 people found this review helpful
There's really nothing wrong with being nostalgic, nor the qualities that made us love something in the first place. With that said, sometimes one can try too hard, leaving them with something that fails to live up to, or come anywhere close to the original.
Andy Weir is going to do well with this book based solely upon the success of The Martian, but don't confuse those numbers with actual quality of this book. At best, it's a quick read (or listen) of something new, but it's not going to be something that you want to experience more than once.
As to Rosario Dawson’s narration… Much like Wheaton (and other celeb narrators) she shows a lot of promise, but is clearly not experienced enough to have the nuances of the job in hand (awkward sentence endings, slipping out of character, etc..) that the professionals have down pat.
33 of 40 people found this review helpful
As The Martian Mark Watney was a real star of a character, his struggles and internal monologues really brought his whole situation to light. He was one of the elite, in the space program and with multiple degrees to his name. Jazz is the same in that she also indulges her narrative in the same low humour but she's progressed a lot less and through rather more dubious routes. If you buy into her you'll likely buy into the story.
This is a fast-moving sci-fi crime caper that gets increasingly out of control as it goes along. It's fun, it's laden with interesting science which I won't try to validate because cleverer than me people are still debating The Martian! I do think Weir lets himself go just a bit more with this one and the final part of the adventure does stretch things a bit but not any more than many authors do.
I'm quite shocked, genuinely, to read some early critical reviews of the narration. I think Dawson is an absolute star in this. She delivers Jazz pretty much perfectly for me and the other characters are easily distinguishable. If you have doubts listen to the audio sample of course and come to your own decision but I'd definitely recommend giving it a chance and not being put off even trying!
So, maybe not quite the all-time classic that The Martian was with of course the great RC Bray but definitely a highly entertaining read if you like this style of humour. Sure, the story has some weaknesses but I still found it thoroughly entertaining.
40 of 48 people found this review helpful
Written from a female perspective but is tone deaf in the details; reads more like a male fantasy of the way that a woman thinks and there are some really cringey bits. So...she is a hot, genius, welding, space engineer, smuggler, sci-fi tv geek, who can turn her hand to literally anything and has a smokin’ body: it just got really annoying to read someone’s teenage fantasy of a cool woman rather than a nuanced, developed character.
I loved his first book but this one just drove me crazy and the plot was rather dull, because an arsehole (sorry: anti hero) attempting to commit a crime is not as gripping as someone trying to save their own life by escaping from an impossible situation.
The narration was good - Dawson gave the character as much credibility as she could.
73 of 94 people found this review helpful
I was really looking forward to this following The Martian. The combination of detail, style and story was the hook.
Artemis falls short. I debated quitting this book at least 4 times.
The female lead is 1 dimensional, is too much like a guy writing as a woman and the performance doesn’t help. There’s no real performance, it’s soap opera stuff with stereotypical characters- middle eastern or Russian bad guys, matriarchal king pins, rugged enforcers. I cannot bring myself to elaborate on the ‘English’ pub owner and the accent or the ‘token’ gay friend.
Terrible.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
Terrible English accent for the bar keeper - but great overall, really enjoyed the whole thing.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
This could have been an awesome book but the main character is just so bratty and annoying! It was meant to be written from a female perspective but I just don't think that it was executed well.
Throughout the book she just acts like a child and doesn't seem to mature after all of the experiences she has in the book.
The sciencey bits were cool but over all not great.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful
I dont understand the bad reviews.
I have listened to loads of rubbish on here lately and was pleased to have a great book to listen too for a change.
Rosario does a fantastic job with the characters and I totally get the plot.
shes offered a get rich quick scheme it all goes tits up and she has to think on her feet for life or death.
BRILLIANT.
well done Andy weir and well done Rosario Dawson you had me hooked from the start.
23 of 32 people found this review helpful
A light and fun listen. A slightly kitsch action packed detective adventure novel. Incomparable to the Martian. I enjoyed the narration and the fast paced story line.
A perfect throw away after you have finished book for a long journey or a listen by the pool on holiday.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
What did you like best about Artemis? What did you like least?
Great voice performance, some interesting ideas about the moon base itself.
Really good voice performance by Rosario Dawson, she makes the most of the weak material.
What was most disappointing about Andy Weir’s story?
This is a very immature book, with a plot filled with holes and truly hopeless characters. The choice of language and speech patterns for the lead character are like a middle aged mans idea of how a "sexy young woman" would talk.
Only a man could write a female character like the lead.
She's like a Tesco Value Mark Watney, with needless sexual elements shoe horned into the text in a clumsy manner.
The plot itself is very weak too, failing to stand up to the most rudimentary application of critical thought.
You can see the benefits that Andy Weir had from the long development and continual peer review of "The Martian". none of which is demonstrated in this. The best use I can think of for this book is as an example of why writing a character from a totally different culture/background to yourself is very hard to get right, and painful to read when you get it this wrong.
Do you think Artemis needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
Absolutely not.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
The author creates a very interesting and believable habitat on the moon, but really did not have a very interesting story to tell. In particular, the characters in this book are not likeable or even convincing, especially the protagonist, who is just annoying, with very few redeeming features.
A good book needs more than just convincing science.
What will your next listen be?
Not sure.
Have you listened to any of Rosario Dawson’s other performances? How does this one compare?
NA
If this book were a film would you go see it?
Possibly
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Really enjoyed listening to this book. The author has maintained the same level of detail as he did with the Martian with another great story underpinning all the technical delights. Also really enjoyed the narration one of the best audiobooks I’ve listened to. And I’ve listened to a lot.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful