Weir has cemented himself as one of my favorite authors. I devoured The Martian and would have done the same with Artemis had life and work responsibilities not gotten in the way. I like the amount of action, science, and adventure that takes place in his books. Artemis had me thinking I knew how it would end and then Jazz kept getting in deeper and deeper situations. Very happy I picked this one up! ( )

“Cute” and an ambitious mix of pieces to work to but not convincing in that the characters feel somehow stereotypes rather than real. Still amazing mastery at weaving hard sci-fi into the novel.

The story feels like it is aimed at a teen audience but this is not so evident in cover etc… ( )

I'd really love to give this book 4 or maybe even 5 starts. The storytelling was just as good, if not better than, The Martian. Andy Weir's grasp on the first person perspective is immaculate and he really puts you into the story. This book was filled with all of the technical research that I loved in The Martian and all of the problems and setbacks that make for a page turner.

So why the three stars? Simple... language/offense. I cannot in good conscience give a book more than three stars that takes the Lord's name in vain on every other page. It really is ridiculous and grated on my nerves. Call me prudish if you will, but I'm a Christian and that language is offensive to me. For that reason, I would also have a hard time recommending this book to anyone. ( )

Really 2.5. Rounded up ( )

(2017) A good follow-up to The Martian, though not related at all. Jasmine (Jazz) is a smuggler on the moon's colony of Artemis and gets involved in a scheme to control the supply of oxygen. Goes badly and almost kills all of the inhabitants when her plan to blow up a smelter results in a chlorine gas release. She manages to stop that but loses all of her ill-gotten gains in the process. On to the next scheme.KIRKUS REVIEWWeir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.Jasmine ?Jazz? Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or ?porter,? whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth's moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she'll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon's surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum's automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don't go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian's smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike ?Gizmos?), although intriguing elements�such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia¥do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, ?for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator?¥as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as ?I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I'm a girl, so I'm allowed.?One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14th, 2017ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2Page count: 320ppPublisher: CrownReview Posted Online: July 17th, 2017Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15th, 2017