Artemis
Andy Weir, 2017
Science fiction Mystery, thriller & crimeContemporary fictionFantasy
A broke porter in the moon’s only city takes a criminal job that might buy her a future—if the vacuum doesn’t collect first. A brisk, snarky lunar caper with technical problem-solving, a tight first-person voice, and a few moments of wonder at the city under the dome.
Feels like wonder and tenderness. About war and memory.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy heist plots, hard science puzzles, and a smart-mouthed narrator who keeps improvising under pressure. The prose stays plain and the technical explanations can slow the middle, so expect a few dry stretches between the action.
Why read it
It offers a fast, grounded moon-city caper: you get engineering puzzles, low-gravity action, and a heroine whose bad decisions keep the plot moving.
A page from the book
The number you must not look at while your air runs out.
I switched to long, even hops. It felt like slow motion, but it was the best way to move with all that weight. My helmet’s heads-up display said the airlock was fifty-two meters away. I glanced at my arm readouts. My oxygen reserve plummeted while I watched. So I stopped watching. Andy Weir.Andy Weir serialized The Martian for free on his website, then sold it on Amazon for 99 cents; it became a bestseller before a publisher bought it.
Books that feel like this
More by Andy Weir
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir, 2021
A science teacher wakes on a spacecraft with no memory of how he got there and a solar system to save.
The Martian
Andy Weir, 2011
An astronaut stranded on Mars must science his way out, one log entry and improvised fix at a time; a survival thriller with gallows humor.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Artemis for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy heist plots, hard science puzzles, and a smart-mouthed narrator who keeps improvising under pressure. The prose stays plain and the technical explanations can slow the middle, so expect a few dry stretches between the action.
- What is Artemis like?
- A brisk, snarky lunar caper with technical problem-solving, a tight first-person voice, and a few moments of wonder at the city under the dome. Feels like wonder and tenderness. About war and memory.
- What should I read after Artemis?
- If you liked Artemis, try Roughing It (Mark Twain), Book Lovers (Emily Henry) and The City of Ember (Jeanne DuPrau).
A taste of the feed
A poem that begins like a bugle call and ends like a psalm.
But while said City Person is in town, things don’t go to plan. Because, of course, the Christmas tree farm—or bakery, or whatever the hero’s been sent to destroy—is owned and operated by someone ridiculously attractive and suitably available for wooing.
Book Lovers · Emily Henry
A city lit entirely by lamps, and the dark it can't explain.
In the city of Ember, the sky was always dark. The only light came from great floodlamps mounted on the buildings and at the tops of poles in the middle of the larger squares. When the lights were on, they cast a yellowish glow over the streets; people walking by threw long shadows that shortened and then stretched out again. When the lights were off, as they were between nine at night and six in the morning, the city was so dark that people might as well have been wearing blindfolds.
The City of Ember · Jeanne DuPrau
To know someone so well that sight becomes optional.
I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.
The Song of Achilles · Madeline Miller
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