Artemis
By: Andy Weir / Narrated By: Rosario Dawson
Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
So sue me: I liked this, even tho’…
I know I know I know
Apparently this, Artemis, can’t hold a candle to The Martian. And I dunno, that’s probably very true as the movie seemed awesome, but the audiobook? Oh jeez, I’ve yet to listen to it, even tho’ I have the narrator that most people preferred.
And, also apPARently, author Andy Weir could’ve just as easily made our heroine, Jazz (Jasmine Bashara), a dude for all the depth there was toward crafting her as a woman. I dunno, I rather liked that she was a Balls to the Wall kinda woman of action. Sue me! What’s wrong with a woman who doesn’t dither but who rocks out actions? One who’s delightfully snarky as well?
Okay, so maybe Jazz is a trifle glib at fraught moments where she should be all tense. Yeh, I’ll ding Weir for that as it borders on “clever” and we can’t have THAT. But yikes, I’m reeeeally not into Thrillers (As y’all might’ve noticed cuz, tho’ I’ve a few, I’m raaaarely doing them for reviews. CanNOT handle adrenaline, makes me queasy), but I rather enjoyed that I sped up my Listening speed cuz I really wanted to know what happened next. Here: A jolly li’l Thriller!
Jazz is a young woman who’s rather a Chronic Underachiever -and- a Sore Disappointment to Her Father. Oh yeh, and she’s a smuggler. So she’s aaaalways getting into scrapes and dodging the Law. She’s a particular amount of money that she MUST earn, tho’ we’re not sure why until the verrrry end. We just know she daydreams of being rich rich rich, and NOT living her current reality which is living in a teeny-tiny space and eating wretched wretched food. She’s so poor she can’t afford to have her grub flavored.
A chance to add a gazillion (And six!) units of cash to her account has her branching out: Sabotaging a company so that a benefactor can take it over. She aaaaalmost achieves the near-impossible task, but alas, things go awry.
Then things go terrrrribly awry with the murder of her benefactor, oh and now Jazz is on the Hit-List, plus the Law KNOWS she was involved in the destruction.
So there are plenty of chase scenes, and here is where I declare that yegads did I not pay attention to chemistry and physics in high school. And yegads, trying to understand the Artemis (The name of the only lunar colony) economy was a trifle difficult. So I’m preeeetty sure that this can’t be catalogued as Science, but maybe, who knows? the science is spot-on?
I’m just gonna say: Dunno, just Suspend Disbelief, or Ignore the Inaccuracies and Go Along For The Bumpy Ride. Cuz this is fun if you don’t think about it too much.
Rosario Dawson was really good doing the spunk, the snark, the speedy action. She even made the near constant pauses in the action to describe mechanical and chemical processes tolerable. I do NOT like action interrupted for schtuff I don’t understand, but Dawson’s pacing was perfection, with just a mild hesitation for the explanations then WHAM! right back into the story. I looked up her body of work to see that the woman’s been honing her acting chops for quite some time, and trust me, it shows up here.
Nope, dunno that this is good enough for Big Sis, as SHE most DEFinitely paid attention in, not high school, but freakin’ college. Plus, she really liked The Martian. Not sure that this is up to that, but hey, ‘twas good enough for me. Here, knowing I’ll be tackling Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny next week? Gosh, I just wanted some fun.
…I DID have fun… !
:)
Huzzah for Disbelief Suspended!!!
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