My lovely Ducky got me Artemis for Chrismas. I confess I skipped this one hearing mixed reviews, but with a lovingly gifted paperback sitting on the lounge table, it seemed time to tackle it. I quickly ate up the novel in two days, its an easy and compelling read but the entire time I was groaning and reading awkward passages aloud to her.

Overall the plot will carry you through, and the science in the book is exciting and engaging.
The characters are relatively flat single notes, and the main female character is rather cringe-worthy at times.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Martian but looking back, it seems to play to the author's strengths. It's frustrating because I found the plot and concepts so interesting in this book, but the characters and interactions were off-putting. The guy is gay, the marine is stoic, the police officer is a Mountie, the dad is Muslim, this guy is a Trekkie, this guy is rich. It lacks, and sometimes elements like the reusable condom RnD could be cut entirely leave nothing of substance out and be much less cringe-inducing.

I would say it's a fun, fast read but don't read it for the characters. Which is a shame as the story structure is character-driven.

In other news I'm trying to find the line between update and blog post. I think I need to work on some of the web tooling a bit more ;)