Artemis is a city on Earth’s Moon. It is a playground for rich vacationers. But for Jazz Bashara, it is home.

Andy Weir’s second book Artemis is about Jazz, a twenty-something year old that grew up on the Moon. Much of the story involves her less-than-stellar past, leading to her current day life as a delivery person and smuggler. The description of Artemis, the city, is quintessential science fiction. The concepts and science underlying the concepts keeps the story interesting.

We learn that Jazz is gifted but almost exclusively motivated by money. So instead of working with her dad, she smuggles contraband. Eventually, she gets tangled up in a scheme to make a million slugs, Artemis’s weight-based monetary unit. The story then revolves around her challenges to complete this scheme.

Overall, the story was well written and flowed quickly. But Jazz’s character felt weak and in many ways, tropey. Even when she should have been growing, it felt like she didn’t change at all. There was never a good explanation of why she was so bratty. For a large chunk of the story I thought she was a teenager when in reality she was an adult.

I give the story 2 of 5 stars. But Andy Weir’s other books, The Martian and Project Hail Mary are much, much better.