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372 Pages Ep 146 - Artemis - Ep 5 (Patreon)

Published:
2023-06-23 17:22:41
Edited:
2023-12-19 19:22:56
Imported:

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Content

We finished Artemis! And we ranked Artemis as compares to all the other books covered in this podcast: you won't believe what happens next!!

And we're just going to get ahead of it: Chekov's re-usable condom does not pay off.

There's some mail from listeners as well, and one of them brings us up to date on Mike's Real or Fanfic stats. I don't think anyone is going to be impressed.

Comments

Ally

I've just realised that the fact that the condom never pays off means that in one specific way, Andy Weir is a worse writer than Grandpa No from Trucking Through Time - the placemats paid off!

Chaos Shadow

As we leave Artemis behind I decided to actually take a peek at a preview of The Martian and I think I know why it works and Artemis doesn't: investment. Right out the gate, The Martian establishes itself as a story about survival on an inhospitable world. It establishes the science talk as Watney explains the improbably circumstances that allowed his initial survival, and follows his thought process as he works through the situation and figures out long-term plans. From the first you know what the point of the story is, why it's important, and the stakes involved-- you know why you're rooting for the protagonist. The *premise* is instantly compelling and his narration is more heavily weighted toward 'explaining the science' than 'internet snark'; even if you find Watney obnoxious there's enough backbone that the story can still work. Artemis has no stakes. It's a series of loosely-related scenes that might have sounded cool individually strung together with paper-thin rationalization. Until the very end there's no sense of urgency or even connection. "Jazz want money" when it sounds like she's perfectly comfortable isn't compelling. There's no sense of urgency until too far into the novel to care. Some novels are carried by the charisma of their leads, but Jazz is so repugnant you certainly aren't pushing on because you want HER to succeed.

BigSpaceHamsteR
>>112523438

The Martian came out when space exploration was a bit more in the zeitgeist than it is currently, but I think the main reason for its success was its simplicity. It didn't require any writing skill beyond "set up problem, solve problem with science that at least sounds correct". The key, I think, is that the problems are for the most part not created by humans. This means that the characters don't need different motivations. It's actually quite difficult to write characters who are realistically in conflict with each other. Artemis feels like Weir really enjoyed The Expanse books and liked the idea of gangsters in near-future space, but forgot about how those books had characters who were, if not always likeable, at least understandable.