Five stars.
Maybe the best sci-fi book of the year? Well, it is in the running. I’m sure it is difficult for an author to follow-up a first-novel blockbuster book with a successful second novel, but Andy has pulled it off. It is NOT the paradigm-shifting story of a marooned human on Mars, but a gritty, near-future story about a super-smart deliveryman (gal) who is sick of people telling her she’s “not living up to her potential.” And she is a smuggler: she smuggles goods in from Earth to the Moon colony called Artemis. But then her smuggling gets her involved in something a lot bigger than she intended.
Andy unwinds this tale with a huge dollop of delicious hard-science fully integrated into the storytelling and into the problem-solving. This key is the same key that unlocked The Martian for me and so many others. Feels like the 1970’s TV show “The A-team” except with hard science instead of those rapid-action cut scenes where they’re building something cool that will get them out of trouble by the end of the episode. That kind of feeling. Except better.
CMIO’s take? Science rocks. Artemis rocks. Two thumbs up.
