Artemis is a 2017 science fiction novel written by Andy Weir. The novel takes place in the late 2080s and is set in Artemis, the first and so far only city on the Moon. It follows the life of porter and smuggler Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara as she gets caught up in a conspiracy for control of the city. The novel was highly praised by readers on Goodreads, who voted it the best sci-fi novel of the year. The novel's audiobook is narrated by Rosario Dawson.
Plot
In Artemis, the first city on the Moon, porter and part-time smuggler Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara is offered an opportunity by a regular client, wealthy businessman Trond Landvik, to assist him with a new business venture. While meeting with Trond, Jazz briefly encounters an associate of his named Jin Chu who attempts to conceal a case marked with the name ZAFO. Trond intends to take over Sanchez Aluminum, which currently enjoys a lucrative permanent contract with the city for free energy in exchange for providing the city's entire oxygen supply as a by-product from aluminum production. Trond asks Jazz to sabotage the company's anorthite harvesters so he can step in with his own, and when he offers her a life-changing sum of money to carry out the criminal activity, Jazz accepts. Jazz borrows some welding equipment from her estranged father Ammar, and a small robot called a HIB from a business associate of his. She visits the Apollo 11 landing site as a tourist in disguise, leaving the HIB in place outside the airlock so that it can open the hatch for her without the assistance of a human EVA master. The next day, while an electronic device created by her scientist friend Martin Svoboda makes it seem as though she is in her living quarters, Jazz treks across the moon's surface to where the harvesters are collecting ore. She successfully sabotages one, but is spotted by the camera of another. Jazz destroys two more, but flees to avoid capture by an approaching EVA team before she is able to disable the last harvester. With EVA masters guarding every airlock, Jazz is discovered by her former friend Dale, whom she despises for stealing her boyfriend. Dale offers not to report her if she puts aside her resentment and tries to rekindle their friendship, which she reluctantly agrees to. Finding Trond and his bodyguard murdered, Jazz looks for Jin Chu at an expensive hotel. She is attacked by Trond's assassin, but manages to escape with Jin's ZAFO case, which she gives to Svoboda for study. Jazz learns that Sanchez Aluminum is a front for O Palácio, Brazil's largest and most powerful organized crime syndicate, and that the killer, named Alvares, is now after her. Jin agrees to meet Jazz, but betrays her to Alvares to save himself. Jazz, anticipating Jin's deception, executes a trap she has set, incapacitating Alvares, and then turns him over to the city's de facto police chief, Rudy. Svoboda discovers that ZAFO is a virtually lossless cable, which will allow long-distance transmission of data without the need for repeaters, revolutionizing communications infrastructure. As the manufacturing process requires low gravity, Artemis is an ideal location, and the new industry would significantly boost the city's stagnant economy. Jazz confronts the city's administrator Ngugi, who reveals she has been using Jazz as bait to flush out O Palácio's operatives, not wanting to allow Artemis to be taken over by a crime syndicate. Jazz then enlists her reluctant friends and father to stop O Palácio by destroying Sanchez's smelter, which will allow Trond's daughter Lene, who inherited his fortune, to seize the pertinent contracts and rebuild. Dale helps Jazz break into the plant, where she sabotages the smelter to overheat and destroy itself, but in doing so unwittingly creates deadly chloroform that is pumped into the city's air supply. With under an hour before the unconscious residents of Artemis die from their exposure, Jazz races to access Trond's stockpile of untainted oxygen. She sacrifices herself to save the city, but Dale is able to save her. Lene pays Jazz for her services, and she finds herself temporarily wealthy. After buying her father a new welding workshop to replace the one she accidentally destroyed as a teenager, Jazz is called to Ngugi's office, where the administrator informs her of her impending deportation. Jazz convinces Ngugi of her value to the city as an "authorized" harmless smuggler whose monopoly of the illegal trade keeps out other more dangerous criminals. Ngugi relents, but forces her to pay most of her remaining money to the city as a fine. Jazz and Dale then rekindle their friendship. Jazz tasks Kelvin, her smuggling partner on Earth, to discover which company Jin Chu works for and invest in it before ZAFO and its earning potential is announced.
