Artemis by Andy Weir - Blog Tour Review

Life Of A Nerdish Mum is very excited to be a part of the blog tour for the paperback and ebook release of Artemis by Andy Weir. 

Artemis

Jazz Bashara is a criminal.

Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.

Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of Jazz's problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself - and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even more unlikely than the first.

My Review

Wow! Artemis certainly gets started with a bang and had me on the edge of the seat from pretty much page one. I loved that the action got started straight away and swept me up into the story effortlessly. 

Jazz is a fabulous character, just the kind of main character I enjoy reading. She's sarcastic, intelligent, hard working and a bit of a badass. Jazz very much made me think that Artemis is more YA-ish than The Martian, I think because I've read a lot of YA with a strong female protagonist recently, she fits perfectly in with them. However there was just as much science throughout Artemis as there was in The Martian, but don't worry if you don't have PhD in chemistry, you can read it or skim and you'll still be following the story. 

Andy Weir has done an excellent job at world building. I really think having an author with so much knowledge about the subject they are writing about shows through in the world. I have wanted to read a moon based story for a long time and this really hit the spot for me. I could picture it all perfectly and the science and explanations for how things worked just made it very realistic. 

The pacing was excellent throughout and kept me wanting to read just a bit more. The ending let me down a little bit as it felt a bit rushed, but it was still thoroughly enjoyable and I felt it fit with the rest of the book. 

Overall a really engaging and enjoyable read and one I have recommended to others already. 

I gave this book 4 stars. 

About The Author

ANDY WEIR built a career as a software engineer until the success of his first published novel, THE MARTIAN, allowed him to live out his dream of writing fulltime. He is a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of subjects such as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. He also mixes a mean cocktail. He lives in California. Andy’s next book, ARTEMIS, is available now.

Don't Forget To Check Out The Rest Of The Tour

Lost Solace by Karl Drinkwater - Review

Today on Life Of A Nerdish Mum I have something extremely exciting! I have the very first review of Karl Drinkwater's newest novel - Lost Solace. 

Lost Solace

Sometimes spaceships disappear with everyone on board - the Lost Ships. But sometimes they come back, strangely altered, derelict, and rumoured to be full of horrors. 

Opal is on a mission, She's been seeking something her whole life. Something she is willing to die for. And she thinks it might be on a Lost Ship. 

Opal has stolen Clarissa, an experimental AI-controlled spaceship from the military. Together they have tracked down a Lost Ship, in a lonely nebula far from colonised space. 

The Lost Ship is falling into the gravity well of a neutron star, and will soon be truly lost...forever. Legends say the ships harbour death, but there's no time for indecision. 

Opal gears up to board it. She's just one woman, entering an alien and lethal environment. But perhaps with the aid of Clarissa's intelligence - and an armoured spacesuit - Opal may stand a chance. 

Can she face her demons and survive?

My Review

I'm giving a spoiler away for my Twelve Books Of Christmas by saying that Lost Solace is 100% on that list! I absolutely loved this book. It's been a while since I read my last sci-fi (that isn't Star Wars related) novel and Lost Solace made me remember just how much I love the genre. 

Opal is a kick ass protagonist and I instantly felt a connection with her. She knows she isn't perfect but she is determined and passionate. Over the course of the story we learn snippets about Opal and her life before Lost Solace, each bit makes me want to know even more and find out what she has gone through to get to this point. 

I love Opal, but I have to say I think Clarissa, the AI, is my favourite character. She is intelligent, straight to the point and just a little bit sassy! Her personality develops over time and she becomes her own "person" instead of just a programmed robot and it is really good to see this process. I think the author has done an excellent job of representing female friendship (even if it is between a human and an AI) and I recognised things from my own friendships over the years. 

The story is excellent and there is a perfect balance of sci-fi and horror. At one point not long after Opal boards the Lost Ship. I had to put the book down for a few minutes because I'd been so creeped out. It wasn't down for long though as I needed to know what happened next. Lost Solace is absolutely compulsive reading. 

I enjoyed the fact that there is technical terminology and logical facts throughout, but not too much to take you out of the moment (to figure out what it meant haha) or to make any scenes drag. It's punchy and fast paced. The technology and armoured suit are incredibly thought out and intelligent. The armoured suit is definitely the kind of thing I would want if I was in that kind of situation. 

I honestly cannot emphasise how much I loved this book. When I finished it my initial notes were as follows - Omgoodness ALL OF THE STARS! 5/5! It's creepy, it's action packed, it's awesome! - so I think that shows maybe just a hint of my feelings! Also I don't often think or say that books should be made into tv shows/movies, but I would love to see this as a movie on the big screen! 

As you can probably tell, I gave this book 5 stars. 

Help Out The Author

If this sounds like your cup of tea (which it definitely should) then you can actually help the author out by going to vote for it on the kindlescout page to get it published by Amazon. The link you need is here. 

About The Author

Karl Drinkwater is originally from Manchester but has lived in Wales for half his life. He's a full-time author, edits fiction for other writers, and was a professional librarian for over twenty-five years. He has degrees in English, Classics, and Information Science.

He writes in multiple genres: his aim is always just to tell a good story. Among his books you'll find elements of literary and contemporary fiction, gritty urban, horror, suspense, paranormal, thriller, sci-fi, romance, social commentary, and more. The end result is interesting and authentic characters, clever and compelling plots, and believable worlds.

When he isn't writing he loves exercise, guitars, computer and board games, the natural environment, animals, social justice, cake, and zombies. Not necessarily in that order.

To Connect With Karl Drinkwater

Website - http://karldrinkwater.uk

Twitter - @karldrinkwater

Facebook - Karl Drinkwater

Tinged With Disappointment - My Review of Ready Player One

Ok I've been putting off writing my review of this book for a good few days now as I feel like I'm letting people down with what I think of it. The book I'm talking about is Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I chose this book for the PopSugar challenge topic of a book set in the future and my husband knew it was on the list and that I was excited about reading it so he went and ordered me a copy.

As soon as it arrived, I put down my other books and I started reading. It started off ok, but no better than anything else I've read. It then went onto infodump for about a quarter of the book before anything really happened. I kept waiting and waiting, but it was just very flat. Then when something finally did happen, a love interest was introduced. As much as I liked Art3mis, I don't feel that her character added anything to the story. I would have preferred to see how Parzival and Aech dealt with the whole situation being best friends and seeing if they could stay that way or if the game would tear them apart (rather than what happened and a relationship got in the way).

Everyone has also said that it's cool that there are all these 80's references and as a big fan of the 80's I was looking forward to spotting things I knew about. I didn't need to "spot" them though as they were clearly dropped almost like someone bragging that they knew a famous person. It felt very much like the author was trying to show how cool he was and was trying too hard by mentioning all these retro games and films etc.

I could see the ending coming a mile away and if I remember rightly, the ending seems to be a slight variation on the ending to the film Hackers. It has been a while since I've watched it, but still...

Overall I feel really let down by the book, though I am glad I read it so that I could form my own opinion. It took me far longer than a book this length should as I had to force myself to keep picking it back up, when I was expecting a page turner.

I started this book on the 20th of March 2015 and finished it on the 26th of March 2015
I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads, though I would have preferred to have given it 2.5

Lost In Space - My Review of Star Wars: In the Shadow of Yavin, Vol. 1

I have always wanted to try some Star Wars literature, so when I saw Star Wars: In The Shadow of Yavin Vol. 1 by Brian Wood at the library, I made sure to pick it up.

This book is timed just a few weeks after Episode IV movie ends and we're following the story of the Rebellion trying to find a base and further their challenge to the Empire. We see the fan favourites, Leia, Luke, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Chewie and others and yet, their characters fall flat. Wood has failed to capture the personalities that the real life actors put into their characters. None of them seem quite right, a bit like a bad imitation.

The artwork for this book is good, but I wouldn't say that it was exceptional. The ships were definitely the best looking things on the page.

As to the story itself, I think there is a very good idea of a story, hidden in there behind all the blocks of text. There could have been drama, there could have been suspense, there could have even been some mystery and intrigue, but again it all just seems so lifeless. I KNOW I am comparing this to the movies, but when you are writing something that is to fill in the gaps between movies, then your characterisation and storytelling need to be on point.

Added at the end of the book was a mini story between Boba Fett and Darth Vader (I believe set before Episode IV) and it felt almost like an apology for the rest of the book. Sadly, this added nothing and I barely ended up skim reading it because I was so glad to be finishing the book. This should have taken me a couple of hours to read, but it took me days as I kept picking it up and putting it down because I just was not enjoying it at all.

Overall I was extremely disappointed with this, I will be trying other Star Wars literature, but I will not be continuing with this series.

I started reading this book on the 31st of January 2015 and I finished reading it on the 6th of February 2015
I gave this book 2 stars on Goodreads

A Bit Of Old School Sci Fi - My review of The Flying Sorcerers

Back to my 2015 Book Challenges reads on this book, this book is the one I chose for the PopSugar topic "a book I own but have never read". The book chosen was The Flying Sorcerers by David Gerrold. Genuinely, I have no idea how I own this book or how long I have owned it, it has just been on my bookshelf for years and I have never got around to read it before.

At the start of the book, there is a snippet of information from the book and it really intrigued me and certainly got me interested in reading the rest of the book. The author does a great job on the first two pages in describing the characters and the world without sounding like they were listing off attributes. Within the first couple of paragraphs I knew we weren't on earth due to the multiple moons and suns and that the characters had fur. To me that's a great start and a great talent to have as a writer.

Throughout the book, there are lots of cheeky references and attempts at describing earthly things such as "electrissy" and at one point, what we know as a wedding ceremony is performed to symbolise a truce has been agreed. This bit made me smile and then thinking about it further, it was probably quite controversial when it was written (I believe it was published originally in 1940) as the ceremony was performed on two men.

Around the halfway point, I got bored and felt that the story wasn't really going anywhere and I put the book down for a good week or so before going back to finish it. It did pick back up around 3/4's the way through but then I felt really let down by the ending, it felt anticlimactic to me.

Overall a good book and had I not checked, I would not have known that it was written such a long time ago. I'd recommend this to people who would be interested in trying out Sci-Fi, but didn't want something too futuristic and full of robots.

I started reading this book on the 7th of January 201 and I finished it on the 26th of January 2015
I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads