Artemis by Andy Weir – Episode 6
The Buddies read Andy Weir’s (author of The Martian) second book Artemis. They discuss ‘Ocean 11 crew coming together’ scenes, space vacations, uncomfortable sex puns, the ‘moral’ economics of smuggling and much more in this cathartic episode 6.
Transcript for SEO 🙂
All right. Welcome back to The Buddy Book Club. I’m Dylan here with my co host, the Bombastic Bookworm. Keith, what’s up, buddy? How are you bombastic bookworm like that? All right, well, we’re here to break down some best sellers. I’d say we’re the casual Friday of the Book club world with sweatpants here. No Khakis. Yeah. So we’re going to take it pretty lighthearted, but we’re going to have fun with it. We try to read these books and have a good time and learn something new. That’s really the key. You can catch us on buddybookclubpodcast at gmail. Com. Buddy Book Club on Twitter, buddy Book Club podcast on Instagram and www. Dot. Buddybookclub. Com. So new site just launching. I saw that added I was like, Wait, is this a thing? Oh, yeah. The kids building it out. Don’t worry about it. I just went off the notes. I didn’t even know if it was real or not. You could have put anything in there and I would have read it. Yeah. Pornhub. Com. I don’t know. So yeah. Feel free to send us your comments or questions. Hate mail. We love love mail. We love, too. This week we’re going to be reading read Andy Weir, his second novel after the popularity of The Martian, which is Artemis. This is his first novel after becoming a full time novelist. Previous to this, actually, when he wrote The Martian, he self published it alone, which is crazy to self publish. A best seller that ends up getting made into a movie with Matt Damon is crazy, but Additionally, he was still working as a software engineer when he wrote that. So end of the day. Andy Weir, props to you, brother. He didn’t have, like, an editor. He didn’t have all the other resources that a publishing company would provide, or did he have? He definitely didn’t have the resources, no resources. I don’t know if he had his own editor or whatnot. I’m sure he bounced ideas and he had someone reading his stuff and going over it. And then once it got some sort of popularity, I wonder how that works. If we had read The Martian, I would have done that research, but we did not. We’re reading Artemis, but Artemis is a lunar quality and the home of our protagonist, Jazz Bashara. She’s basically like a gopuff delivery driver for the good folks of Artemis, which is like I said, the lunar colony, but she has a side gig smuggling illegal items. Nothing too nefarious. She eventually takes a job as a get rich quick scheme and also quickly finds herself in over her head, which is pretty much the first half of the novel. The second half is basically Jazz putting together a crew to finish the job. Accurate. Yes, I think that covers it when we first picked it. Or at least I think I picked this one. Unfortunately, you did it read as an Andrew’s follow up book, which I was like, oh, everyone said, the marching is fucking unreal. And then it was basically a Sci-Fi adventure moon journey book. And I was like, oh, this is right up my alley. This is going to be perfect. So that’s what it’s pitched as. I don’t think it delivered, but, yeah, we’ll get into that later. Yeah, it’s kind of like my next question was like, what kind of book is this? Because if someone said, hey, this is a Heist book that takes place on the moon, I’m like, all right, I’m in. That sounds cool. Yeah, it wanted it to be. And I talk about this later, but it wanted to be Oceans Eleven on the Moon, and it ended up being science underscore underscore underscore science fiction. That’s the only thing I would say. It’s basically a science book. I know you love Brave New World, but I think it’s very similar, actually, to Brave New World, where it’s a cool world building, like, a very realistic, real idea, something that could definitely happen in the future, but a shitty story wrapped around it. So that was my issues right away. So would you say that this is a heist book, a crime book, a space colony book or a how to on welding in space. The last one. It was a science book with welding. He wrote about welding. Like, it was, I don’t know what I’d even compare it to. Oh, my God. The weldmanship of jazz. Her dad loved her so much. He welded for 3 hours when it should only take 45 minutes. What? Who cares? All right, well, we’re really getting into it at the top. We got a lot of categories to go through. We’re going to be going through some of our favorite characters in this novel, our favorite scenes stock up, stock down what we loved and what we hated about it. I think you’re going to try to rewrite the book at some point. I am a published author by that. I mean, I’ve said, what author should write instead of actually writing anything. So, yeah, that makes me an author pretty much. Did you know that I actually am a published author? What do you mean? You just bury the lead? It’s just fact. What did you publish? I published a poem. It wasn’t published by me. It was a poem I wrote, but it’s in a book. We’re going to need that red on the air if you’re not ready right now, we’ll have next episode. I’m sure people will be waiting with bated breath to hear that. Actually. Quick aside, my mom asked me about this, like, probably five years ago or something. She’s like, oh, remember that novel or that poem you wrote that was in the book, and I was like, yeah, I guess so. Sure. And she was like, I wonder if you get a hold of that. So I just Googled it. And the first thing that came up was someone reading it on YouTube, and it’s hilarious. It’s like some girl in Chicago or in Ohio. I see reading my poem, which is called Homies. Wow, nice. Just watch the YouTube video and you’ll get everything. But that’s another story. So we’re going to go through these categories, but before that, we’d like to start off with a libation as we do on every episode, to wet your whistle, get excited to kick back and relax, to listen to us. Break this one down. We like to base these libations off of stuff that has been referenced in the book itself. So each episode is different, which is fun. This particular book, a few things were discussed. Scotch, particularly Bowmore 15, but we’ve been down the road of Scotch before, so I think we’re going to pass on that. The bar keep Billy. He makes a few different bathtub gins, which I’m not really trying to get into that wine spotiot situation, and I didn’t have enough time to ferment my own fruit. So I’m going to pass on that and settle for a good old fashioned pint of beer, which is what Billy’s pulling off the draft in his bar in Artemis. So I’m going personally with the Miller Light, but you know what? To reach their own. Take what you like. Well, cheers. And let’s get into it. We like to start this off with our favorite character. So this book is interesting in that it’s a pretty small group. I feel like for some reason, all the books we’ve read have been like a really small cast of characters. It’s in Game of Thrones, so, yeah, that’s good. I don’t think we’d be able to handle that. No. So you pretty much have Jazz, and her inner circle is all the characters in this book with a few ancillary characters, considering we just referenced Billy the bar keeper. He’s up there for me. I mean, he’s running a dive bar on the moon. I don’t even know how that’s possible. Like, there’s only regulars in this joint, but at one point, Jazz walks in there and he has her beer ready for him. And I think we talked about this in the hunting party pod, but that’s, like, my dream for a bar is just walk in and then already have my drinking choice ready. Here’s your Shirley Temple ready to go. Well, I like a Roy Rogers. Better give me the Coca Cola with it. Billy’s up there for me. He’s not my favorite necessarily. But what else did you have? Jazz is basically the whole book. She’s the main character, but she sucked. She was awful. Really? Yeah. I did not like Jazz. I’ll get to that later, but I did a trio of favorites that were all very, very ancillary side characters. One of them was Billy Hartnell, the bar owner who always gives Jazz free drinks, who’s, like, testing out new drinks and then Jazz just shit on it after him, giving her free drinks I was like, Jesus, maybe like, yeah, this one isn’t your best. Maybe you should do this, but, no, she just says it’s pieces of garbage. Yes. So he’s spinning up different kinds of bathtub, which I think you would have to do on the moon, like, find whatever kind of liquor or fruits and sugar. I mean, sugars that you can ferment, ferment them and make something yourself. One thing you did say, though, was he’s giving you free drinks? It was a weird writing. The first time she goes in there and gives him a free drink, he gives her a drink, she finishes it. Can’t get a second one because she has to run out and he charges her. So I didn’t get that part. It was like, Wait, maybe he was just Downing drinks, and then she had another one. Maybe I misread it. But either way. So, yeah, Billy’s up there for us. Who else you got? I mean, most of the characters in this side characters are all like, entrepreneurs and go getters. And Jazz is like, everyone tells her she’s the most talented person, the smartest person, the best looking person, and she’s the opposite. She does like, everything is shortcut, and she does everything half as she doesn’t fucking fully commit. She’s like, and then she gets all her friends to do shit for her. She just asks for favors all the time. From that, I respect this. She seems jazz. I’m like, what the hell is this? Why would you like Jazz? I just don’t understand that. Just as like a person, she’s a diamond in the rough. She’s like, Aladdin, she’s got a lot of potential. The people that, you know, that are like, the smartest people, but least likely to try hard or do stuff on their own. Those are the people you don’t admire. You’re not like, oh, I don’t care for this person any day. Those are people you hate. No, you haven’t worked hard. You haven’t done anything. You’ve had all these opportunities and you squandered them. So fuck you. I think they’re trying to lift her up. Whatever Loretta Sanchez is who Jazz should be. She is a CEO and founder of the Sanchez Aluminum. She grew up on the mean streets of Brazil. Basically, for some reason, she’s able to kick Jazz’s ass. She’s like, a 50 year old, like, Taekwondo or some shit, but, yeah, she’s only in the book briefly, but she’s fucking awesome. And then Jazz is like, oh, I hate her. For what? What reason? Why do you hate her? She was protecting her business. If someone came into my business and she has multimillion dollar harvesters and they try to destroy them, that person would be killed, right? That’s fair. So she’s like, oh, she tried to kill me. Why would she do that? Could you try to ruin the business? She grew by herself after starting from nothing. How about a little bit empathy from the other person’s point of view. Fucking Jazz. Am I getting mad a little bit? Yeah. You don’t like Jazz at all? No, I don’t like it. I don’t like her at all. And she’s like, yeah, I’m really good looking. How do you like jazz? Do you like jazz? Well, it’s for your Loretta point. She is Brazilian, and Brazilians are great fighters in general. I mean, that you have the whole Gracie family. Like you said, she grew up on the main street. She probably learned how to fight there. She learned leverage. She learned leverage. So I’m not too concerned about the fighting situation. But Loretta seems like a good person. I don’t know why Jazz continued to hit her the entire time and saved her life. Yeah. And then afterwards, they’re like, oh, who’s running the company? And she’s like, Loretta. It’s like, no, why is this prison? Your enemy made no sense. Even at one point, I’m not connected to the mob. I just like, I have to do this. I want to run this company, and I have to pay off mob people. If this is 1950 New York and there’s, like, the ice cream parlor guy who has to pay some cash to the mob so they don’t throw bricks through his windows. Like, You’re shitting on that guy. What? Yes. I’m confused. Jazz. She also was, like, all she cared about her employees. She basically was on the Titanic, going down with the ship at her facility, being like, everyone out except for me. I go down with this fucking thing. I want everyone else to be safe. And then when the train went back to town, she said, All I care about is my boys. All I care about is that’s all she cared about. She’s like, the best person. Yeah, it seemed like she was a great person. And Jeff hated her for literally no reason. She hated her because she’s who she should be. But she’s not because she’s the worst. Oh, that’s an interesting take. Yeah. So she just didn’t like her because she was kind of jealous. Okay. Other favorite characters I had. You know what? I love the nerdy guy in any movie or book who can’t get the ladies but tries
Participant #1:
how they say it. You listen to the audio books I usually read. So how did they say his name in the book? Sabota. So, yeah, he’s kind of jazz. He’s got a huge crush on Jazz throughout the whole book. You can tell she’s not picking up on it for some reason, which is weird. I thought she was. And she was like, yes, I know he likes me, but I don’t like him. Yeah, maybe. And I need these favors. Yeah. She wasn’t even, like, fun flirty back or anything. She was just like, hey, you need to learn how to talk to women. He’s like, all right, cool. What’s the worst thing to say to someone at the same time? He creates a reusable condom. I don’t know if it’s a good idea or bad idea. We might get into that later, but at least it’s an idea. He’s got something going for them. Entrepreneurs in this book are very other than Jazz, and he’s just an interesting nerdy science type. So I was down with him, and he’s loyal. What else do you need? Good guy. He’s probably my pick. He’s my pick. He’s my pick. I like that. Yeah, that was definitely up there on the list. Potentially. Yeah. The only person I ever had was Rudy de Bois, who just gets shit on for being good looking and wanting to do his job. That’s literally. She’s like, yeah, then Rudy is trying to get me kicked out for stealing all this shit and doing all this illegal stuff. What an asshole. That’s why he’s bad. All right. Jazz has some issues. And you have some issues with Jazz. That’s clear. I’m going to burn one of my potent quotables for this because you said, Rudy. When Jazz describes Rudy, she says Rudy Dubois is a seriously good looking man. He’s 2 meters tall and as blonde as a Hitler’s wet dream. Jesus Christ. Decent line. Andy. We are decent line. I think he’d be bad, though. You think he’d be a bad guy after hearing that, and then he’s just like, yeah, I’m always trying to do is do my job and not like, have the city burned down? Yeah. I mean, why would you think he’s bad? He’s just blonde just because he says Hitler, and it doesn’t mean he’s bad. It’s just how blonde he was. Jesus. So that covers your characters. So this book actually doesn’t have a lot of scenes in terms of a set thing that happens. It’s a lot of in between Jazz kind of running from somebody or going to a meeting with somebody in terms of science and a lot of science, a lot of science. Like, Andy, I appreciate the science, but I thought you would like this. I did. We’ll get into that later, but I did it’s just like, all right. There’s a lot of signs, but in terms of scenes, I have a few that I had listed as potentials for the favorite. I had the first attempted sabotage when Jazz goes out and tries to blow up the loaders or something, harvesters the harvesters like a command and conquer red Alert type thing. Got you noon alert, building the crew, which is good for any Heist movie. When they build the crew, I have any other way to go on Macroeconomics with Fidelis new Guggy, which is like, this book needs this conversation that Jazz has with her in terms of explaining the bigger picture. So it’s like, okay, I’m just trying to do this little Heist thing, and it’s like, okay, but take a step back, Zoom out and look at exactly what’s going on here. And it’s important for the reader to get that to understand. Like, how this space colony works. Or this lunar colony? Excuse me, space colony. This lunar colony works. So that was three. And then the fourth was the second heist, which is kind of the climax of the book itself. Did you have any other ones that you like to throw out there for potential when everything backfires after the Smelting incident, creating a core form? Yes. So the end of it after the high stone? Yes. The one thing I didn’t see coming was that which I actually really liked because I thought it was going to be actually a dark turn. And I thought Jazz is going to finally realize all the shit she’s been doing. So I thought, like, the squandering, her talent fucking over her dad importing dangerous shit. Doing all the shit she’s doing is finally catching up with her. And I was like, yes, this scene is going to fucking rectify this. And then, no, nothing happens. The end of the book happens, and they’re like, no one was injured at all. And it didn’t have any consequences for you in any way. I’m like, oh, great. This is perfect. But I thought it would be more like, I think it’s like a Twilight zone. Do you know how Twilight Zone a lot of them end where the person thinks they’re doing everything right. In the end, they realize their own faults because phenomenal. Yeah. That’s what I thought it was going to happen. She’d finally look herself in the mirror and be like, oh, I killed all these people type of thing. But no, that definitely applies to this. I think that’s actually a good call out for my favorite scene, though. I think it’s the first attempted sabotage when she tries to fuck with the harvesters, because it’s our first real experience on the lunar surface. And I think the science plays in really well with that scene in terms of explaining how things work, and you really get, like, a good picture of her doing this because it would be hard to explain without the science stuff. But it also then, because the science is involved, it makes it way more interesting. And it’s just like a cool action scene. She’s blowing up shit on the moon and lunar gravity is affecting it. And it’s also like a clock running. She’s got X amount of oxygen and Y amount of time. Oh, shit. Is she going to get away from this? Is she not going to get away from it? And I think the way that they got her out of that scene, it seemed like she wasn’t going to be able to escape. And then they also introduce, who’s a Doug, like, who’s her buddy character or whatever. So they get out of that scene in a cool way. And then they also introduce his other character and you’re like, oh, she’s screwed now and then. This guy is kind of like, I’ll give you a pass here and you’re like, Wait, why would he give you a pass, and it kind of creates that whole situation with her and her ex boyfriend and stuff like that. That really wouldn’t be that interesting, but it creates a lot of character development in there. I thought it was just a good scene. Like if I was going to see the movie and this scene was on, I’d sit down and be like, oh, I’ll watch this part. This seems like a cool part. That’s a good point. If this were just on Earth, it still be interesting. But this had all the other elements of being on the moon and gravity and all the different things of, like, chemistry coming to play. Yeah, this is where I saw the movie being like, oh, this would be cool. My runner up would be the Macroeconomics with Fidelisnaguji. I just think that it explains so much and the interesting stuff that I’m interested when it comes to this kind of moon or whatever space stuff. I love the idea of there’s, like, way more moving parts than you even believe. And also this story in itself where you’re saying it’s a selfish girl kind of trying to get rich quick, but she’s not seeing all the other things that are happening in the background. Is that about anyone else? No, she definitely doesn’t. So, yeah, out of those that I listed, those are my one A and one B. And then you like the cliff form. Yes. I thought that was the one point where things could go off the rails. And you didn’t see that coming at all, which I thought was cool to it. No, I dug it. Although it is I will 100 million% agree with you that no one dying or anything. It’s like now there’s a couple of casualties. I think they said that a couple of people died, but they had, like, previous conditions. They said they had cardiac arrests, but because the society loved out their neighbors so much, they only checked on them, and they got them in the hospital as soon as. Yes, which is surprising because she doesn’t give a shit about anyone else. They knew that person was having heart attacks, so they got them taken care of. I feel you’re going to have a lot of stocks in terms of ups and downs and loves and hates. So let’s first get into our stock up, stock down segment. Stock up. What do you got this ties into the ending. But forgiving people when you’re dying, that’s a big stock up for me here. I don’t know if you caught it, but she’s about to die, and she’s like, just no, Dale, I forgive you for everything. So let me put this a little bit in context. She’s about to kill 2000 people in society. Dale cheated with her then boyfriend two years ago, who was not attracted to her because he’s gay. He was using her as a beard. He’s actually attracted to men. He’s into Dale. It’s semi cheating. But to compare, I forgive you for about to kill two dozen people to cheating on a boyfriend two years ago is mind numbingly insane. The most insane thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life. So stock up forgiving people. All right, we’re continuing the tradition of very blurry lines between stock up and stock down. So Dale and I can’t remember what her dad’s boyfriend’s name is because he wasn’t part of the story. But, like, kept getting brought up. I still love him, by the way. But fuck you, Dale. I’m like, Wait, what? Yeah, obviously it’s tougher. Jazz holds Grudges. She holds grudges. I respect that. Yeah. So stock up for Grudges. She holds Grudges without question. But, yeah, it seems like, OK, you love this guy and you had a good relationship, but he was gay and like, yeah, your best friend cheated on him with you. Would you rather him be with me? Yeah. You like this guy too, Dale? Yeah. It’s a shitty situation, especially a small colony. It’s like high school. I mean, I get it in the sense, it’d be like high school if your best friend took your girlfriend and you have to stay together, you have no chance with that person. Not because, yes, I get it. I see how that’s, like, takes it the hurt down a little bit because this guy was gay, so our future would have not worked out anyways, but it still hurts. I understand that. And then Additionally, you have to see these people all the time. I forgot you’re about to kill the other people, by the way, but I forgive you. It is pretty insane. All right. I like that one space vacations. Huge stock up for space vacations. This book has to be good for the commercial space travel industry as a whole, because it shows, like, all the cool stuff you can do if there was a place to go on the moon, which is probably if you stretch things out, it’s probably like, our next step in terms of solar commercial endeavors outside of obviously these kind of trips around the Earth that they’re trying to do with SpaceX and Virgin is trying to do it. I get that. But if you’re trying to actually go somewhere, the moon is the spot, and it’s a pretty good spot. There’s this low gravity, which they talk about a lot seems pretty interesting. You get to Zorb on the lunar surface. I’m not into zorbing, but I could see how on the lunar surface that would be super cool. I mean, imagine what the stars would look like and then you got an Earth rise going on in the background. Like this sounds great. And then Additionally, most importantly, for the space vacations, nothing really bad happens. I know the Clifford thing totally screws stuff up, but there’s no breaches. Andy Weir takes a lot of time explaining all the safety precautions that would be in place and how the redundancies on top of that. So if I’ve read this book before going onto a plane to a space shuttle, I’d be like, yeah, get me there. This sounds sick, but I have a question for you. Are you into doing this if this was available to you? So let’s say right now you could go to the moon for a vacation for a week or whatever it would cost you. I know. It’s like 70 grand in the book. Let’s say it’ll cost you ten grand. Ten grand all in to go to the fucking moon. Would you be down? Listen, I think the view of the moon onto the Earth is probably the best thing you’ll ever see. However, no chance, like zero. You have to pay me. Probably. You’ve got to pay me, like, a million dollars to do it. I think I don’t think I would do it for anything less than that. I won’t even consider it. I don’t think. Is it because I don’t like flying that’s first off. So I’m not taking a spaceship up to. I also heard that when you’re in space, it just basically feels like a roller coaster feeling in your stomach. Never been on a roller coaster. Never been on one. All right. The roller coaster feeling here. So apparently you have that at all times. That sounds fun. That sounds miserable. And then the moon has the shittiest food. Apparently, no beer or no alcohol. There’s all these restrictions. It sounds terrible to me. I don’t know. And then you obviously can die very easily. Well, that factors. Then what about the Internet? You got a four second Internet lag time. Is that a problem for you? I actually had stock down the moon. I actually thought it would be patroller. It sucks. You know what? To tell you the truth, I’m with you. I’m 100% with you. Okay? To be brutally honest, I’m with you. The Internet lag time. Not for me. There’s no fucking hospital on the moon. Why is there no hospital? I don’t understand that. That’s a good point. It’s a frontier town, but it’s the final frontier. So it seems exciting. But it’s not because outside of getting to do this Orbing excursion, if this is, like, your all inclusive, potentially written. No, I’m sure they figured out the gamma raise and stuff like that. But you get 2 hours. That’s what they say. I think it’s like 2 hours to do that. And that will cost a shitload. So I get it. But then outside of that, you’re just like living in these bubbles for me. Personally, I went to the Grand Canyon, and it was like, mind blowing experience just because of the stars. So I think you’d probably have a similar experience on the moon of just like the stars, like seeing the Earth. It makes you feel tiny, like it makes you feel intention. So I think that would be amazing. But that’s a moment. There are a series of moments. I don’t want to fucking fly to the moon. Heart has for me, but in general, space, vacation, stock up, send it to the moon. Another stock up I had, though. I’ll go and click here. Pen pals. Yeah, pen pals. It used to be a thing. I feel like when we were in elementary school, it was like, hey, we’re going to write to this other elementary school in Phoenix, and it’d be like, oh, what’s life like in Phoenix and Jazz? Throughout this story, Jazz has a consistent pen pal in Kelvin, who’s living in Africa. He’s in Kenya, Kenya. Okay. And they started off early based on their writings, but they end up from this pen pal. Not only do they have a long lasting friendship, like a lifelong friendship, but it also becomes quite profitable because then she has an Earth contact to use for smuggling goods and use. She sure does. Yes. And for a lot of favors. Do all these things for me and don’t ask questions. But they say some nice things to each other. He’s into soap operas. And Jazz says soap operas are lame, but it’s okay. If you like lame stuff, we can still be friends. That’s a cool way to approach friendship. But in general, Pen pals, it’s a good sign for Pen pals. Stock up. There you go. Yeah. It was a very friendly exchange, considering, like, if you go on Instagram or Twitter, those random people you meet are not very nice. Agreed. I had another stock up. This may be a side, but gone in 60 seconds. Villains. I don’t know if you remember gone in 60 seconds. But basically, the premise is they need to steal 50 cars right in this allotted time to get, like, a million dollar payout or something like that. And these cars themselves are all worth, like, they’re stealing cars that are, like, $250,000. So they’re selling 50 of them. So the math there, I don’t really make sense. But anyways, he also had to save his brother. Well, yeah, I’m just saying the general principle of what the contract was. Okay. I like, how you’re equated to Nick Cage movie. This is on point. Yeah, they steal 49 and a half cars. The 50th car was damaged, and the villain is like, no, you’re dying for this shit. You’re dead. I’m fucking killing you because you didn’t bring me 50 exact cars. My reputation through. And this one car is a little bit damaged, which is the most mind blowing, evil thing to possibly do. Okay, so this is like, gone in 60 seconds. Stock up. Yeah. So when Jazz destroys three of the four harvesters, which are worth, I think they said, like, hundreds of millions of dollars, which would substantially ruin the smelting business, all she does is like, Are you fucking done with that fourth one yet or no? Well, no, but the whole point is, the oxygen contract or whatever can expire or the aluminum contract, but their production levels are going to go be still be available to stay above the contracted limit. I mean, that’s all that matters. And then eventually they’ll build more, and then nothing happens. So I get that took a company that had very limited or basically limited assets, and they basically took, like, $600 million of assets. Is it still a stock up for you? I’m confused. Oh, I’m just saying that villains, those type of villains are back up. They’re stuck up. Irrational villains are still up. All right, 60 seconds ran. You can parlay that into your stock down then, because I feel like everything has been stocked down for Listers out there. It’s not a great book. I mean, on the same note, one of my stockdowns are actually my only stock down. Because I loved this book. I thought it was phenomenal. My only stock down was law and order itself. I mean, Jazz’s original boyfriend was cheating on her with a 14 year old girl. She’s an adult. He’s an adult, but she’s not this 14 year old girl. Okay? Jazz and her boyfriend are both adults, and he’s cheating on her with a 14 year old girl. And this is not illegal. The worst case this gets you is like a beat down. And, yes, I know that in this world we call Earth, there are lots of countries that don’t have ages of consent, which is fucked up. But the fact that it’s like, yeah, so different people have different moral standards. And that’s just the way it is. It’s like, all right, that’s fucking weird. And then when Jazz gets assaulted with that guy with a knife lefty, the security guard who finds him, he runs away, the attacker runs away, and the security guards like, he had a knife. So it’s best to just let him go. Like, what? Yeah, that made no sense. What? But then I was like, all right, fine. I love Westerns. So I get it. This is just a lawless town. That’s what we’re going to go for. Just completely lawless. I get it. Okay. That’s what we’re going for. I was fine with that. Until at the end, when Jazz gets in trouble for this whole thing, trying to kill everyone and everything, Fidelis Naguji is like, we need to present ourselves as a community that lives under a rule of law. What is a great point? You’ve literally presented this entire book as there are no laws on Artemis. If Billy the Barkeep wants to get 13 year old kids drunk, he can. But he might face an angry mob of parents once their kids come home. It’s like, okay, fine, sure. Yeah, this is an old timey saloon. But then all of a sudden it’s like, no, we have to be law and order. So the quagmire of law and order is stuck down for me. I don’t understand the amount of passivity. She’s a 14 year old girl, like, whatever people different moral understanding. So you can just get a 14 year old drunk and hook up with them on the moon and it’s chill. This is why he wanted to visit the moon. I did not want to visit the moon. I was anti moon from the star. Okay, speaking of the morals and the laws, moral smugglers was stocked down for me. Jazz, jazz is a moral smuggler. Yeah, she’s like, yeah, the reason I’m the best smuggler is I beat out everyone’s prices, and I don’t let drugs in ever. Hey, Jazz, that’s not how economics works. Ever. If you’re not bringing drugs in, someone else will bring them in. People want drugs, though. This is not fucking Disney. Well, that’s her argument at the end. I’m saying the reason she said she was the best smuggler is that she beats everyone else in prices. Drugs are the biggest commodity, I’m guessing for smugglers. So who the fuck is she beating out if she’s not selling them? Yeah, it’s Economics 101. And also, this is, like, gets into my later points. But there’s a huge, poor population that’s, like, suffering in these little fucking enclosed tiny cabinets for houses. That drug fucking usage is going to be skyrocket. And that leads me to the next point. Her herself is a fucking drug addict. She’s a fucking alcohol addict, right? She goes to the bar every day and just don’t drink because she can’t live with herself. Being at home. Fucking place sucks. So that’s a little dark, but, I mean, there’s going to be fucking tons of people that want drugs and ways to get fucked up so they don’t have to deal with their shitting existence. No, I think it’s a good point. Personally, I’m pro whatever people want to do. Kids spin around in circles to alter their state. So if people want to smoke a little weed to alter their state, feel free to do. So if you need the heroin, whatever. Okay. Yeah, I’m Portugal, man. Let people do whatever. It doesn’t matter. But then have the things in place to help support these people. But at the same time, I agree with you in that she’s like, oh, I don’t do all like, I don’t smuggle and all the crazy stuff. It’s like, Well, someone does. It’s not like it’s just not happening. Well, she was like, I make sure it doesn’t happen. That’s not how it works. And also, we have not heard anything in this book about how you don’t let that happen. You’re pretty much out for yourself. So you’re not like, telling Rudy like, hey, Rudy, by the way, all they do is write that in be like, hey, Rudy, I heard this thing is coming in. And also, it wouldn’t make much sense, because then it would break the moral code between her and other smugglers. Like, Yo, you stay out of my shit. I stay out of your shit, right? So, yeah, I’m 100% with you on that. All right. And then the last one I had stocked down was the Oceans Eleven bar scene where they all got together. And I was like, oh, shit, here it’s coming. And then it just ended up being like a Dick sucking Fest of like, how great Jazz is at science and her dad cares about her and shit. I was like, this is the most anticlimactic. Ocean Eleven getting the gang back together, saying I’ve ever read in my entire life. It was terrible. I know you used it. You talked about it earlier, but I thought it was awful. This is my biggest gripe. Okay, I use that scene as a potential favorite scene, just in case, just in case someone out there might have really enjoyed it, because I personally, this is my favorite part of every Heist movie. The crew coming together is the best part without question. Oceans Eleven, the way they like. Soderberg who made Oceans Eleven? Great director. Also the Nick Cinemax. It’s now on HBO, Max. Whatever. But the part where they are explaining how things are going to work and who’s going to do what and trying to get these guys on board while also then smash cutting to the actual event happening. So it’ll be like, oh, yeah. Don Cheeto is going to do this, and then it smashed. John Cheeto doing that love that stuff. Those are the best parts of Heist movies and this book. If anything else, it was like, you have to nail this scene and it fucking ruined it. It ruined it. She didn’t explain anything to anybody. She just said, all right, guys, I have you all here. We need to get this done. And Bob, who’s the ex Marine Eva master? Whatever he’s like. Alright, why should I get involved with this? Good question, Bob. Jazz, would you like to explain? She says pretty much. If you don’t get it, go stand in the corner until you do what? Wait. Pardon me? Like you’re not like the prom Queen here. Hold on a second. That makes absolutely no sense. And then after that, when everyone’s like, okay, cool. So what’s the plan? She’s like. I can answer all of that. But first, I need to know if you’re in. You didn’t explain what they’re doing. You just said I have you all here because something needs to happen and you didn’t explain what everyone’s job was, what the situation is. I just need to know you’re in beforehand. That’s the last line of the intro to the Heist. It’s okay here’s. Everything that’s going to happen. Is everyone in? Yeah, we’re in. No, not in this one. I mean, even Bob says he’s like, It doesn’t make sense to me. I’m not sure you’re right. But just in case, maybe you are right. I’m in. It’s like, what? Anyone bear the point that Chloroform could have killed all the citizens when they were going through this. Yeah. What happened to the oceans, movies when it’s like, every little thing is tied up and there’s like good questions being asked. There was no questions, there was no explanation. It was just everyone sighing Jazz’s D and I hated it. Oh my God, that welding work is amazing. I’ve never seen welding like this. I’m just so buttered because it’s like movies and books are so cool when they’re explaining all this stuff and it’s like, oh, sweet, the Italian job. Same deal. It’s like, oh, and this one just really fucking killed just killed me on that. So I know I threw it up there as like a potential best scene because it really should be. It really should have been. And Unfortunately, Yeah, I assume they were going to tie everyone back in. I don’t know what everyone is doing during the heist. I still don’t understand what was going on there. It was very confusing until she blew up the smelter. I was like, Wait, what’s everyone’s job. What are people doing? Very good. I agree. It could have been a cool way of kind of like smashing between different. The whole book is taken from actually, let’s get into this with love, hate, love, hate. What did you love about it? I did think that it was really well researched. And again, I think it could be a very good movie. It’s very similar to A Brave New World. I’ve said a couple of times. Is that the world building the idea of this civilization occurring on the moon? It seemed very reasonable. There was no like, wait a second. How is this? He was like, oh no. I’ll go into like, ten layers of depth on how this works before there will be no questions after this. Once I get done with the scientific part of this. So I thought that was really good about this. That was really my biggest thing. Again, we come across a book, though, that has like a cool idea premise, at least around the setting and then just a shitty story surrounded by it. So it is what it is. But that was my favorite person. Compare this to Adolescoxley’s Brave New World because that’s a fucking masterpiece. But you gave the benefit of the dough because it’s written the 30s, but this book, I don’t judge. I don’t care about shit what year is written. I love here. Keith, you got to love it. Alright. I told you I like the brand new world part of that too. I will agree the science aspect was awesome. It was really fun to read. And also because Andy Weir, like all of this science stuff that he included in this book is like factual as of today. Like The Martian. He took a little bit more leeway with that. And he kind of extrapolated on some ideas that are currently like some science that’s currently out there and basically said, okay, here’s what could happen. But this particular book he even said in an interview. He’s like, no, all of this stuff is real today. Everything is 100% on, and I like that in terms of when you read these books, you’re like, oh, that’s pretty out there. Like, this would never happen. But everything in this book, 100% could happen. It makes a lot of sense. I think it does great with the descriptive stuff. So I agree with you on that part. And Andy for him doing all the research. I feel like that’s a lot of what he did with this book and what he’s interested in in general. And I appreciate that. I like that he grounds himself with these physics problems and then creates the stories out of them. So I really do like that. It’s super impressive. There’s no doubt about that. He’s a great writer or at least researcher. Yeah. Well, what else you got for love? Guess it. I didn’t know anything ever. Like some of the characters I liked. I think I quoted you, this is me. But I sent you a text that said, I fucking hate this book. I’m not holding back here in any way. Yeah, that’s fair. The things I loved about this book was thinking about the visuals. That was a big one for me. Just the spaces themselves. Artemis as a whole, you know, the different buildings. Armstrong Aldrin going to that Apollo Eleven visitor center. That would be super cool. I’d love to see that come to life in a movie. I would see this movie if it came out. And I think it’s because of those kind of visuals, those spaces. And then my last one is just the idea of a story of a character who’s kind of a small cog in a big machine. So although she’s operating on this small little heist that’s going on, there’s a ton more in terms of how the colony works and whatnot that is addressed, but isn’t the forefront of the story, but it gives you a scope. So kind of like Rogue One, where it’s like just the story of stealing this death star plans. But as a Star Wars fan, you know, like, the bigger implications, which is funny, because as I was reading this, I was picturing it as kind of like a film noir. I know what noir means, but once you explain it to the listeners, I definitely know what it means. It’s a crime story where there’s usually, like a protagonist who has some characteristics that you don’t really love a lot. So there’s like, stuff about them that you’re like, they kind of live in this CD underground. There’s usually like, a FEM fatale, which isn’t a characteristic in this particular novel, but it’s just kind of like there’s questionable ethics or morals going on. La Confidential is a good one. Okay. Yeah. So not everyone’s not perfect. So that kind of storyline got you. I thought this was more of a comedic twang to it than it did. Yeah. I mean, this tries to beat up, but Chinatown is a good one with Jack Nicholson. Great NewAir, great movie. And it actually turned out when I was researching this afterwards, Andy Weir was like, Chinatown was one of my biggest influences when I wrote this. Interesting. Yeah. So I like the idea of the small cog kind of in a big machine. Okay, here we go. Are you ready? Take a deep breath. What did you hate about this? All right, let me start off with reusable condoms. Limited to, like, three. Okay, I’ll try to cut it down. Reusable condoms. Do condoms cost that much? They don’t. Right? In what world would you need your usable condoms? I don’t understand. The whole point of the condom is like, once you get done, you’re like, filled with guilt and shame. You and I aren’t deep. Man, can you explain to me what a condom is? It’s like a house on top of other houses, like, short for condominium? No, but you throw it away and you forget about it. Why would you ever need to meticulously clean it? It’d be like, having and like, oh, we’re usable, like, toilet paper, like, gross. Why the fuck would you want that? It’s just like, you’re saving what a dollar to now use. That makes zero sense. Condoms on the moon would be way more expensive because you have to get all of them there. And although they seemingly don’t weigh a lot, if you’re having a good time, you’re going to use a lot of them. Use a reusable condom. You said you have to meticulously clean it. But the point was that savoda. He says, you just kind of like, throw it. It’s like you throw it on your lava lamp, of it, seeing it there and knowing you have to clean something that is literally. Oh, you got the Catholic guilt. Yeah, exactly. You’re an Irish Catholic, and you get thrown up with the Catholic guilt. You’re like, I got to see my seed. Okay, so I picture it more of, like, on your nightstand. You have a lava lamp. And when you use this condom, when you’re done, you just throw it back on the lava lamp. It cleans itself off. And you’re ready to go. Jesus Christ, if I was familiar with using condoms, I would use one. Fair enough. They talk about this is always bugs me. How they’re not ashamed of sex. And, like, sex is whatever. But then she got asked, hey, what’s the next time you’re having sex? Which would be a normal question if you weren’t ashamed of it, right? You’re saying when asked her to test it? Yeah. And she was like, oh, when are you having sex next? And she’s like, oh, how dare you ask? And she’s like, feigned being upset about it, which it doesn’t make sense. You can either be shameful of it and be private about it, or you can be out in the open, which she says, the whole city. Is she’s like, I don’t get why prostitutes bad. I don’t get why talking about sex is bad. But then Sabota asks you, when are you having sex? And she’s like, oh, dare you. How dare you even mention that to me? Which one is it? Well, I’m glad we finally got here, because what’s here here is the whole sex stuff going on in this book that we have not talked about yet, which is props to us that we haven’t even scratched. But, yeah, there’s a lot of talk about Jazz’s promiscuity, which we actually don’t witness at all. Everyone she addresses it, everyone else addresses it. There’s, like, really uncomfortable sex comments that are made. I mean, one of the people says to her, like, you must be used to taking shots in the face. But I’m not correct. Yeah, it was like, Pardon me. And then she even says after that, that was a good one. It’s like, what? There’s so many weird sexual stuff when she meets the Long Shoreman, the guy she says, like, What’s in the box? And Jazz says, porn mostly starring your mom. It was like, what? There was a lot of those. I get it. She’s trying to be cool. There was just, like, a lot of weird sex stuff that didn’t make much sense. We got it. Jazz likes to bang Congrats to her, but I don’t need it to be. Even her dad and her have a weird conversation. Oh, he was like, yeah, he asked about friends with. Yeah. Is he one of your friends with benefits? And she’s like, no, actually, I haven’t had sex with anyone in this room. And her dad says it’s a small room. Let’s talk about more than the high stuff. I don’t want you and your Muslim dad talking about sex stuff. It just wasn’t that interesting. And I think also because it came from Andy Weir writing it, it was a little off putting. That was a hate for me as well. I have a lot. I’m just going to try to cut them down. Her not dying at the end. I think that would actually have been a good if she just died at the end, but instead she gets saved for no reason and then makes a dumb deal. Yeah, it would have been nice if she sacrificed herself considered. Yes. Then I’d be like, okay, then that’d be the only redeeming quality she has. Instead, she’s like, does some power play with the head woman and is like, oh, yeah. You’re going to keep me here because I’m the best smuggler again, obviously being super modest as usual. Yeah. Well, the whole point of the book is kind of like that she loves Artemis, and so Artemis is her, and she loves it more than she loves herself, which is awesome. I respected that part of it, and it’s something that she should be willing to die for or be deported for. She was kept saying, I don’t want to be deported the whole time, and it would have been nice at the end when she was like, I know this is going to get me deported, and I’m willing to do it because I want Artemis to survive. Yeah, my biggest one. I’ll do this last for hate was that in a letter with Kelvin, she’s like, oh, the big thing is that there’s so much noise here, especially in the poor area where they’re all crammed in. Let’s get some of that noise canceling shit. That’s super flammable in a very tight, compact place with tons of poor people in it. That’s going to lead to just massive mass people dying, right? I’m like, what in the fuck? And she’s like, I’m so morally, like, just and doing all this stuff for money just to pay back my dad. But that’s the most fucked up thing I’ve ever read. Like, what the fuck? That’s worse than bringing drugs in. And not only does she do that, but I was like, Why don’t you take your chemistry skills and your entrepreneurial skills and just make non flammable noise canceling shit? That would be like an easy way. Instead of having to smuggle shit in, you just take, like, a good idea that you had. And instead of making everyone die in a ventral fire, which will happen to all these poor people, you do that. I wrote that before core form incident. And when the core form incident happened, I was like, thank you. This is what she gets. This is what she fucking gets for doing this shit all the time. The great fire of Armstrong 2049, brought on by Jazz Bashar. Yes. A couple of things. I didn’t like. The diary style writing wasn’t really for me. So if it was a movie, she’d be breaking the fourth wall a lot. She talks to the reader a lot. It’s like a narrator in a movie. I’m not usually a huge fan, but in Good Fellows, it works great. Or Shawshank, it works great. It took me out of the story. And then also I had love for the science part. And then my last one is, I hate the science part. I don’t need to know how capillary action in space affects welding. I get it. I hate welding. It’s like, if this Weld doesn’t work or it’s going to drop on my suit and it’s going to kill me. It’s like, I got it. It’s like, no, but the surface tension and the capillary action based on this gravity, it’s like, okay, let’s move on. Potent quotables. What did you have for big quotes? I already gave my description of Rudy Hitler’s Wet dream. Hilarious. When Jazz was taking her trip to the Smelter, she said, this wasn’t the farthest from the Shire I’d ever been or anything. So I respect any shout outs to J-R-R. Tolkien and or Samwise Gamgee, so I appreciate that. What you have. Yeah, mine ties directly in with rewriting the book. So I’ll just use them together. I’ll start with the rewriting the book. Basically what I would have done is make this like a class warfare book where Jazz is basically an indentured servant on the moon. She’s part of the lower rung class that can’t everything is so expensive on the moon, but she has to work there. So everything she does, she can’t get basically out of her position in life. That’s why she basically needs to do all these things, make money, try to get out of her position because she’s basically been downtrodden in life. I would not have her parents. And then around her everything, the tourists and cartels run everything. So she’s basically stuck in a position she can’t leave. She can’t do anything to increase her like. So I would have made this both like an uprising and fight back revolting against the government. Basically a Braveheart on the moon is what I would have done. It actually sounds phenomenal. It would have made much more sense, right? Kind of like Red Rising or like City of God or something like that. Where it’s for a class. Nothing she can do and even include the Disney aspects where she’s an orphan. Her parents have died, their parents aren’t around. And she could be like, when she was six, they said, You’re going out here and this is like, you have to go and they promise her everything. And now she gets there and it’s like she’s stuck. I love it. Well, so my quote was which would be like a Braveheart quote she had. But it was terrible. And the thing is, the moment right now is where we decide what kind of city arm is going to be. We can either act now or let our home to generate into syndicate rule for generations, they murder two people. There’s a huge amount of money in play. They’re not going to stop. That would be a fucking amazing life
Participant #1:
rally. The truth get like the oceans eleven together. That would be the rallying cry. But instead, we get the fucking we got. When Jazz is explaining her outfit or not her outfit. After she gets the Burns, I looked like a leper or a hooker who gave hand jobs to lepers. Jesus Christ, why, Andy? I looked like a leper. Fine. It’s good there. Why did you have to say who gave you hand jobs exclusively to lepers? Jesus Christ, Andy’s sick. He’s sick in the head, but it did make me laugh. So I appreciate you. Last one I had was Jazz. So Jazz whole thing was with Tron Landwick and Tron ended up dying at one point later, she’s talking to Lena Ludvik, who’s a cripple, and she’s talking to her after her father dies. And she says, how are you doing, kiddo? And the girl says better. And she said, Step by step. The girl’s a fucking cripple. He can’t say, Step by step. Are you kidding me? Are you, like, what? The girl can’t walk? How dare you? Step by step. Shameful, jazz. Shameful. So this is going to become a movie. Potentially, the rights were obtained by 20th Century Fox, which was then recently in the past couple of years bought out by Disney. So now Disney holds the rights with, like, 21st Century Fox. So it’s actually not 100% that this movie is going to be made, but the rights are purchased. So if it does get made, do you have any suggestions to the casting director as to who should play what role? So I did jazz. So it was hard to imagine anyone other than Rosario Dawson who actually think did a really good job reading the book. Rosario Dawson did the narration for the audiobook. Yeah, she created all the accents. She did a bunch of different accents. She was really solid. I’m not sure how my brain works because you told me that, right? When you started reading it. And then weeks later, when I was thinking about who to cast for Jazz, I was like, oh, Israel Dawson. And I was like, Why am I thinking that? And it’s crazy because I probably thought about that from your situation. She’s probably a little too old for this. And then Mila Kunis, I thought would be good too. Yeah, she’s a little too old too. But you need, like, a little bit of comedy and sass. But I thought the best person would be who I think is actually a really good actor and really funny. Haley Steinfeld. I know she’s not necessarily doesn’t look necessarily. She’s in True grit, and she’s the girl on that. She’s, like, super young. She’s also a singer. She’s a really good singer. Okay. She’s in a couple of movies that are coming of age movies, and she’s actually really good on them. I know the girl you’re talking about. Yes. So obviously she doesn’t look necessarily Saudi Arabian, but she’s dark skinned somewhat. But, I mean, it’s Hollywood. Okay. I had Latita Wright for the role of Jazz, who is the sister from Black Panther, like the sciency sister. Okay. Do you think she could Lee, like, Carrie? I do. I think that for Jazz, you need someone who is, like, spunky, but funny, but can also be believable that she could beat someone up and also has a lot of sass. That’s really all I had for cast. That’s the only person. And then I had Jazz’s dad. I don’t know any of that. I just had Nick Offerman. What? Yeah, that’s right. He just seems like a good dad. Oh, my God. Rudy. I had Alex Pettifer, the guy who’s Hitler’s Wet Dream. He’s in I Am number four and Magic Bike. Yes, magic Bike. And then he’s also in, like, that JT movie out of time. All right, that’s Brandon. I appreciate it. Martin Sabota. I had Peter Stormay from definitely way too old, but from Armageddon he’s like the Russian dude. Oh, my God. Yes, that’s all I could picture. All right, what role would Nicholas Cage play in this one? You spoiled mine. I was going to say Kelvin would be Nick Edge.
Participant #1:
Oh, my God. The Nigerian Kenyan Pental. Oh, my God. All right. Not bad. I like Peter Stormer, though. He’s great. Would you recommend this book? No, I said definitely. No, I’ve already kind of got onto it, but Skyward six of Crows. Those are the two I would recommend way over this one. Yeah, I’d say if you’re a big Andy weird fan, then for sure. If you really like The Martian, then give it a go. But it’s not for me. It didn’t make a ton of sense. If they redid it as a movie, it could be kind of interesting if, like, we talked about, they expanded on the high stroll and took out a lot of the sex stuff. Hey, you know what? You win some, you lose some. But either way, we enjoyed our experience together, and sometimes it’s cathartic just to get on the Horn here and talk some shit about a book. I kind of wish we had both read The Martian so we could have been like, well, the Martian was sick because I loved the movie for our next episode. Well, I guess we’re keeping in the Sci-Fi fantasy realm and reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Either way, for this particular episode, I’m glad everyone checked in and always, buddy, it’s good chatting with you and getting this off of our chest sometimes. Like I said, it’s just catharsis. Exactly. But until next time. All right, catch you later, buddy.
