Absolutely loved this book. I wanted to know more about the city of Artemis from page one. As the story progressed I felt the city becoming more and more a possibility in the near future. Andy Weir takes the idea of lunar colonization to a new level and drops us in the shoes of a blue-collar working smuggler who's goal is to make it to the top.
Starting at the bottom rungs of this lunar society helped the reader feel like they are getting the real view of the city. And there is a lot of science and technology which is explained to really make the moon feel a reachable goal for mankind. I have read Andy's The Martian a few years ago and could feel similar world building with science and just out of reach technology. Artemis is the the same attempt of world building times 100. There are hundreds of roles required for a city to function properly. It honestly felt like Weir created the city before creating the characters. There is opportunity for entirely new books written on the same book.
The humor keeps the reading light and interesting, and the first person point of view keeps the story linear and easy to follow. This is important for a book that is world-building so hard, and I think Andy knows how to balance the two. If the book followed multiple characters, and had too much long drawn out dialogue, and talked largely about lunar/rocket science, the reader would be lost. I greatly appreciated this pacing and I know Andy has learned from his previous book, and will continue to write stories such as these.
The genre of "Space Opera" handles a lot of challenges by simply suggesting "science has advanced." Much like our past reads, the genre has epic missions and usually follows an underdog character who's traveling through space, unlocking mysteries, or saving space colonies. We've seen this before in genres of Magical nature. Simply replacing that magic with "science" and you have space opera.
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