Seen on the web: how to get away with murder (or not) & Artemis' thoughts
Today on the web, two articles talking about killing peoples: ;)
How Will Police Solve Murders on Mars?
A very complete, super engaging and thought-inducing read that made me think again about Andy Weir's 'Artemis', and what wasn't working with the book...
Weir got famous in part for the technical and scientific accuracy of the life on Mars in The Martian, and so I was expecting the same highly realistic set-up for his novel set in the imaginary Moon base of Artemis. The technical and scientifcs aspects are there, and the global way the base is organized make sense, but in hindsight what doesn't is the human organisation on it, and especially the undersized system of policing. In a story that pride itself on it realistic handling of spacial circumpstances, some aspects of the human organization in space made less sense than the rest and were the point where my suspention of disbelief got in trouble. One could argue that the society Weir chose to depict is deliberately an exemple of a flawed authoritarian set-up where the specifics of policing in space were badly adapated from earth-bound systems or where the risk was under-estimated due to the specifics of a station, but it's not quite the case, as there are internal explanations for the deficiency of policing and checks systems... and they are not as convincing as they could be.
As the article says "In the precarious Martian environment, where so much depends on the efficient, seamless operation of life-support systems, sabotage becomes an existential threat. A saboteur might tamper with the oxygen generators or fatally disable a settlement’s most crucial airlock. When human life is so thoroughly entwined with its technical environment, we should not consider these sorts of acts mere petty crimes. (...) In a literal sense, they would be crimes against humanity-even, on a large enough scale, attempted genocide."... But accidentally endangering the whole station by an act of sabotage with unforseen consequences while commiting a petty crime is actually what Jazz does... and the lack of serious repercussions is ultimately a great weakness of the book.
In fact, I think that the underlying problem of the book is that Weir is very good at science stuff and making it entertaining, and even at bubbly pov's, but he is neither a great student of human nature, nor a good structural worldbuilder... Which leads to a shallow main character you are supposed to be rooting for making self-serving and entitled bad decisions that turn out very dangerous *for others*, in a setting whose fuctionning doesnt manage to feel totally realistic and where she finally manage to escape accountability..
Murdered man's body found after fig tree 'unusual for the area' grew from seed in his stomach
So unlikely! It would be a great staring point for a book. :D And if they bury him again they should totally plant a fig three above the grave, just sayin'.
This entry was originally posted at https://jainas.dreamwidth.org/210466.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
How Will Police Solve Murders on Mars?
A very complete, super engaging and thought-inducing read that made me think again about Andy Weir's 'Artemis', and what wasn't working with the book...
Weir got famous in part for the technical and scientific accuracy of the life on Mars in The Martian, and so I was expecting the same highly realistic set-up for his novel set in the imaginary Moon base of Artemis. The technical and scientifcs aspects are there, and the global way the base is organized make sense, but in hindsight what doesn't is the human organisation on it, and especially the undersized system of policing. In a story that pride itself on it realistic handling of spacial circumpstances, some aspects of the human organization in space made less sense than the rest and were the point where my suspention of disbelief got in trouble. One could argue that the society Weir chose to depict is deliberately an exemple of a flawed authoritarian set-up where the specifics of policing in space were badly adapated from earth-bound systems or where the risk was under-estimated due to the specifics of a station, but it's not quite the case, as there are internal explanations for the deficiency of policing and checks systems... and they are not as convincing as they could be.
As the article says "In the precarious Martian environment, where so much depends on the efficient, seamless operation of life-support systems, sabotage becomes an existential threat. A saboteur might tamper with the oxygen generators or fatally disable a settlement’s most crucial airlock. When human life is so thoroughly entwined with its technical environment, we should not consider these sorts of acts mere petty crimes. (...) In a literal sense, they would be crimes against humanity-even, on a large enough scale, attempted genocide."... But accidentally endangering the whole station by an act of sabotage with unforseen consequences while commiting a petty crime is actually what Jazz does... and the lack of serious repercussions is ultimately a great weakness of the book.
In fact, I think that the underlying problem of the book is that Weir is very good at science stuff and making it entertaining, and even at bubbly pov's, but he is neither a great student of human nature, nor a good structural worldbuilder... Which leads to a shallow main character you are supposed to be rooting for making self-serving and entitled bad decisions that turn out very dangerous *for others*, in a setting whose fuctionning doesnt manage to feel totally realistic and where she finally manage to escape accountability..
Murdered man's body found after fig tree 'unusual for the area' grew from seed in his stomach
So unlikely! It would be a great staring point for a book. :D And if they bury him again they should totally plant a fig three above the grave, just sayin'.
This entry was originally posted at https://jainas.dreamwidth.org/210466.html. Please comment there using OpenID.