Artemis: A Novel

Five a.m. was a largely theoretical concept to me. I knew it existed, but I rarely observed it. Nor did I want to.

“It’s all part of the life-cycle of an economy. First it’s lawless capitalism until that starts to impede growth. Next comes regulation, law enforcement, and taxes. After that: public benefits and entitlements. Then, finally, overexpenditure and collapse.”

What do you hope readers will take away from Artemis? A) I hope they have a fun time reading it. That’s all I ever want when I write a story. None of my stories have a moral or a point to be made. I just want the reader to think “well, that was cool” when they’re done.

looked around at the prices for air freight and found that, on average, you can air mail 200kg of cargo for about the price it would take to send a person. This means people cost twice as much to ship as cargo. That makes sense—cargo doesn’t need seats, air pressure, bathrooms, or complimentary peanuts. For space travel, the cargo ships also wouldn

Were there any books or movies that particularly influenced you in writing Artemis? A) I think my biggest inspiration for the story was Chinatown. It shows the ugly underbelly of how cities grow and flourish, and that’s a core element of Artemis.

Interplanetary travel and survival are core parts of both of your novels. Do you think humanity will become a multiplanet species? What’s the next step? A) I think it’s inevitable. At some point in the distant past, humanity was a “one-continent” species. But our ancestors spread out from Africa to become a multicontinental species. Humans tend to

Artemis is based on the presumption that commercial space travel, and competition within that industry, will drive the cost of putting mass into low Earth orbit down low enough that middle-class people can afford a trip to space. Once that becomes a reality, lunar tourism becomes a viable business model. And that’s the economic foundation of Artemi