Second novel by Weir, published after the success of The Martian: perhaps that is why more was expected. The narrative is set in Artemis, the first and only city on the Moon, which is made up of five (the number of continents on Earth) enormous spheres called bubbles, half-buried and connected by tunnels. It is expensive to get there, and it costs a fortune to live in that city, which functions as a tax haven. This gives rise to much corruption and a decadent environment where everything is for sale. Thus, sex is a pastime and a way to gain favors (or some money); gender appears as something fluid; prostitution is commonplace. Weir spares us meticulous descriptions; he simply presents that environment in broad strokes.
The protagonist, a smuggler, addresses the reader in the first person. She shows her difficult life and the opportunity that arises for her to become rich. But then new and more serious problems begin: she finds herself entangled in a real conspiracy for control of the city...
Faced with the ethical dilemmas that Weir raises in other works, here he adopts a more frivolous stance. The descriptions of social coexistence are nevertheless interesting: how different communities group themselves according to their origin on Earth, the place of religions, and the creation of a new homeland.