For his first novel, the 2011 blog-turned-book-turned-movie The Martian, Andy Weir chose a main character who was pretty similar to himself: a white guy who loves science. For his follow-up, which came out on November 14, Weir wanted to try something different: Artemis follows Jazz Bashara, a 20-something woman of color who lives on the first (and only) city on the Moon, where she, well, moonlights as a smuggler.

Essentially, Artemis is a lunar sci-fi thriller, and it arrives at a high point in cultural moon lunacy—entrepreneurs like Elon Musk are infatuated with the idea of settlements there, and startups like Moon Express see Luna as a base for further spaceward travel. And according to Stephen Hawking, humanity should probably relocate to the Moon to escape Earth’s impending doom. But is Weir’s vision of future lunar life—particularly as it concerns Jazz and other minorities—really a better place to live?

Sarah Scoles, Science Contributor: I listened to the audiobook version of The Martian while driving from California to North Carolina in 2015. Just as main character Mark Watney’s crew was getting pummeled by a dust storm on the Red Planet, I was (kid you not) plowing my Kia into a ground-level red cloud at the California-Arizona border. I thought, “I. am. Mark. Watney.” And, in that coincidental moment, I felt more connected to Mark than I did to Jazz throughout Artemis. Which is surprising because while I live neither on the moon nor Mars, hello, it is I, a human woman on earth who knows a technical thing or two, like this Jazz (although, admittedly, she’s a much better smuggler). I was excited at the premise of a woman-headlined, high-profile sci-fi novel, but things didn’t turn out like I expected.

Justice Namaste, Editorial Fellow: I definitely have a lot in common with Jazz. In my twenties, unsure about what to do with my life, usually broke. But about 50 pages in, I noticed a phrase that felt a little weird, and as I kept reading, I started to pick up on a pattern.

Early in the book, in a letter to her pen pal Kelvin, Jazz refers to herself as "light brown.” Weir tells us Jazz is of Saudi Arabian descent, and implies that she was raised Muslim, but is no longer practicing. Now, I’ve been a light-skinned black woman my entire life, and while I’ve heard plenty of people refer to themselves as "light-skinned" or even "light,” I’ve never heard "light brown" before. This was the first time I noticed what soon turned into a series of references to race that felt forced and awkward.

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Scoles: Weir does note, in the acknowledgments, that he asked women for help in tackling “the challenge of writing a female narrator” and “[making] sure the portrayal of Islam was accurate.” But some blind spots seem to remain.

Namaste: Like at the beginning of the book, Jazz makes an offhand reference to Artemis’s racial makeup, in a way that implies everyone is on the same footing. But just a few pages later, she also mentions that career demographics are based on race: “With the exception of me and Rudy, everyone in the room was Vietnamese. That’s kind of how things shake out in Artemis. A few people who know one another emigrate, they set up a service of some kind, then they hire their friends. And of course, they hire people they know.”

There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with this, but it’s one of the few times that ethnicity is mentioned in the book. Jazz is introduced as Saudi Arabian early in the story, but then her ethnicity seems to disappear from view—except in her conversations with her father and other Saudi Arabian folks in the welding industry. However, even these minimal references to racial dynamics make it clear that Artemis is a place (like every other place) where race influences both personal relationships and societal dynamics. The problem is that the book doesn't overtly acknowledge that.