I just finished reading Artemis, Andy Weir’s follow-up to his hit novel The Martian. I generally enjoyed it (despite finding his prose choices occasionally painful). But I have one major gripe.
You know that classic trope where the villain gives themselves away by mentioning X, and the hero says “but I never said anything about X”? Well, it happens in Artemis – EXCEPT that the hero had in fact explicitly mentioned X to the villain two pages earlier.
Somehow the author missed this. And all the editors and manuscript readers also missed this. WTF?
Addendum:
OOPS. Mea culpa. The idiot is me. I reread the passage. The hero is referring to things the villain said just BEFORE the hero mentioned X. I misread the hero’s “But I hadn’t mentioned X” as “But I haven’t mentioned X.” I shall do penance.
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