On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to Earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington, D.C. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render Earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space, and requires a much larger share of humanity to take part in the process.
Elma York's experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place in the International Aerospace Coalition's attempts to put man on the moon, as a computer. But with so many skilled and experienced women pilots and scientists involved with the program, it doesn't take long before Elma begins to wonder why they can't go into space, too. Elma's drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions …
On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to Earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington, D.C. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render Earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space, and requires a much larger share of humanity to take part in the process.
Elma York's experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place in the International Aerospace Coalition's attempts to put man on the moon, as a computer. But with so many skilled and experienced women pilots and scientists involved with the program, it doesn't take long before Elma begins to wonder why they can't go into space, too. Elma's drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her.
At first this book seems like it's going to be an apocalypse narrative in the vein of [b:Seveneves|22816087|Seveneves|Neal Stephenson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1449142000l/22816087.SY75.jpg|42299347] or any Roland Emmerich movie, but it turns out to be a far more thoughtful look at the struggles marginalized groups face through the device of an accelerated space race program. It also makes a point of modeling better, healthier behaviors in personal and professional contexts, and I can only hope this is not where it is most speculative. It is well researched and contains enough technical details to ground it reality, but doesn't get bogged down in them as certain other books might. Looking forward to the seeing what challenges the Lady Astronaut overcomes next.
I loved this book from the start, and as a space enthusiast I enjoyed the alternate history it depicts, in which the space program starts earlier, and ultimately goes further than it did in our timeline. Our main character,the titular Lady Astronaut, is just a little bit too perfect. She's not just a teen genius and a WW2 pilot, she also must overcome 1950s misogyny to be allowed to go into space, and she's woke enough to fight the right of her non-white friends to do the same. All while having a perfect marriage to an equally perfect husband, and fighting anxiety and social stigma about antidepressants. I still cheered for her, but her inevitable success is nothing but predictable.
The next book is going to Mars, and I'm looking forward to it.
In an alternate version of Earth's history, a meteorite strikes the USA in 1952, obliterating Washington and most of the US government. Pilot/mathematician Elma and her rocket scientist husband Nathaniel York escape immediate death by a combination of coincidence and intelligence, and make it to safety at a military base where their expertise leads them into an advisory position to the new acting president (former minister of agriculture). As Elma calculates the climate impact from the meteorite will be an initial cooling and then an escalating greenhouse effect that will be so severe the oceans will start to boil, both push for a desperate escalation of a space program to establish a colony on the moon before humanity is wiped out entirely.
In this alternate history, the story follows Elma and Nathaniel as Earth struggles to establish a moon colony on a vastly earlier timeline than ours, in an America …
In an alternate version of Earth's history, a meteorite strikes the USA in 1952, obliterating Washington and most of the US government. Pilot/mathematician Elma and her rocket scientist husband Nathaniel York escape immediate death by a combination of coincidence and intelligence, and make it to safety at a military base where their expertise leads them into an advisory position to the new acting president (former minister of agriculture). As Elma calculates the climate impact from the meteorite will be an initial cooling and then an escalating greenhouse effect that will be so severe the oceans will start to boil, both push for a desperate escalation of a space program to establish a colony on the moon before humanity is wiped out entirely.
In this alternate history, the story follows Elma and Nathaniel as Earth struggles to establish a moon colony on a vastly earlier timeline than ours, in an America where segregation is still very present, women are still in the "Mad Men" style roles of homemakers and decorations, yet are also the "Hidden Figures" style computers who are essential to spaceflight before actual electronic computers reliably exist. As a former WASP pilot, Elma struggles for the inclusion of women in the astronautics program.
I had an extremely low opinion of Kowal's first "Glamourist" book but decided to give this one a try as it's a completely different genre, and I enjoyed it a lot more. Part of this may be due to picking this one up as an audiobook - if she made as many terrible spelling choices, I wouldn't notice in audiobook form - but mainly as an American author I think the characters and setting of this book are just much more within her ability to write well (while pseudo Austin-esque last-century British characters are clearly NOT). The main character was enjoyable and, as a woman in a STEM field myself, it's always a joy to see a smart and capable heroine. Even though she seems to make some particularly stupid decisions, it was possible to frame those as a side effect of the era and attitudes towards women of the time.
The other characters were likeable enough but did seem rather stereotypical or tokenistic. Nathaniel is apparently the perfect feminist enlightened and supportive husband in every possible way, which seems more than a bit improbable given the era. The characters of other races and nationalities were good to have, but didn't really do much more for the plot than representing their race and/or nationality. The fact she's Jewish was brought up repeatedly but ultimately didn't seem to have any meaning or impact, even when she meets Wernher von Braun in person. While Kowal was clearly trying to bring up the topics of race and ethnicity and discrimination, it's done with a very shallow touch that doesn't really have any impact on anything. Elma is also a heroine with every possible advantage imaginable so that everything works out perfectly for her - rich family, perfect supportive husband, brilliant mind, brother who coincidentally happens to have exactly the right skills and job to help with her climate modelling, military father who protected her in her WASP days, etc etc. So yes, everything's just a bit easy for our heroine all the way through.
It's more of a joyful romp down alternate history while eating popcorn than a gripping novel of actual hardship, but read it eating a candy bar and it's still a fun story of an alternate history that might have been.
Brisk, enjoyable read. It’s nice to have an alt-History not end up being a dystopia these days, to be honest.
And the fact that there is a clear Taiwanese character in here;
When he sat down, I leaned over. “You should bring Helen tomorrow. She wrote most of the program.” “Helen is Chinese.” He sorted his papers as Director Clemons answered a question about the range safety officer’s duties. “Taiwanese.”
This is closer to a 2.5. This is also not so much a book about going to the moon as it is a lesson on the 1950s space program. And my god is it boring. For a book that starts with the main characters surviving a meteorite, it gets mundane super-fast.
There's absolutely no reason for this book to be this long, and if it wasn't because I had read and enjoyed other books by this author before, I don't know that I would have stuck it out with this one. For whatever reason, with the last series she wrote, the first book [b:Shades of Milk and Honey|8697507|Shades of Milk and Honey (Glamourist Histories, #1)|Mary Robinette Kowal|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1377579650s/8697507.jpg|8624218] was also boring as dirt, but the rest of the books were interesting, so I'm willing to see where this series goes. The book itself is easy to read but it …
This is closer to a 2.5. This is also not so much a book about going to the moon as it is a lesson on the 1950s space program. And my god is it boring. For a book that starts with the main characters surviving a meteorite, it gets mundane super-fast.
There's absolutely no reason for this book to be this long, and if it wasn't because I had read and enjoyed other books by this author before, I don't know that I would have stuck it out with this one. For whatever reason, with the last series she wrote, the first book [b:Shades of Milk and Honey|8697507|Shades of Milk and Honey (Glamourist Histories, #1)|Mary Robinette Kowal|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1377579650s/8697507.jpg|8624218] was also boring as dirt, but the rest of the books were interesting, so I'm willing to see where this series goes. The book itself is easy to read but it gets bogged down in describing each and every one of the launches into space, when really half as many were necessary. Elma's nemesis' motivation is thin at best, and for as much as Elma fought to be a lady astronaut (vom at that title), because women were going to be necessary to create a new colony, not a care was given to the fact that her husband isn't an astronaut too. So what exactly is she fighting to do here? Maybe that will be the next book's plot.
I heard of this book through the incomparable and it came with glowing reviews. It pulled me in immediately with the premise, time period, and point of view character. At first I enjoyed Elma and her perspective, the pacing of the books main conflict was spot on. I loved her relationship with her husband and how capable she was. About half way through the book though, Elma’s primary struggle with anxiety started to get old. By the end of the book I was glad to see the resolution, but I was happy to stop reading. This book was well written, but I won’t be reading the sequel.
I heard about The Calculating Stars on the Galactic Suburbia podcast, the place where I get my education on feminist thought through sci-fi.
I listened to the preview on Audible and was instantly hooked, I ran and got the book before the preview was over, it was so appealing. A smart couple figuring out what is going on during a cataclysmic event through science and yes it's the lady that does the calculations.
This is my first Mary Robinette Kowal novel. I did get a bit worried that her books may not be for me when I went to look at her other titles and saw many covers that made me thing, Romance Novel.
The Calculating Stars is not a book about a global cataclysm, that is just the background for a book about an extremely talented woman facing a heap of Male Chauvinism with …
Am I a bad feminist?
I heard about The Calculating Stars on the Galactic Suburbia podcast, the place where I get my education on feminist thought through sci-fi.
I listened to the preview on Audible and was instantly hooked, I ran and got the book before the preview was over, it was so appealing. A smart couple figuring out what is going on during a cataclysmic event through science and yes it's the lady that does the calculations.
This is my first Mary Robinette Kowal novel. I did get a bit worried that her books may not be for me when I went to look at her other titles and saw many covers that made me thing, Romance Novel.
The Calculating Stars is not a book about a global cataclysm, that is just the background for a book about an extremely talented woman facing a heap of Male Chauvinism with Anti Anti Semitism and some racism against blacks to boot.
In short, The Calculating Stars hits all the correct points as we look back in horror at 1950s America.
The problem is that there is very little subtlety, we keep getting hit in the face with these points and they keep getting explained to the readers in case they don't get it on their own. It is an education in Feminism 101, but is it good writing?
In a world facing such a cataclysm, would a woman deserving of a Nobel Pries for calculating the future implications of the disaster, take so long to be recognized?
In a book about feminism, I guess yes. In a Sci-Fi NOvel, perhaps not.
After about 4 chapters I found myself putting this novel aside in favor of other books, and occasionally returning to it.
When I was still reading the early chapters I recommended The Calculating Stars to a student of mine that doesn't read much Sci-Fi, a retired CEO she is amazed at how bad things were for women in the 50s. But she too as set this novel aside for now in favor of a better written novel about life in South America.
The title of the series and the opening sequence set up a different expectation from the emphasis we get in this novel and this results in some frustration, the fact that rocket launches and the language surrounding them are mentioned almost exclusively as horrible sexual innuendo, and we hardly get to witness the space program in action, defies my expectations of a sci-fi novel. Are these expectations from a mail point of view. Does a book about a scientist that wants to be an astronaut not supposed to deal more with her work? Have those novels already been written and now it's time to place the emphasis on other perspectives?
I would like to see more reactions from women to this novel. Will they too find the middle section too long and the writing too simplified?
About a third of the way into this book I was like "Wow, this narrator is amazing. She is the perfect fit! They did a really great job casting her." Then I looked at her name... and the author's name... 2+2=4.
Of course the narrator of many, many scifi books would be an excellent writer of a highly engaging scifi story. (Well, maybe not, but Mary Robinette Kowal certainly has!)
I have already downloaded the next one. What better review than that?
Loved the original short story [b: The Lady Astronaut of Mars|17377584|The Lady Astronaut of Mars|Mary Robinette Kowal|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1361008184s/17377584.jpg|24168626] and with that cover I am already looking forward to this :)
I should have re-read the short story then maybe the whole premise wouldn't have taken me so unawares. So even though the climate change in the book isn't man-made this still is a book about climate change... but even more than it is about climate change the book is about representation in a somewhat meta way.
Because what I liked best about this book is how hard Elma has to fight to achieve her dreams but along the way she has to learn that she isn't only fighting for herself and that how she does it and how she presents herself are just as important as she becomes a role-model for the next generation and even her own. Even as she …
Loved the original short story [b: The Lady Astronaut of Mars|17377584|The Lady Astronaut of Mars|Mary Robinette Kowal|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1361008184s/17377584.jpg|24168626] and with that cover I am already looking forward to this :)
I should have re-read the short story then maybe the whole premise wouldn't have taken me so unawares. So even though the climate change in the book isn't man-made this still is a book about climate change... but even more than it is about climate change the book is about representation in a somewhat meta way.
Because what I liked best about this book is how hard Elma has to fight to achieve her dreams but along the way she has to learn that she isn't only fighting for herself and that how she does it and how she presents herself are just as important as she becomes a role-model for the next generation and even her own. Even as she fights to accept that the book gives us a few wonderful scenes reminding us of the importance of role-models.
So while the story is barely 4* material (for me) and the message sometimes overwhelms the story, I also think the message is so important that this alone makes the book worth reading and recommending.
That's a tough "five stars" to give. On the one hand, there's two points I do have an issue with: I'm not sure I'm buying the premises (of "moving the hell out of here" vs "finding a way to make things work on Earth" - because in any case the environment on the Moon or on Mars is not going to be much better, is it?) I'm not often bothered by sex scenes, but I was in this book. They feel kind of awkward, too numerous, and either too long or too short (but then that would probably be marketed differently ;) ).
Buuuuuuuuuuut. On some aspects I do want to give that book more than five stars ;) First, it was VERY, VERY hard to put down, and that's a major factor. Second, it made me audibly chuckle AND drop a few tears here and there, and I'm a …
That's a tough "five stars" to give. On the one hand, there's two points I do have an issue with: I'm not sure I'm buying the premises (of "moving the hell out of here" vs "finding a way to make things work on Earth" - because in any case the environment on the Moon or on Mars is not going to be much better, is it?) I'm not often bothered by sex scenes, but I was in this book. They feel kind of awkward, too numerous, and either too long or too short (but then that would probably be marketed differently ;) ).
Buuuuuuuuuuut. On some aspects I do want to give that book more than five stars ;) First, it was VERY, VERY hard to put down, and that's a major factor. Second, it made me audibly chuckle AND drop a few tears here and there, and I'm a sucker for emotional reaction. Third - the anxiety depiction is so fucking spot on I can't even, and I couldn't help rooting for Elma - more than I would for myself ;) - so it's kind of therapeutic, in a way.
So all in all, despite what I'd consider to be "things that would not make me give five stars to a book", it has more than enough redeeming qualities to qualify.
I absolutely loved this book, from it's start as a meteorite interrupts a couple's weekend away from work to the crap the female candidates are forced to endure to show they can do what the guys can to the many many innuendo involving rockets.
Mary Robinette Kowal's prose is amazing and she pulls you into a wonderful story that won't let you go until the story is finally finished. Even then, you'll still want more.
There was so much going on in this book, and it's all done so well. I'm going to bask in the afterglow for a bit and then listen to the Project in Depth Writing Excuses episode.
