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sophia_sol) wrote2018-08-03 06:40 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2018-08-03 06:40 pm
The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal
This was a really good book!
It's a prequel to a novelette available for free online, The Lady Astronaut of Mars, when the protagonist of the series, Elma York, is an old woman.
The Calculating Stars takes place in Elma's younger days. The basic premise: in the 1950's, after a major meteorite impact, humanity makes a rather more concerted effort to colonize space than in our history because it suddenly seems kinda urgent to get off-planet. Elma, a pilot, wants to be one of the first astronauts, despite the rampant sexism of the era working against her.
I love Elma, and I also love Elma's relationship with her husband Nathaniel. It's truly a marriage of equals where both parties respect each other and care for each other, and Nathaniel is so supportive of her in everything that goes on.
I love that all the characters in this book, even the antagonist-y ones, are portrayed as fully human. The asshole sexist handsy astronaut who hates Elma, for example - he's a remarkably patient teacher, even with people he thinks don't deserve it, and multiple times Elma almost comes round to being able to like him before he ruins it all by saying or doing something horrifying.
The book also does a good job at drawing on some fairly nuanced realities of intersectional identities. I was particularly interested to discover that over the course of this book Elma gets a diagnosis and medical prescription for an anxiety disorder, which is not something I can recall having seen in a genre book before.
And of course it is a book about SPACE and SCIENCE and REALLY COMPETENT PEOPLE who also HAVE FEELINGS so like: yes. I am here for it.
It's a prequel to a novelette available for free online, The Lady Astronaut of Mars, when the protagonist of the series, Elma York, is an old woman.
The Calculating Stars takes place in Elma's younger days. The basic premise: in the 1950's, after a major meteorite impact, humanity makes a rather more concerted effort to colonize space than in our history because it suddenly seems kinda urgent to get off-planet. Elma, a pilot, wants to be one of the first astronauts, despite the rampant sexism of the era working against her.
I love Elma, and I also love Elma's relationship with her husband Nathaniel. It's truly a marriage of equals where both parties respect each other and care for each other, and Nathaniel is so supportive of her in everything that goes on.
I love that all the characters in this book, even the antagonist-y ones, are portrayed as fully human. The asshole sexist handsy astronaut who hates Elma, for example - he's a remarkably patient teacher, even with people he thinks don't deserve it, and multiple times Elma almost comes round to being able to like him before he ruins it all by saying or doing something horrifying.
The book also does a good job at drawing on some fairly nuanced realities of intersectional identities. I was particularly interested to discover that over the course of this book Elma gets a diagnosis and medical prescription for an anxiety disorder, which is not something I can recall having seen in a genre book before.
And of course it is a book about SPACE and SCIENCE and REALLY COMPETENT PEOPLE who also HAVE FEELINGS so like: yes. I am here for it.