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Reading: The Calculating Stars
Jul. 19th, 2019 08:00 pmI read and enjoyed Mary Robinette Kowal's novelette The Lady Astronaut of Mars a few years ago, so when I heard that she had written two prequel novels I was definitely interested. I bought the first one, The Calculating Stars, when it came out last summer (in an edition which no longer appears to exist, due to publishing shenanigans; the current UK publisher only brought the book out this spring, and frustratingly the sequel doesn't appear to be available at present although it definitely was at one point), and was prompted to read it this week by the coverage of the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing.
The Calculating Stars is an alternate history of the space program, filling in the background to The Lady Astronaut of Mars's retro-feeling Mars colony. It begins in 1952, as a meteorite strikes the ocean just off Washington DC, completely destroying everything in a 50-mile radius and devastating the east coast of the US for hundreds of miles around. Mathematician Elma York and her husband Nathaniel escape the initial devastation, but Elma's calculations reveal that the longer-term effects of the impact will be far more serious, with the steam thrown up into the atmosphere kicking off a runaway greenhouse effect which will make the planet uninhabitable for humans. As a result of this, work on the space program is accelerated, with a view to founding off-world colonies. Elma initially works as a "computer", running the calculations needed to launch and manoeuvure the rockets, but, having worked as a pilot during World War 2, her love of flying pushes her to campaign for the inclusion of women in the space program.
The first section of the novel, dealing with the meteorite impact and its aftermath, is incredible; compelling and utterly devastating in its description of the shock and grief following a disaster on that scale, and it had me in tears several times. However, I was quite glad when the action shifted forward to 1956, beginning with the first manned space flight and continuing with the push to land on the Moon (in this timeline, ten years earlier than in ours, in 1959) while Elma and her friends fight institutional sexism and racism to be included. This second section of the novel is much lighter, mainly focused on characters rather than events. There's a lot of what certainly feels like carefully researched detail of the space program, and I liked Kowal's attention to intersectional issues when exploring the discrimination Elma faces, with her non-white friends helping her to recognise that even where she is discriminated against as a woman, she still has relative privilege as a white woman. I was also really pleased to find that mental health is a key issue in the novel, with Elma's struggle with her anxiety being as significant for her as her struggle against sexism. Overall, I enjoyed this a lot and look forward to reading the sequel soon.
The Calculating Stars is an alternate history of the space program, filling in the background to The Lady Astronaut of Mars's retro-feeling Mars colony. It begins in 1952, as a meteorite strikes the ocean just off Washington DC, completely destroying everything in a 50-mile radius and devastating the east coast of the US for hundreds of miles around. Mathematician Elma York and her husband Nathaniel escape the initial devastation, but Elma's calculations reveal that the longer-term effects of the impact will be far more serious, with the steam thrown up into the atmosphere kicking off a runaway greenhouse effect which will make the planet uninhabitable for humans. As a result of this, work on the space program is accelerated, with a view to founding off-world colonies. Elma initially works as a "computer", running the calculations needed to launch and manoeuvure the rockets, but, having worked as a pilot during World War 2, her love of flying pushes her to campaign for the inclusion of women in the space program.
The first section of the novel, dealing with the meteorite impact and its aftermath, is incredible; compelling and utterly devastating in its description of the shock and grief following a disaster on that scale, and it had me in tears several times. However, I was quite glad when the action shifted forward to 1956, beginning with the first manned space flight and continuing with the push to land on the Moon (in this timeline, ten years earlier than in ours, in 1959) while Elma and her friends fight institutional sexism and racism to be included. This second section of the novel is much lighter, mainly focused on characters rather than events. There's a lot of what certainly feels like carefully researched detail of the space program, and I liked Kowal's attention to intersectional issues when exploring the discrimination Elma faces, with her non-white friends helping her to recognise that even where she is discriminated against as a woman, she still has relative privilege as a white woman. I was also really pleased to find that mental health is a key issue in the novel, with Elma's struggle with her anxiety being as significant for her as her struggle against sexism. Overall, I enjoyed this a lot and look forward to reading the sequel soon.
