The Lady Astronaut by Mary Robinette Kowal, Book 4: The Martian Contingency

The fourth "Lady Astronaut" novel returns us to the series's original protagonist, Elma York. By now, Mary Robinette Kowal's alternative twentienth-century history has humanity with a small settlement on Mars; Elma and her husband are members of the Second Expedition recently arrived on Mars, with Elma stepping into the position of deputy base administrator. But is someone trying to sabotage the settlement? And what secret are the members of the First Expedition hiding?

The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal

Published: 2025
Acquired: April 2025
Read: June 2025

Unfortunately, this is my least favorite of the four Lady Astronaut books thus far. I thought the first one was great and the third one tense and gripping after a slow start. The second had its moments but often plodded—and this one pretty much plods all the way through. None of the conflicts here ever really rise to the level of intensity needed to drive a novel: the mystery of what happened on the First Expedition, the need to rearrange the settlement so the women are in space, the idea that there might be a saboteur somewhere, Elma taking command of a spaceship... they're all fruitful ground for a novel sure, but as written here, none of them really feel like they have stakes, and they don't climax; most of them just seem to fizzle out or never get used. There's nothing as intense as the first book's meteor strike, or the second book's space survival sequences, or the third's desperate attempt to save the lunar colony. There's no drive, no energy here. 

It's more like spending a cozy year hanging out with Elma in space. Which I guess might work for some but never really clicked for me. I don't know if there will be a fifth novel,* but I hope that if so, like the third, it moves away from Elma's story—I feel like her story might be done.

* Kowal did crowdfund a collection of Lady Astronaut short stories last year, which totally passed me by. It comes out this year, I think; hopefully there's a way to get hold of even if you didn't participate in the original Kickstarter, because I would pick it up if so.

Review: The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal

Published: 2020
Acquired: July 2020
Read: August 2020

The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal

The third "Lady Astronaut" book takes place in parallel to the second, showing us what was happening on the lunar base at the same time Elma York was headed for Mars. This means a new narrator, Nicole Wargin, wife of the governor of Kansas; she was a minor character who I only vaguely remember from the previous books.

I found it tough to get into at first. Wargin herself I didn't find very sympathetic as a narrator, and though I think some of that might be gender bias on my part, I still wasn't enjoying the experience. I felt like her reactions to things were often off. The plot, too, took a while to become interesting; it seems as though someone is trying to sabotage the space program, but at first this is a repetitive series of dangerous incidents followed by people going, "Gosh, could there be a traitor?" But once Wargin gets into space and the polio hits the lunar colony, the book picked up steam, becoming a gripping thriller. The overall effect of the book is quite tense, and after an on-and-off start, I read it voraciously through to the end. I love space disaster stories, and this is a good one. There are also some pretty emotional beats that I did not see coming, and which really worked. The very last scene had me tearing up! And after not liking Wargin at first, I came to really understand her; Kowal does a good job of balancing all the different aspects of her psychology into a complete character.

There are two things that bothered me. One, I don't know why what Wargin did during the war was held back from the reader for so long; it felt contrived to do so. Two, I felt like it occasionally took the characters too long to think of solutions; four days of lost contact with Earth before someone looks through a telescope? But I liked this a lot, and in some ways it's more successful though I would say less ambitious than the first Lady Astronaut novel. I will probably put it on my Hugo nominating ballot.

Review: The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal

Kindle eBook, n.pag.
Published 2014 (originally 2012)
Acquired and read August 2019

The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal

This novelette was the first-written story in Kowal's "punchcard punk" Lady Astronaut series, but it is set last. Unavoidably, as she clearly tweaked aspects of it when it came time to write the full-length novels, this story jars, and I think I would have been better off reading it in publication order, rather than chronological order.

The broad details line up with the later-written novels, but it doesn't quite fit. This story says Elma used to have a habit of folding paper eagles out of discarded punch cards, something she never actually does in the prequel duology. This story riffs on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with an orphan named Dorothy on a Kansas farm with an uncle named Henry and an aunt named Em; no one comments on what a weird coincidence that is. It must be meant to be a literary device, not a literal thing, but that's not the tone of the very grounded novels. (The character of Dorothy also appears in The Calculating Stars, but the Oz elements are downplayed.) I think worst of all is that the entire plot of the novelette revolves around whether Elma will go through a "tesseract field" to another star system, a fanciful thing that doesn't fit with the hard sf approach of the novels. As a result, it's hard to buy the emotional dilemma upon which the entire novelette rests.

Review: The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal

Trade paperback, 381 pages
Published 2018
Acquired and read August 2019

The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Fated Sky continues the story begun in The Calculating Stars, of Elma "Lady Astronaut" York, and her mission to get into space. When the book opens, she's making regular runs to the lunar colony... but her real goal is to go on humanity's first trip to Mars, which is what occupies the majority of the book.

It's enjoyable stuff. I like those kind of space problem-solving stories; this is Apollo 13 or The Martian, but with more human drama because they're all cooped up together for so long. My biggest issue is that it feels a little tension-free at time, just because you know how a novel like this has to be structured, and it doesn't really throw any big surprises at you, just little ones. I think I probably liked the first one more, but this one had some great moments here and there.

Hugos 2019: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

Trade paperback, 431 pages
Published 2018
Acquired April 2019
Read May 2019

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

This is an alternate history novel, where an asteroid hits the east coast of the United States in the 1950s, destroying Washington, D.C., and also damaging the global climate sufficiently that Earth will become uninhabitable, necessitating an acceleration of the space program so that humanity can survive through colonization. It's told in the first person from the perspective of a female "computer" (think Hidden Figures) who is married to an engineer on the space program. Elma York was a WASP pilot during World War II, and now wants to be an astronaut; the book chronicles her work for the space program as she tries to get this desire taken seriously, contending with the sexism of the era, widespread denial of the problem, her own racism, and her mental health issues.

It's a great book, definitely the best of the five Hugo finalists I've read so far this year. Kowal pulls you in with an intense opening, with Elma and her husband in the Poconos during the meteorite impact, destruction everywhere around them. It's a slow book, but in a good way-- it's very deliberate, bringing you into this world and Elma, and her struggles both internal and external. (I've seen complaints that Elma is always right, and the men she's up against are always evil sexists, but these feel like people projecting their own biases onto the book in a way that causes them to ignore its nuance. Elma is often flawed, especially as regards race, even after it's been pointed out to her, and we learn a lot about the psychology of her antagonists, in a way that makes us sympathize with them, too.) The end has some great moments, too, as she begins to realize her ambitions, and I'm always a sucker for stories where highly trained professionals work together to solve problems.

It's the first book of a duology, and I'll definitely be picking up the second half once my Hugo reading is over and done with.