The main thing you need to know about The Calculating Stars is that it has a slow pace. The other thing you need to know is that it is feminist and nerdy. This alternate-history novel by Mary Robinette Kowal tells a story of women who worked as computers for the US Space Program and who fight to become astronauts. Much of what happens in the book happened in real life (see: Hidden Figures and The Mercury 13). However, in this version of history, a natural disaster accelerates the space program and gives a different outcome to the astronaut-training program.
The book starts in 1952, with main character and narrator Elma York and her husband Nathaniel witnessing a meteorite strike. The strike destroys much of the East Coast, and the first quarter of the book deals with the aftermath and the realization that this will, in the long term, be an extinction level event. If humanity wants to survive the coming disastrous climate change, they will have to colonize Mars within the next fifty years.
Nathaniel is a literal rocket scientist and Elma is a pilot and a computer (a person who makes complex calculations, prior to the standard use of mechanical computers). She has doctorates in physics and mathematics. Elma makes friends with the other computers, who include a woman from Algiers, a woman from Taiwan, and a black woman (Elma and Nathaniel are Jewish). Much of the book involves Elma’s growing awareness about the challenges faced by her friends of color, and the women’s frustrations with sexism and sexual harassment, as well as Elma’s struggles with anxiety and panic attacks.
As the book progresses, the women fight for the right to enter the astronaut training program. Elma appears on the show Watch Mr. Wizard as Dr. York, Lady Astronaut. Elma hates the ensuing publicity because public speaking triggers her panic attacks, and because technically she’s not an astronaut yet. However, she becomes increasingly aware of the impact she has on girls, who say they want to be an astronaut “like her.” Will Elma actually go into space? I will leave that for the reader to discover.
I enjoyed this book once I accepted the slow pace and the fact that this is not a book with much action. It’s not a romance, but the relationship between Elma and Nathaniel is sweet, passionate, and mutually supportive. Elma’s anxiety and her decisions regarding medication are handled in sensitive ways with Nathaniel’s support. Basically, the plot is “will Elma become an astronaut” and the book itself allows the reader to be a fly on the wall during the early development of spaceflight and the training program and the publicity that drums up support for the project. As I said, it’s super nerdy. I mean that as a compliment, of course. As an aside, readers from the South will doubtless appreciate many weaponized uses of “Bless her heart,” and “Isn’t that nice.”
This book is a prequel to Kowal’s novelette “The Lady Astronaut of Mars,” which you can read here for free. Don’t skip the “Historical Notes” section of The Calculating Stars, which is fascinating and should send you racing to the books listed in the bibliography. Incidentally, in the “Historical Notes” section, Kowal states that she was thrilled when Hidden Figures came out because she had written The Calculating Stars just before the publication of Hidden Figures and her beta readers found it difficult to believe that NASA employed women of color as calculators. It’s a powerful reminder of how pervasively women, especially women of color, are erased from history. Even though at first I found this book to be slow going, I came to appreciate it for its intersectional feminism and its unabashed adoration of all the science and math that goes into making space flight possible.
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I confess that I’ve had The Lady Astronaut of Mars in my TBR pile, unread, since 2014. So, the question is, do I go ahead and start with TLAOM or go in chronological order and start with TCS?
Ooh, I remember enjoying The Lady Astronaut of Mars. This sounds good too. Thanks for warning about the pacing.
I loved this book. It’s going to count as one of my best of the year. I listened to it on audio and it’s narrated by the author. She really brought the book to life and maybe that’s why it never seemed slow to me.
The Lady Astronaut of Mars is utterly lovely – it reminds me a great deal of the Martian Chronicles in tone, or Heinlein’s (underappreciated) The Green Hills of Earth.
I”m reading MRK’s Ghost Talkers (First World War alternate history, with ghosts) right now – it’s lovely too. But also, like you mention, the pacing is different from the romances and thrillers I usually read. It’s paced more like a cozy mystery, which it technically is, I suppose. And it’s NOT a HEA. But also a lovely book.
This book was hands down an A for me. Yes, it’s less plot driven than one might expect for a book that starts with a vast, world-changing disaster. I devoured it without any complaint about the pacing, though I can kind of see wanting things to happen faster; but the pace is part of the point, I think, about the human mess that underlies these beautiful achievements. I loved the Calculating Stars so much that as soon as I finished I got online and sent a copy to my best friend, unsolicited and without context, just a note that said “I love this book.”
I read Lady Astronaut of Mars first (free online on Tor’s website) but I don’t think it really matters if you do or don’t. The specific events in each one are distantly related, and the insights LAoM gives you don’t in any way spoil the novel, and did not greatly affect my reading of it.
Go ahead and read THE LADY ASTRONAUT OF MARS first; it’s shorter, and you’ll get a sense of whether or not you like the narration style.
A bit of history: THE LADY ASTRONAUT OF MARS was first released as an audiobook in 2012. It should have been a finalist for a Hugo award in the category Best Novelette (based on votes, it was in the top 3), but was ruled ineligible because it was not in printed form. The author then released it on her website in early 2013, and Tor.com republished it in September 2013 to give it a broader audience. Under pressure from outraged readers, the Hugo committee ruled that the story was eligible in 2013; it was nominated and ultimately won the Hugo for Best Novelette in that year.
PS Forgot to say in my previous comment that I loved THE CALCULATING STARS, although it ends on a cliff-hanger, and am eagerly awaiting THE FATED SKY when it drops later this month.
I read The Lady Astronaut from Mars after seeing the author’s blog post on Tor.com about being invited to NASA by one of her astronaut advisors, having never read anything by her before (though Book Riot’s Get Booked podcast has rec’d her Glamour series a few times). I read the story over lunch and was weeping into my tuna sandwich. Even at a slower pace, the Calculating Stars was still a page turner, and I immediately pre-ordered The Fated Sky.
My 17 year old godson is very interested in space travel and I hope he will read the book because I thought it reflected well the intense pressure women feel to be “more than” to even be considered in the same sphere as men, much less on the same level, especially when well-meaning loved ones aren’t very supportive.
I read this first. The benefit was that I wasn’t spoiled (Lady Astronaught is the end point of the story so far). The downside is that when I read Lady Astronaught it gave so much more emotional underpinning to Calculating Stars. It’s a win-win.
I loved this book — it was definitely an A for me. Elma and Nathaniel have an amazing marriage.
I sometimes joke that it’s really a romance — Elma + space.
I loved this book. I loved Elma & Nathaniel’s relationship, I loved the slow and creeping way the aftereffects of the meteorite are revealed, it was just great. Can’t wait for FATED SKY.
I recently read Word Puppets, which is a collection of short fiction from Mary Robinette Kowel that she has published over many years. She started building this alternate history in other short stories that are in the book, including one story that concerns the asteroid that hit the US. She is great at short fiction as well as novel length works and I recommend reading the stories.
A B? Say it ain’t so! I absolutely loved The Calculating Stars, and although I am not…yet…stopping strangers on the street to tell them they MUST read the book, I have emailed my BFF, my daughter-in-law, and one of her sisters to urge them to start reading it Right Now.
A slow pace? Can’t say I noticed it while I was galloping through the book, by turns amazed, infuriated, and anxious. And that wasn’t a cliffhanger at the end of the book; that was the author ending (quite literally) at a high point.
Although I was only 2 when the 1950s started, I do have memories of that period. I wonder if that makes a difference in my reaction to the book, especially the ‘infuriated’ reactions. SF/alternate history – whatever you call it, the book rang very true to me, and I’m so glad I read it.
@Patricia M., is the story you’re referring to We Interrupt This Broadcast? I have mixed feelings about that one and its implications.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE Mary Robinette Kowal. “The Calculating Stars” is really good – exactly the type of sci-fi I love. And it’s rare to find a book that captures the feeling of an anxiety attack so well.
If you haven’t read it, I feel like SBTB readers might really love MRK’s Glamourist Histories books.