The Fated Sky is the second book in the Lady Astronaut duology, an alternate history book in which America’s space program is drastically sped up and expanded due to an extinction level event that will make Earth uninhabitable in approximately fifty years. In the first book, The Calculating Stars, pilot and computer Elma York became an astronaut and flew to the moon. In this book, she heads to Mars, where scientists hope to establish a long term and eventually self-sustaining colony.

At the start of The Fated Sky, Elma has taken so many trips to and from the moon that she feels like a truck driver. She’s given the opportunity to go on the first human-crewed mission to Mars, but has to take the following into account:

1. If she goes, she’ll be taking the place of an Asian woman (Elma is white) who is better trained. Elma finds this appalling, as well she should.
2. If she doesn’t go, the Mission is more likely to lose funding (Elma is publicity gold thanks to the events of The Calculating Stars).Elma is heavily pressured to save the program by going on the mission.
3. If she goes, she’ll be away from her beloved husband for three years which will not only impact her marriage but also their choices about having children.
4. If she doesn’t go, her career is basically at a dead end, especially since she won’t be allowed to work as either a pilot or a computer if she does get pregnant.

It’s not a spoiler to say that she chooses to go to Mars, and most of the book is about the very very long flight. All of her choices have multiple repercussions that increase tensions between her and her new crewmates. The flight involves people of different races and nationalities and genders and sexual orientations, which leads to conflicts, learning (for some people), tenderness, and growth. It also involves science and adventure, a lot of humor, and a very detailed explanation of what happens when a crew gets food poisoning in zero-G. You might not want to eat while you read that chapter. On the other hand, you will learn how to make chess pie in space. It comes out OK, just a tad chalky. The chess pie is not the cause of the food poisoning.

I really enjoyed this story. In fact, I enjoyed it much more than I did The Calculating Stars, although I think that preference is less one of skill (both books are well-written) and more one of personal taste (this book is more adventurous). While it could work as a standalone, I recommend reading The Calculating Stars first. You’ll have more understanding of both the main characters and the overall urgency that drives the effort to set up a Mars colony. The character development felt organic and I loved how at any sign of trouble the team would immediately stop bickering and settle down to business until the crisis had passed.

The Fated Sky is not a romance, although Elma’s relationship with her husband, Nathaniel, continues to be supportive despite the fact that space travel takes her away from him for years at a time. It features moments of crisis interspersed with periods during which everything works the way it should and the group of astronauts has a steady routine. The mix of adventure and boredom, science and laundry, bonding and bickering felt just right, and Elma’s attempts to be a good ally to her crewmates of color provide lessons for all of us who are on the same learning trajectory. I do think it is unfortunate that we learn so little about a gay couple – their relationship is mostly distilled to “will one of the people in the group be too emotionally traumatized by certain events to do his job.”

I wasn’t completely sold on The Calculating Stars even though readers here and elsewhere raved about it. However, I’m totally sold on the duology and the novella “The Lady Astronaut of Mars” as a whole series. It got me excited about math even though I hate math. It made me reflect on the days when I idolized Sally Ride and longed to fly on the Space Shuttle. It appealed to my inner nerd, my inner child, and my inner romantic, and it made me really hungry – except for that one chapter!