The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal: review

3/5 stars on Goodreads

The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal

In the fourth book, it’s 1970 and Elma York, The Lady Astronaut, finally lands on Mars with her husband Nathaniel with the second wave of settlers. Earth hasn’t had a clear sky since the asteroid hit it and the mere chance of seeing stars at night is lifting their spirits.

But from the start, Elma feels something’s off. Accidents have clearly taken place during the first wave of settlers that no one has reported back to earth and hateful messages have been painted on the wall. No one is willing to tell her anything when she tries to ask about it, even though she’s the second in command.

Small accidents keep happening too. They’re fairly harmless at first—until they aren’t. It’s clear that they’re deliberate sabotage. But is it someone on the planet with them behind it, or is the mastermind back on earth?

Despite the intriguing premise, this was surprisingly boring book. Focus was on technical details and religious rituals, and even the who dunnit was solved elsewhere behind the scenes. Most of the cast was new, the familiar characters like Stetson Parker only appeared through radio transmissions, and even Elma and Nathaniel spent large part of the book apart. The new characters were none of them interesting, nor were they given any backstories that would’ve made them more than talking heads, useful for each scene only.

Character relations were antagonist. Instead of building the inclusivity through open conversation, nothing happened until after a confrontation, however small. It made the whole process feel angry and negative instead of a hopeful chance to build a better world mentioned in the book’s description. It made for a heavy read and I didn’t enjoy this as much as I hoped I would.

In the end, everything was solved as well as it could be. Elma and Nathaniel settled down to their forever home, and they seemed content with where they are now. If this was the last book, it leaves them in a good place. But there’s a lot to explore in space left.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Savior by J.R. Ward: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

The Savior by J.R. Ward

The Savior is the seventeenth book in J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood urban fantasy series, and a solid addition. What makes her books great is how she returns to old characters and continues their stories, in good and bad. This time it was John Matthew’s turn, and his arc was the best in the book, emotional and heart-breaking, as he ponders his likely death and his life. The conclusion of that story-line was especially satisfying.

The love story was between Murhder, a disgraced member of the brotherhood, and Sarah, a human scientist. It wasn’t the main focus of the book though, and they didn’t even meet until later in the story. They both had personal issues to deal with—him with his madness, her with the death of her fiancé and the revelations that brought—and those carried the book nicely. The love story was more of an insta-love type and not terribly interesting, but nice. A great addition to their story was Nate, a young vampire who has been used as a Guinea pig in human experiments, that the two of them rescue.

As is usual, there was also an ongoing story that focuses on the bad guy; this time about Throe who wants to usurp the crown. Luckily it didn’t dominate the book, as he’s not a very interesting foe. The climax of his story seems to tie with Ward’s other series about fallen angels, if I read it correctly, so there’s that to look forward to.

Unlike usually, there wasn’t a new character introduced that will become the focus of the subsequent books. I hope that doesn’t mean the series is coming to its end. There’s still Lassiter, who got his great moment in this book, and who could use his own book. I hope we’ll get that one eventually too, especially if the characters from the parallel series will show up in this one.

All in all, this was a good solid book that I gobbled down in two marathon reading sessions that lasted till small hours of the night. It wasn’t the best book in the series by any definition, but it was better than the two previous books, and it got me to take out the tissues, so I’m happy with it.

***

The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal

I’ve read a couple of other books too that I’ve neglected to write a review of. First one is The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal, the follow up to her great The Calculating Stars novel, an alternative history where the humankind is racing to Mars to escape the dying earth. In this book, Elma is on a three year mission to Mars in the early 1960s, with a cast of characters familiar from the first book.

This was in many ways a better book than the first. The story was more interesting, Elma wasn’t an onlooker in her own life, and the plot was more compact. But Elma was still a bit of a scapegoat to everything that is wrong in her society, which was annoying, and the story’s focus was more on those larger issues than the mission itself. And again, the most interesting story arch was given to Stetson Parker who really grew in this book and turned out to be a great character. He reads like an enemy-turned-love-interest, and he probably would’ve been that if Kowal hadn’t fixed Elma’s marriage with the novella that started the series, where Elma and her husband are old people in Mars. A wasted opportunity there, in my opinion. But despite the flaws, the book stayed with me for a long time, so much so that I had trouble finding anything interesting to read that would match it.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

This was partially remedied by Binti, a novella by Nnedi Okorafor. It’s a sci-fi story of an African girl, Binti, who is accepted to a prestigious university on a different planet. She’s the first in her family to leave earth—or her home village even—and she does it in secret, fearing her family’s reaction. On her way there, the ship is attacked by a tentacled alien race and she’s the only survivor, thanks to a device that allows her to understand them. It’s a story of prejudice, hate and acceptance, with a highly imaginative world and an interesting main character. The ending is a bit long, but it brings the story to a satisfying conclusion. I’ll likely read the follow-up stories too.

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Calculating Stars is an alternative history/sci-fi set in the 1950s US. A meteorite strikes the earth in 1952, killing millions. It soon becomes obvious that it’s only the beginning. Greenhouse effect will make sure that the earth will soon be uninhabitable. A new home for humans has to be found in the stars, and for that, the space programme has to be accelerated considerably.

The book is a first-person narrative by Elma York, a math genius who makes the initial calculations about the impending extinction of life on earth. Her husband is a rocket engineer and soon they are integral to the space programme. He designs rockets; she makes the calculations for space flights as a computer. But that’s not enough for her. She wants to become an astronaut. Only, in the 1950s America, women are best seen, not heard.

This book has a couple of different stories going on: the space programme, and the story of the emancipation of women and African Americans. It works better on the first level: the excitement of going to the space for the first time, and the heartbreak of inevitable setbacks. It tries very hard to work on the second level too. Elma is a product of her time and has clear notions of a woman’s place: she’s Mrs Nathaniel York first, not Dr Elma York, despite holding two PhDs and having worked as a pilot during the Second World War. Others have to point out to her that women have potential, or that African Americans are discriminated against at every turn. Even then she only functions as an unwitting catalyst for the change, and the big story happens outside the narrative, barely noticed by her. But since she is very determined to become an astronaut, she perseveres and forces herself through the obstacles set on her path.

The obstacles are nominal only. The narrative is very thin on emotion and especially emotional conflict. Every time a conflict of any kind begins to build, it’s solved fast and in the nicest possible manner, after which everyone are friends again. There is no conflict between Elma and Nathaniel, no matter how stressed out or angry they are. They constantly support and understand each other. It makes a happy read, but not a very interesting or exciting one. They’re both a bit dull, even with glimpses to Elma’s troubled past and her current anxiety issues.

The most interesting character turns out to be the ‘bad guy’, Stetson Parker, the first man in space. He hates Elma for the inexplicable reason that during the war she has prevented him from sexually harassing women, and states aloud that he’s going to do everything possible to prevent her from becoming an astronaut. He would be a caricature villain, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s given the most interesting story: a mysterious wife (I think she’s in an asylum) and an injury that almost prevents him from going to space ever again. Add to that that he’s occasionally very nice, and he makes the most complex and memorable character.

The narrative is episodic, offering small glimpses to what is going on in Elma’s life over six years. It’s heavy on facts concerning space travel and light on all other descriptions, like characters, places or emotions. But it still manages to work well enough to keep a reader’s interest from the beginning to the end.

***

After finishing the book I read The Lady Astronaut of Mars, a short story written years before the book. In it, Elma and Nathaniel are old people living in Mars. He’s dying and she’s offered one last mission in space. She doesn’t know what to do.

I’m glad that I read the short story after the book. It had everything I hoped the book would have: emotions and conflict. Both Elma and Nathaniel come off as real people, not characters, and I liked them much more than in the book. Since the story was written so long before the book, and was probably meant to be a stand-alone, the facts don’t quite align with those in the book, but that didn’t matter. It was an excellent story and made me wish there would be similar grit in the book too.

The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal