Book Review: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
on Sheila Ash (India), 02/Aug/2019 01:43, 34 days ago
The Calculating StarsbyMary Robinette KowalMy rating:3 of 5 starsI am not a lover of books which are mostly dialog, they often feel like the author should have just written the script. This books suffers from that in my opinion, although it makes it ripe for a movie/TV series pick up. Having said that, I listened to the author narrate it and read along, that really helped, and did enjoy that depiction of the struggles against the gender, race based misogyny of men as depicted in this alternative post 1950s, post imagined meteorite strike history as Man is propelled to the stars to find a new home.I came to it having read the author's 2014 Hugo Award winning short novella/ long short storyThe Lady Astronaut of Mars( available athttps://www.tor.com/2013/09/11/the-la...) which is set towards the latter years of progagonist Elma York's life. The character caught my imagination in the short story and I picked up the book, my first readings byMary Robinette Kowalso I have nothing to compare them to. The space race theme is of course very topical when I was reading these with the 50th anniversary of the landing on the Moon. This is the first book in her series and it takes in many of the themes explored in movies like The Mercury 13 (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8139850), Hidden Figures (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4846340). ashramblings verdict 3*On the whole I found the book's pace a bit slow, but its premis and characters intrigued me and held my attention well enough to consider picking up the subsequent in the seriesArticulated RestraintandThe Fated Sky.View all my reviewsashramblings