Our December selection is The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. This sci-fi novel, winner of the 2019 Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards, tells the story of a cataclysmic meteor strike that threatens life on earth, and the mathematician and pilot, Elma York, who becomes part of the team formulating a plan to colonize space.
Kowal creates an alternate history where the space program races against the coming changes in the earth’s climate. Per Verge, “While that world-ending scenario sets the stage, it’s the underlying social issues that arise in the aftermath, from race relations to gender equality, that really drive the plot.” The novel is set in 1952, an era when Elma must fight to have women of all races and backgrounds included on the team.
Please note, if interested: The Calculating Stars is a prequel to Kowal’s 2012 award-winning short story, “The Lady Astronaut of Mars,” which can be read in its entirety here (by permission of the author): https://www.tor.com/2013/09/11/the-lady-astronaut-of-mars/
Thanks @mary13 for continuing to lead us after all these years, doing a stellar job. Very grateful for all you do.
Really will try to read this one on time, the summer was busy and I was distracted.
Adding Mercury13 to my Netflix watch list.
@SouthJerseyChessMom, thanks. You deserve a gold star for being with us from the start – over 10 years! We discussed our first book (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society) in June 2009.
^ You shouldn’t have any problem, as I’m finding it a quick read – plenty of dialogue and not a lot of heavy introspection, despite the “extinction event” premise. That’s all I’ll say until December 1st. ?
It’s December 1st! (I know, I can’t believe it either.) Welcome to our discussion of The Calculating Stars. No official publisher discussion questions were available, but here are some borrowed (with permission) from another book site:
The Calculating Stars was a quick and enjoyable read–just what we were looking for at this juncture. But although I was entertained, I wasn’t entirely satisfied. My daughter once said about a date, “There’s nothing wrong with him, and on paper he has all the qualities I like, but there’s just no chemistry.” That’s what I felt about The Calculating Stars – a pleasant enough “date,” with all the elements I normally like, but not exactly what I was looking for. I came to realize that what I really wanted was the story she wasn’t telling – the social, economic, and emotional turmoil following the instant obliteration of Washington, D.C. Elma and her colleagues were in a bubble and I was yearning to learn more about the chaos happening outside of it. I realize that was my problem, though, rather than one with the book per se.
I’m glad I went on to read the original short story. Having met Nathaniel first in The Calculating Stars, reading The Lady Astronaut of Mars afterward was particularly poignant. One might fly to the moon and live on Mars and be the biggest celebrity in the entire solar system, but in the end, it comes down to same final act for all of us: facing death, with a body that betrays you, worrying about loved ones and coping with impending loss.
On a cheerier note, I read a review of The Calculating Stars on the Hugo Book Club blog, and the opening sentence made me laugh out loud. (Long-time CC book clubbers will know what I’m talking about):
@Mary13 what a perfect description in that review! Still laughing…
I get what you mean, that there’s something not quite satisfying about the book, though I like it very much. I think it’s a bit like the original Star Trek, in that it is a little too obvious about its messages. You remember it fondly, and then when you rewatch it, you find all the flaws. That said, I think there are real characters despite the fact that so many of them are saddled with “problems”. I like that Elma, even though I root for her, is deeply flawed. (And I’m not just talking about her anxiety, but more about how she gets what she wants.)
Went to look and see what my initial impression had been. This is what I wrote: “At times a little too pat in its re-imagining of a past where ladies get to be astronauts in the 1950s despite rampant sexism, where our heroine gets woken up to the evils of unthinking racism perhaps helped by her identity as a Jew. Despite that, I loved the book and spent way too many days reading into the wee hours of the morning. Elma is an engaging protagonist comfortable with numbers, but not so much with public speaking. Who can’t relate to that?”
When you all said this was a science fiction book, I was not enthused at all – I was imagining little green aliens. Instead, I found the first part terrific. More dystopian than science fiction. But from there, it quickly went downhill for me.
I thought the relationship between the husband and wife was not realistic for the era. I also thought that the white couple would never have stayed with the black couple during that era. To me, it was clearly written today but simply placed in the fifties.
Regardless, I enjoyed it, but I preferred other dystopian books like On the Beach and Brave New World.
I enjoyed both the book and the sequel, but I agree with those who are saying it’s not realistic. I do like Elma’s acknowledgement of her privilege going back to her historical relationship with Parker, but she does seem rather naive about issues of race (but in fairness she addresses them once she becomes aware). There were several times when issues of privilege were gently incorporated (and sometimes not so gently) incorporated into other scenes, especially in the sequel, without making them the central plot driver.
No the sequel was not, though Mary did provide a link to the short story which takes place much later, but was actually written first in her original post. The other sequel The Fated Sky does flesh out Parker.
I don’t think she was exactly naive about race for the 1950s and in any event this USA is not quite our USA. (Remember Dewey is president.)
I didn’t take notes so this is all off the top of my head.
I enjoyed the book - the plot was interesting and I wanted to know what would happen so read it straight through. I did think there were too many themes and the story seemed to dash off in a variety of directions then come back to the main plot. Some of those directions were interesting but too thin - I wanted to know more but the book just left them hanging. Between dystopian meteorite perhaps destroying humanity, the origin of space flight, the role of women in space flight development, WWII flying, the Holocaust, fashion, keeping kosher and Sabbath, anxiety disorders, sexism, racism, anti-Semitism…they didn’t really tie together well. There was a lot I really wanted to read more about - like the bar mitzvah in California. It seemed like California held up pretty well, which was encouraging from my home in San Diego!
In general I think a narrower focus would have made the book better.
The science and math was fun to read but seemed like, maybe, showing off? Look at me explain all about how to figure out how far away the strike was and what velocity we need and what happened to the punch cards (I especially liked that because my first job was punching Fortran cards on the local university campus). The husband was too good to be true but hey - he was a nice Jewish boy!
The references to actual history were fun to catch; also cultural references. Aside from Dewey beating Truman, at one point there was a casual reference to a group of astronauts ending with, iirc, Armstrong, Campbell, and Griffin. The Right Stuff is my very favorite novel on space flight so it was amusing to see those real life heroes casually dropped into the narrative. All the testing reminded me of that book also. I can’t remember all the other tiny bits but one of them - “to the moon and beyond” was channeling Buzz Lightyear!
I read the sequel and appreciate how much of it derived from the later written prequel. Seems like the author had it all fleshed out and just started with the short story, which I gather began as an audio story before it was written. I like the author’s style enough to put a hold on the next book, as well as wanting to read her Glamour series apparently based on Pride and Prejudice- first book there also on hold now.
I was irked that The Calculating Stars ended without revealing the secret (or whatever you’d call it) about Parker’s wife. I understand that Kowal intended to write a sequel, but even so – I don’t like to be teased and pulled along with a subplot and then left hanging.
I don’t think Kowal had the full plotting in mind when she wrote the initial short story because she says in the afterword, “I had boxed myself in on timelines with the novelette, The Lady Astronaut of Mars.” As @mathmom pointed out, she made Dewey president – knowing that she had to create an alternate history that didn’t exactly mimic ours.
She also notes in the afterword: “Most of the headlines and articles in this novel are real and are taken from The New York Times.” That surprised me. I thought they were fake when I read them, but it just goes to show you how much writing and reporting styles have changed.
I was very annoyed with the author when I read in the acknowledgements that she asked her expert on airplane stuff to just complete the sections that said [insert flight jargon here]. To me, it feels like she wrote a MadLibs book, where someone else filled in the blanks.