Book Review: Calculating Stars
I like Mary Robinette Kowal a lot. I think her writing is terrific and I have great respect for her. I listen to her on Writing Excuses and she gives amazing writing advice. She had helped the male authors on the pod-cast become more open-minded. If you listen to the first couple of season's of the pod-cast you'll know exactly what I'm talking about; she's been a wonderful influence and addition to the pod-cast.
So I hate to say this, but I don't think this book should have won the Hugo this year. I was expecting an entirely different story. It's good. The writing keeps you moving forward and the main POV character Elma is definitely a real human being having to battle sexism and anxiety with in the story. People are complex and Elma is a perfect example of a complex character. She navigates her world as a pilot, a mathematician/physicist, and a jew. All aspects that are difficult in our society, especially for women. I really enjoyed the feminism that ran through the book. It's what kept me reading.
While you read you can feel the research that MRK did for this book. The space program and Elma feel so real. MRK knows what she's doing in the sense of character. I even loved the husband/wife relationship of Elma and her husband, Nathaniel. It was refreshing to see a man support his wife. To see a happy married relationship.
However, the problems I have with this book is the alternate history. It is in the backdrop (a blip), and all you get out of the genre is that we (the human race) get to space faster and women become astronauts faster, and maybe colonies on the moon and Mars eventually, and that's pretty much it.
This story is really about one women's fight to fulfill her goal, and if not for the meteorite in the first chapter, this could have read as a non-sci-fi book. It read more as a fight for women's rights, which is awesome, but honestly, Calculating Stars didn't read as science fiction at all. I didn't feel transported anywhere other. Nothing was slightly off or weird or unknown. There wasn't a jarring reality that this was not our history anymore.
Calculating stars used the few sci-fi elements to address the current political topic of climate change, which was really well done.This is what good writers in the sci-fi genre do! Address politics within a fictional medium to say something about it; to express themselves. I guess I was just hoping for more changes with in the American Government, or the world? I'm just not really sure why I'm disappointed. It's hard to put my finger on.
So I hate to say this, but I don't think this book should have won the Hugo this year. I was expecting an entirely different story. It's good. The writing keeps you moving forward and the main POV character Elma is definitely a real human being having to battle sexism and anxiety with in the story. People are complex and Elma is a perfect example of a complex character. She navigates her world as a pilot, a mathematician/physicist, and a jew. All aspects that are difficult in our society, especially for women. I really enjoyed the feminism that ran through the book. It's what kept me reading.
While you read you can feel the research that MRK did for this book. The space program and Elma feel so real. MRK knows what she's doing in the sense of character. I even loved the husband/wife relationship of Elma and her husband, Nathaniel. It was refreshing to see a man support his wife. To see a happy married relationship.
However, the problems I have with this book is the alternate history. It is in the backdrop (a blip), and all you get out of the genre is that we (the human race) get to space faster and women become astronauts faster, and maybe colonies on the moon and Mars eventually, and that's pretty much it.
This story is really about one women's fight to fulfill her goal, and if not for the meteorite in the first chapter, this could have read as a non-sci-fi book. It read more as a fight for women's rights, which is awesome, but honestly, Calculating Stars didn't read as science fiction at all. I didn't feel transported anywhere other. Nothing was slightly off or weird or unknown. There wasn't a jarring reality that this was not our history anymore.
Calculating stars used the few sci-fi elements to address the current political topic of climate change, which was really well done.This is what good writers in the sci-fi genre do! Address politics within a fictional medium to say something about it; to express themselves. I guess I was just hoping for more changes with in the American Government, or the world? I'm just not really sure why I'm disappointed. It's hard to put my finger on.
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