The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut Universe, #1) in Beyond Reality

Jul 19, 2019 MadProfessah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-read

The Calculating Stars is the award-winning book by Mary Robinette Kowal about the 1950s space race but set in an alternate time line where a meteor hits the Earth near Chesapeake Bay, decimates the Eastern Seaboard and catalyzes the greenhouse effect. The main character of The Calculating Stars is Elma York, a former WASP pilot and mathematical genius who ends up working as a “computer” for the International Aerospace Coalition, the space agency responsible for managing the race to the stars. Th The Calculating Stars is the award-winning book by Mary Robinette Kowal about the 1950s space race but set in an alternate time line where a meteor hits the Earth near Chesapeake Bay, decimates the Eastern Seaboard and catalyzes the greenhouse effect. The main character of The Calculating Stars is Elma York, a former WASP pilot and mathematical genius who ends up working as a “computer” for the International Aerospace Coalition, the space agency responsible for managing the race to the stars. The impetus behind the space race in this timeline is not a US-Russia proxy war but about saving humanity before Earth becomes inhabitable due to the runaway global warming caused by the long range after-effects of the asteroid collision.

The central idea of the book is that it is a version of “The Right Stuff” told from the perspective of a Jewish white woman who is obsessed with going into space but has to combat social conservatism and sexist mores in order to achieve her dream.

Elma is a fun character and it was fun to spend time with her. She has a pretty severe undiagnosed anxiety disorder, which she tries to get through by reciting familiar mathematical series (like prime numbers or the Fibonacci series). Her husband, who is also Jewish, an engineer and eventually becomes her boss at the IAC, often gives her difficult arithmetic problems to distract/calm her down at times of stress (such as facing a room full of reporters). Elma becomes internationally known as “the Lady Astronaut” because of her advocacy that women join the space program when it is in its infancy. This is an interesting SFnal twist because in real life no one but white men were considered by NASA to become astronauts.

Although I like Elma I’m not as enamored with the book as a whole. Of course as a black gay math professor I’m in favor of the author’s depiction of the senselessness of the discrimination based on gender (and race) and the regimented social mores of the 1950s. I also like the fact the story is told from the perspective of a white Jewish woman and the infusion of mathematics throughout. But to me there’s a spark missing to have me emotionally connect with the story. I think this may be because ultimately the stakes are too low. Since this is an alternate timeline (caused by a very unlikely event) the overarching idea that the space race needs to be successful earlier is not that compelling a reason to care. And even though I want Elma to succeed at breaking barriers, she will/would be fine even if she didn’t go into space. So although I enjoyed spending time with Elma and love the centering of math and science in the context of attention to identity, emotionally I was somewhat detached from The Calculating Stars. However, I will most likely read the sequels in the trilogy.

RATING: FOUR STARS. ...more

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Nov 10, 2019 Matt rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction

“The Calculating Stars” is a story of a woman who wants to be an astronaut, and she gets her wish because a meteorite crashes into the earth dooming the human race to extinction. You might suppose that the later part of that sentence would be treated as the more important part, but you’d be wrong. This isn’t the story of the greatest disaster that every befell the human race. This is a story that is, for better or worse, definitely centered on that one woman’s feelings.

The conceit of the story i ...more

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Feb 13, 2019 Jo rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book, post-apocalyptic, science-fiction, series

The Calculating Stars title is a play on words and a very clever one. The setting follows what happens when a large meteor strikes the earth setting up the need to find a way off planet as this may be an climate cataclysm. The story follows Elma York, a math genius and WASP pilot as she works to get humans into space. I loved the detail in the story and Mary Robinette Kowal does a really great job reading her creation. The background shows that the author did a lot of research as she wrote the b ...more

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