"The Calculating Stars" - Full Discussion *Spoilers*

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Thanks for your patience! So, what did we think of our plucky heroine and her mission?

[Anthony]

I very much enjoyed our plucky heroine. I was impressed by the authenticity of her voice, the depiction of her anxiety, the honesty with which she understood her own blindness to subtle and overt racism, and her intelligence and growing resolve.

My only real quibble with this book, for which I’ve been waiting for this thread to discuss, is the repetition of rocket launch jargon in the scenes of sex with her husband. A little bit of that goes a long way. Or maybe none of it is necessary...?

Having said that, I found their relationship to be entirely believable, and refreshing in its depiction of a healthy partnership; which was shown to be healthy in no small part due to their ability to talk through challenging moments and find common ground and understanding.

I’m very curious to see others’ responses to this delightful book.

[Travis]

I agree fully, Anthony. The moments where she realized her racist inability to see the obvious were so perfectly done. For me, they elevated and enhanced the book's feminism (and made me want to see Hidden Figures, which I still haven't). And I totally agree with both the overuse of the rocket, but also the beauty of the novel's representation of a wonderfully healthy relationship, conflicts and all.

[Gabi]

I was surprised how much I liked this book. After all, there was no twist, no surprise, but a quite linear story, where we already knew the end (at least those of us who read the Lady Astronaut of Mars)

Kowal managed to keep her narration in such a light ton (hope you can say that in English), that I was right there, right in the middle. The catastrophe, the technical parts, the topics of religion and racism - nothing was presented as melodram or with a moral pointing finger. There was such an easiness in her writing, that it felt like an old friend. To be honest, in more than one scene with the women I just wanted to be there myself, wanted to be part of this solidarity of friendship.

I was put off by the paternal way some of the men talked to and about the women. The men always were refered to by surname, the women by first names in the beginning. It was nice to see the subtle change of that as the story developed.

@Anthony: yup, totally agree with your sentiment about the rocket launch. I was wondering, if people really talked (talk?) like this while having sex. I love sex scenes, but I want them to be erotic, this talk just turned me off.

That aside: "The Calculating Stars" was an absolute feel-good book for me.

(and now I must read the Lady Astronaut again, cause I was of the impression that our heroine was a WOC, and now I'm wondering where I got this idea from …)

[Anna]

I thought the launch talk was a perfect way to emphasize how both their lives revolved around the space race, and how strong and happy their relationship was. I don't think it was supposed to be arousing to us readers in any way, it was just one more cute thing about their relationship, which is awesome. I love healthy, established relationships in fiction, where the couple support and love each other.

Spoilers for The Lady Astronaut of Mars:

(view spoiler)[ And of course having read what a loving relationship they still have after all those years, it just made learning about them very bittersweet. One of my favorite tiny little details was one that would mean nothing if I hadn't read the novelette. This was just pure genius. Evil genius.

Novelette:

As soon as he was sitting up on the edge of the bed, I gave him the walker. He wrapped his shaking hands around the bars and tried to stand. He rose only a little before dropping back to the bed. I stayed where I was, though I ached to help. He sometimes took more than one try to stand at night, and didn’t want help. Not until it became absolutely necessary. Even then, he wouldn’t want it. I just hoped he’d let me help him when we got to that point.

On the second try, he got his feet under him and stood, shaking. With a nod, he pushed forward. “Let’s go.”

Chapter 5:

In the morning, I had my first glimpse of what we would be like as old people. Nathaniel could barely get out of bed on his own.

...

Nathaniel took two tries to push himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed.

(hide spoiler)]

[Karin]

Anthony wrote: "I very much enjoyed our plucky heroine. I was impressed by the authenticity of her voice, the depiction of her anxiety, the honesty with which she understood her own blindness to subtle and overt r..."

Yes, I agree about a little rocket talk in the sex talks goes a long way, although it was believable.

[Gabi]

Of course, you are correct, Anna. These scenes were not meant to arouse. That wouldn't have fit into the general tone of the story.
But as they are, for me at least, they don't fit either cause they appeared too superimposed. Which, of course, is a personal impression. It didn't subtract from the overall delight in the story, but they made me cringe.

[Anna]

For me those scenes were no worse than any such talk in books. I thought it suited them very well, and I can totally imagine them finding it funny. I will not die on this hill, though, I don't think they were absolutely necessary.

But I will take "rocket talk" over the sudden appearance of genitals any day, thanks! (I'm reading something right now that whips things out at me every now and then.)

[Karin]

Gabi wrote: "I was put off by the paternal way some of the men talked to and about the women. The men always were refered to by surname, the women by first names in the beginning. It was nice to see the subtle change of that as the story developed."

This was, however, extremely realistic to the times. This is really and truly how it was virtually everywhere in the workforce and in social life for women. As angry as I got at the character of the worst offender (can't think of his name off-hand) it was TOTALLY BELIEVABLE and simply a mark of a job well done. The term "sexual harrassment" wasn't coined until the mid-1970, and even then it has taken decades to get anywhere and it still happens, but not nearly as often in many places in the US and Canada.

[Karin]

I liked this novel quite a bit and am about to start the sequel. While much is well done, I may have expected too much.

On one hand, it is hard to picture the change to allow women and minorities into the space program that quickly even with the wonderful press that was garnered. On the other hand, it was a huge crisis, and at those times things like that can a happen. But still, so many were doubting the veracity of the global climate changes.

This is an interesting example of writing with a 21st century outlook about important causes. It was honest for Kowal to stick to the civil rights issues that were the ones most prominent at that time--it would have been completely unrealistic to add the other civil rights issues that were not yes so out in the open back then. I was a bit surprised, perhaps because it isn't as noticeable in the news now and things have improved, but there was still a quite a bit of antisemiticism after the war.

[Karin]

Travis wrote: "I agree fully, Anthony. The moments where she realized her racist inability to see the obvious were so perfectly done. For me, they elevated and enhanced the book's feminism (and made me want to se..."

Yes and no, because there was still a lot of antisemiticsim in the US in the 1950s and beyond, so I kept waiting for her to remember being bullied for being Jewish somewhere along the line.

This is an interesting example of writing with a 21st century outlook about important causes. It was honest for Kowal to stick to the civil rights issues that were the ones most prominent at that time--it would have been completely unrealistic to add the other civil rights issues that were not yes so out in the open back then. I was a bit surprised, perhaps because it isn't as noticeable in the news now and things have improved, but there was still a quite a bit of antisemiticism after the war.

In the 1950s there was a fight to remove discriminatory practices against Jewish people; in 1952 there was still a very strict, decades old restriction on Jewish immigration that lowered the numbers of Jewish immigrants by a lot, and there was a push for a number of years in that decade to remove that and other areas of prejudice against Jewish people.

[Gabi]

@Karin: I'm well aware that the social interaction is a mirror of the era this novel is set in. It felt quite authentic to me (even though I have no first hand experience of this time)

[Karin]

Gabi wrote: "@Karin: I'm well aware that the social interaction is a mirror of the era this novel is set in. It felt quite authentic to me (even though I have no first hand experience of this time)"

Okay, I wasn't sure--sorry--women's rights have been one of my soapboxes for decades and I frequently run into young women IRL who don't have any idea how much its changed, not that I have any idea how old you are.

My mother is 80, so was a teen and also got married in the 1950s (she got married in 1959) so she lived this as did my grandparents, aunts, et al :). She has told me stories of how she gave into my dad early in their marriage on many decisions because that's how it was when she got married, not because he was an ogre or controlling or kept her at home away from the public (she's always been very involved in stuff). But she'd have handled it differently if she'd been born 20 years later, or even 10.

[David]

Nathaniel feels awfully evolved for a 1950s American male. He also lacks the self-absorption they seem to pass out with doctorates. For that matter, Elma too seems to lack depth as a character (the performance anxiety helps). But I had trouble with the novel as Alternate History, since the Point of Diversion (Dewey's election) can have no causal effect on the meteorite. Kowal doesn't need a Republican president to throw money at NASA, she needs a threatening event like Sputnik. Since America went from the threat of Sputnik to the moon in 12 years, she's put the PoD in approximately the right year, but this is probably when the Extinction Level Event needs to occur. I think the story wants to be YA, and the f*bombs and semi-abortive sex scenes are a kind of clumsy denial.

[Jemppu]

From the very first pages on I thought this was exactly the kind of story I'd love: intimate and 'small scope' narration, inspite of all the world shattering stuff happening around.

I loved the story for it's 'uneventfullness' (if such a thing can be said with the Earth facing possibly extinction level disaster) - the mundane take on the world changing events, just like they would appear to unfold around any one individual or small group living the events. Not like it would be depicted in some blockbuster disaster movie, but true to life (one would imagine). Apollo 13 rather than Armageddon.

I agree what Anthony and others said about the rocket jargon during the sex scenes: a little of the couple's highly professional lifes to filter through to those moments as well is only logical, expected, and exciting even, but to follow through with it to the degree that theyoften did, became indeed cringeworthy, forced - as Gabi said: superimposed. Like bad movie diaogue.

Their best, most genuine intimate scene, I think, was in fact the one the book opens up to.

[babble goes on: cutting this for lenght]

(view spoiler)[My biggest peeve with the story was one, which I realized reading further and further on (having not read any blurbs) to be in fact the story's driving force - it's message: the feminism.

Jumping into this and going through the first chapter I was excited for this to be a personal take on such a world changing event (and it was, of course) in which the lead's gender didn't seem to matter - didn't seem to hinder them or seem like an issue at all, despite the era they are depicted to inhabit...

...and then it rolled into the women's rights stuff, and to reflecting all of their thoughts and acts to their gender and pitting them against the 'opposing side' to a degree, where it's not only 'an annoyance' to the characters, but works to dictate their actions even (and not only the stuff they're 'forced' into accepting, but which they themselves decide / have grown accustomed to not to do, or to do, because "the other sex!").

Which of course isn't the book's fault, that I didn't study up on it: it is all important stuff, but which I wasn't expecting to play such a key role in this. I would've probably been much more okay with it, had I realized it going in, instead of just 'happening upon' this unfortunate bit of realism (which I kept hoping would fade to the background). But wonder, if I would've bothered with this either, had I known 'the battle of the sexes' would be this pivotal a theme. So, maybe I should be thankful that I didn't know, because...

Despite this, the down-to-Earth way in which this story is told: the personal view of the events, rather than outsider's view in. And the 'real' settings, and the authentic technobabble even, felt like exactly my kind of stuff, and the kind of literature I'd love to find more of (maybe sans the leading theme of 'gender wars'). It doesn't hurt either, that the story is set in the era that it is, and revolves around avition / space race stuff, which I already find fascinating. (hide spoiler)]

Loved, loved the chemistry of the lead couple and kept reflecting it to (as I often do in these instances) Elizabeth and Philip (doubt I need to specify further).

And agree with Anthony on the heroine having these anxieties and realizing their own weaknesses/biases, to be a refreshing bit of authenticity as well. Gave the character the extra bit of depth their otherwise "fighting for the oppressed" attitude needed for balance.

[Karin]

David wrote: "Nathaniel feels awfully evolved for a 1950s American male. He also lacks the self-absorption they seem to pass out with doctorates. For that matter, Elma too seems to lack depth as a character (the..."

Truth be told, it took a very evolved man to marry someone like Elma, and while uncommon there have always been some men like this, and not just in the Quaker movement. Quakers strived for equality and it's no accident that they were often tied in with the women's rights and abolutionist movements of the 19th century. Susan B. Anthony came from a Quaker family for one example.

And I have brother with a Ph.D. who is not self-absorbed or full of himself and overly modest. I'm not making this up, I have 2 other brothers, one of which has all of his own pride and ego plus that missing from the Ph.D. brother (but he's not as horrible as it sounds in writing). And, so no one feels left out, I have a sister. Not that she'd care if I forgot to mention that in this instance and she fits more in with the stereotype you are mentioning in many ways, but MD not Ph.D.

Then there was Mary Wollstonecraft's husband, father of Mary Shelley.

Then there are some who educated their daughters even if it was not considerd right--not common, but it exists. So while some of his stuff was a bit 21st century, not all of it was.

[David]

Karin wrote: "Truth be told, it took a very evolved man to marry someone like Elma..."

That generation—having survived the Depression and War, and returning to unprecedented affluence—were locked into the goal of creating the next generation, as an act of replenishment. Societally, labor differentiation by gender was taken with an almost ideological intensity, and I get the occasional whiff of guilt from Elma, that part of her had bought into the differentiation (which mostly seemed to go haywire after we left our farms). True, there have always been men who believe that women naturally operate from a position of strength (J.S. Mill and David Hume also come to mind) but these were men with experience of strong women (often, I think, in their childhood) or with sufficient intellect and will to question their own privilege. Elma and Nathaniel, however, are Jewish (Conservative) not Friends, and Jewish couples notoriously carried a lot of expectation baggage. I can see Elma marrying a more traditional husband, having a couple children, being miserable for seven years, and getting a divorce.

I’ve thought more about Nathaniel’s missing self-absorption and decided that I was reflecting more on my own experiences in academia, rather than one’s standing in the paper chase, so I think you’re right there.

[Bruce]

I liked the idea of superimposing the stories of humanity's struggle to survive in the face of the meteorite and woman's struggle in an alternate 50's era. Nicely done and very enjoyable!

[Mareike]

I enjoyed this book from the get go. Elma had me with that very first joke in the opening scene and she felt very real to me from the beginning. Like some others have mentioned I also enjoyed the relationship dynamic between Nathaniel and Elma and that you could tell from the get go that he respects her for who she is. But I also agree with what David and karin have said. He's a rare gem for that era (at least from all I know about it as someone who's not lived through it).

I also agree with what Anthony and others have said about the "rocket talk". That completely pulled me out of the story the first time it happened. The other times I rolled my eyes and moved on. It wasn't a big flaw for me, but definitely something I wouldn't have missed if it hadn't been there.

I really liked how the novel deals with people's reactions to loss and grief - both when it is still very fresh and then later when the smallest thing can remind you of your loss and the next thing you know your busy trying not to cry.
So, small descriptions like this one (view spoiler)[of a sales lady who "...smiled as if she'd just remembered how to do it" (hide spoiler)] really got to me emotionally.

I also liked that Elma came up against and struggled with her internalized racism and eventually started to try and work against racist structures in her society. And especially the way in which the novel showed that this is an ongoing process.

A minor "issue" (that's really too strong a word) I had with the book was that some of the turns in the narrative were easy to see coming. Mostly (and I think I wrote that in my review) that made me go "Huh, I wonder how that will play out" so it wasn't a major issue for me, but I almost wished for some less predictable things to happen.

[Karin]

David wrote: "Karin wrote: "Truth be told, it took a very evolved man to marry someone like Elma..."

That generation—having survived the Depression and War, and returning to unprecedented affluence—were locked ..."

True, but prior to this event they were secular Jews and her parents were both well educated, so they didn't carry the same expectations as conservative and orthodox Jews did. Also, they don't seem to be not trying to have children (remember when he thought she was pregnant?)

But you are correct about the propaganda for women to return to the home and be mothers--it was everywhere. Rosie the Riveter was replaced by the homemaker to make way for veterans to take their jobs back. That said, I don't think everyone bought that, since they still had women working as calculators because they were "cheap labour." And it was still quite easy for single women to get certain kinds of jobs.

If you study women's labour history you'll find that what women could and couldn't/should had shouldn't do was reflected by what employers wanted. One simple excellent example is typing. When typewriters were new, the theory was that men were better suited for it. When employers wanted to pay their typists less, there was an inundation of press, etc, discussing just how well women were suited to typing. This also was the case for women and children working in factories--they were cheaper labour, so hire them for certain factory jobs. Thankfully there was reform for children and I'm not sure where all of that came from but of course increased need for safety helped.

Perhaps I'm skeptical and no doubt my university studies in Women's Studies (mostly women's history) has left me somewhat biased, but I think the rebuilding propoganda was just a way to get women out of "men's" jobs.

[David]

Karin wrote: "When typewriters were new, the theory was that men were better suited for it. When employers wanted to pay their typists less, there was an inundation of press, etc, discussing just how well women were suited to typing..."

Yeah, it’s like they couldn’t see how transparent their “arguments” were. During the California Gold Rush, they tried to deny Chinese mining claims because the work was “unsuitable” (until the Chinese were needed to work on the Central Pacific). Marx writes about how workers produce product, but also the next generation of workers. Capital wants to pay as little as possible for both, so they discourage contraception, and make work outside the home as unattractive as possible for women. If men were the historic care-giver’s we’d be the ones offered sixty cents on the dollar.

Speaking of work credentials, did anyone else feel that Elma’s double doctorate was overkill? She doesn’t need them for the astronaut corps (of the Mercury Seven, only Shepard had a Master’s, and Glenn’s Bachelor’s was granted after his three orbits) and she didn’t need them to run calculations for Mission Control. Elma’s savant facility with numbers made her valuable (more in the crunch, than producing the formal solutions that could be checked by others) but those are intuitive skill, like spatial intelligence. Plus, the two doctorates create timeline problems (professors prefer doctoral candidates who will stick around and write papers for them). While I’m going there, a mathematician would never claim to “originate” (p.349) an equation (you “derive” equations).

[Mareike]

David wrote: "Speaking of work credentials, did anyone else feel that Elma’s double doctorate was overkill? She doesn’t need them for the astronaut corps (of the Mercury Seven, only Shepard had a Master’s, and Glenn’s Bachelor’s was granted after his three orbits) and she didn’t need them to run calculations for Mission Control."

It didn't feel like that to me while reading. I've thought a bit about it now, but I'm still not really bothered by it. It's true that she doesn't need the two doctorates for the plot to work or for the work she's doing in the space program, but given that she's very gifted at math and entered college at 14, it does make sense for me that she'd advance that far.
As for professors preferring PhD students that will stick around...I guess Elma's being a woman (and a married one at that) would factor in here. And her anxiety issues. It would make sense that she'd be pushed out of/leave academia. (In my field, for example, our students are predominantly female, but if you go higher up the ladder you go, that gender distribution reverses. A lot of the dynamics leading to this are obviously structural and they would also have been in force (and having even more of an impact) in the 50s and before).

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

You've all said more or less exactly my sentiments on this book, so I'm just going to chime in on things I haven't seen so far in conversation!

I loved the honesty of a lot of this--the flaws each of the women had in terms of expectations, credentials, views on society, and personality were all extremely endearing. They felt like people I might know, and I could hear each of their thoughts when arguments broke out. I loved that this book elbowed out room for women to be imperfect and still so, so, so incredibly talented.

I also loved the "we have always been here" vibe throughout. So many books set in periods, or even fantasy worlds made to look like various periods use what we saw from media at the time to tell us why women or people of faith or color couldn't possibly be in [inset any sort of location or job] at that time. And that is and has always been bollocks. It was marvelous that we got to see an array of religions, skin tones, national origins, women in men's places, disability and mental illness...and also get some context as to why we wouldn't have seen them in media from the time period.

I really appreciated that this author could explain so much with the use of her narrative. I never felt like I was in the middle of an info-dump, and any techno-babble felt very pertinent in context (except the sex scenes. Total agreement with y'all). The structural elements of the discrimination, how "good people" could perpetuate harmful (and sometimes deadly) policies...I think the intent was clear but I never felt preached to. I was given the facts and the basis of a reaction and left to fill in the rest, which I admire, even if it means I've spent a week angry at people for saying anything remotely Parker-like lol. I also really liked that even an Elma who felt pretty "woke" to herself said and did stupid crap even after exposure to new cultures. So realistic.

I think the pacing was a bit off...I think I was hoping this story would resolve more in the social-political tension or the "based on a true story" drama of pivotal moments when really it felt like a slice of life. A marvelously executed slice of life, but one that lingered where I wanted motion.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Also, let's please be careful how we discuss whole cultures. A few qualifiers go a long way to changing something from a stereotype to a perception, lived experience or statistic, and feels a lot less like we're telling people of a certain culture what it means to be a part of that culture. Thanks!

[David]

In our 1950s, few American women were encouraged to make social contributions outside the home or beyond the caregiving professions. Since space colonization requires women (given the nature of earth’s gravity well, economy would require significantly more women than men) would the standard female space traveler be there for the co-option of her uterus? There seems to be at least a correlation between the decreased need to repopulate after the Baby Boom, and the rise of Western feminism of the late 1960s and ‘70s (I suppose you could go back a century and link feminism generally with rising population pressure in the West)? Would the feminism we recognize today exist in Kowal’s postulated colonization of space (before feminism had time to culturally entrench, as it has here)? If the natural human inclination is to contribute to your society, and women are systematically precluded from contributions that involve neither care-giving nor the uterus, would they just accept their co-option in space? Would they eventually become like post-War Soviet women, expected to do “regular” jobs in addition to quickly populating the various space colonies? Wouldn’t this be worse, in terms of establishing the woman’s ownership of her own body (as a Lockean First Property)? Could co-opted women in space become Herbert’s Axlotl tanks?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

David wrote: "In our 1950s, few American women were encouraged to make social contribution outside the home or beyond the caregiving professions. Since space colonization requires women (given the nature of eart..."

...I'm not sure I understand what you're asking? Or where the assumptions are coming from?

[David]

The Kowal space colonization effort is coming at a time when the existing gender paradigm hasn't been adequately challenged in public consciousness. How long did the paradigm shift take (is taking) in our reality? Why assume that the culture, which undertakes early space-faring, would automatically abandon the prevailing gender attitudes? Any effort to colonize space will rely primarily on human births taking place outside the earth's gravity well. Barring in vitro gestation, that will place at least that part of the principal burden on women. Why assume that women in general wouldn't be conscripted in the care-giving roles? Given that men seem to control the selection process, with no hope of immediate change, how many women would chose to indenture their uterus in exchange for the ticket off a dying earth?

[Mareike]

David wrote: "The Kowal space colonization effort is coming at a time when the existing gender paradigm hasn't been adequately challenged in public consciousness. How long did the paradigm shift take (is taking)..."

It's an interesting question that we can probably soeculate about and discuss for hours.
I'm not sure I'd say the gendered structures of society hadn't been challenged enough at the time the novel starts. One reason why there was such a push towards "traditional" gender roles (at least for the white middle class) after WWII was that so many women stepped up during the war, filling in for men who were at the front. So since these things tend to shift more rapidly in times of crisis and Elma & Co are already pushing boundaries there's a chance the shifts fuelled by the feminist movement in "our" timeline might hapoen more quickly in the story. (The same might happen with changes happening due to the Civil Rights Movement).
That being said, the pendulum might obviously swing very far in the other direction. Especially with the colonization effort. There's a lot of factors involved in how that might shake out.
- How quickly is Earth warming?
- How much are people panicking?
- How are national governments and the UN reacting?
- Can they actually afford to use women only for procreation? I'd assume you need people who can pull their own weight during a space colonization effort. This of course raises the specter of eugenics, which might that make a comeback once it comes down to selecting who gets to go first?

In a similar vein, since we've already seen how gendered and racial structures of society are affected by the meteorite strike, I'm wondering how LGBTQ people and the struggle for their rights will fare in this alternate timeline.

I wonder how much of that will be addressed in the second novel. (Which I can't wait to read.)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Aha! Thanks for clarifying, David, I think I'm on the same page now. It's a good question.

I don't think so. It's true that the gatekeepers presently are white and male, but it seems likely that the first colonists would be husband/wife teams, which would mean that they'd both have to have skills necessary to create a habitable environment. A healthy mix of families, those looking to start families, and folks presently unentangled would likely go next. Child-bearing would also likely have to be strictly controlled so that available resources could sustain the population, so I doubt it'd be a full on "fornicate under command of the king" type thing ;-) At least, not initially!

But also, even in the most patriarchal of societies, women are and were part of the work--they just don't get mentioned much. We know they're there, though, and ditto people of color, gay people, trans people and so on. Even women who were full time baby-wranglers did a lot for the local economy, policy, and the arts, taken as a whole. It's never been about who's in the story and very much about who's telling the story. Parker's version of events would sound a lot different than Elma's, I'm sure. So, I think even if reviving the human population became priority number 1, we'd still have about 8 months of every womanyear where she was progressing something that mattered to her.

Not to mention, men with wives competent enough to become astronauts tend to be a little more willing to listen to and include their wives in things. I could in fact see a new colony accelerating gender equality. If the only mechanic in town of any skill is a woman, one would have to get over their prejudice pretty quick, or just not use engines ever again.

Mareike, I was thinking the same thing about LGBTQIA+ folks and about the metrics of those "allowed" to go to the Moon or Mars contributing to a ...very specific gene pool, let's say. I really hope it's mentioned in the second book or other short stories!

[Anthony]

I love this discussion. Such fertile ground to contemplate issues; one of the reasons I so admire Kowal’s decision to set this in a world very close to our own, but off in such a way that certain factors of progress, to me, were believably accelerated, albeit not without challenges.

[Sarah, The Unsettled]

I just wanted to add- I've sort of been lurking on this conversation. I really loved the book, and fully intend to read The Fated Sky... I'm just finding I don't have much to say about it afterward?

My favorite parts were definitely the inclusion of the Civil Rights movement and Elma becoming aware of her own prejudices/privilege, etc.

I didn't take issue with Elma being a doctor or an overachiever or anything. She may have been extraordinary for the time but I don't really see how that's a fault. If extraordinary people were going to exist anywhere- may as well be NASA.

[Ariana]

I also quite liked it, and like Sarah I don't have a whole lot to add, besides agreeing with what folks have said before.
Rocket sex talk = awkward, but whatever, they're both huge nerds, it makes sense.
I also don't really buy the whole "not typical for the time -> can't be in the story" argument. Sure, Nathaniel's views on women and their fairly egalitarian relationship we're not the norm, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen. Yes, women with PhDs in math and physics were rare, and the fact that she also happens to be a hypercompetent pilot is a bit of a stretch, but I was willing to go along for the ride. And as Karin mentioned, it sort of makes sense that these two unlikelihoods occurred together, since a man who ends up in a relationship with someone with Elma's background is unlikely to be someone who adheres to rigid gender roles.

The part I had questions about was her graduate work. We get flashes back to how traumatic college was for her as a 14 year old, I have a hard time believing getting her PhDs was a cakewalk after that. There were at least as many Parkers and Clemmonses in academia, and I have a hard time believing she would have been able to finish two degrees without facing similar discrimination. And given what we know about her anxiety... I mean, we know she's incredibly talented, it just felt weird to leave that chapter out of her backstory.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Ha! I just asked about that in the Q&A, Ariana! I, too am curious about that.

[David]

Allison wrote: "...it seems likely that the first colonists would be husband/wife teams..."

Well it might have to go there, if the novel were YA, but as I set the novel aside, and thought about it a little more with this discussion, I decided that I really like the potential of the premise and concept. At first, I thought the lack of a possible connection between the 1948 election of Dewey and the 1952 meteorite was sloppy (clearly a failure of my own imagination) but you could have a connection…say, some group at a temporal/spatial remove becomes so concerned at how the Dewey presidency has enabled space-faring humans, they (Vaderesque reveal in a subsequent book!) sent the meteor to destroy us. This could take the story arc an in interesting (albeit much darker) direction; not that it needs to go there, or even should go there.

Because it cost around $10,000 per pound to place earth matter in orbit, sending a male astronaut would cost in the neighborhood of $2 million, where a female astronaut would cost more in the neighborhood of $1.25 million. However, you might be able to ship an adolescent girl for less than a million. You want to maximize the size and genetic diversity of your colonies. The earth is a ticking time bomb. Your efforts become driven by simple economics.

If we take technology, we can also take our First World farmer/eater ratio. With existing 1950s/60s technology, in vitro fertilization would be possible. So you have a small number of explorers (Parker and his buddies, to establish and maintain the infrastructure, and train their own eventual replacements from the first ex terra generation) followed by mostly adolescent (to minimize shipping costs and maximize the duration if their fertility) birth-surrogate colonizers. The final shipments from earth would include enough frozen sperm samples to establish the first generation.

Elma’s being a fertile, anomalously female astronaut would be considered a plus, give her little authority with her fellow explorers, but contribute hugely to the developing culture of the birth surrogates. For the founders, women would outnumber men maybe 50, or 100 to 1. Then the gender ratio would approach equality, but from an original position where women—for maybe 30 or 40 years—held most of the political power.

@Ariana: Including the atypical is important in any story, it just needs to be accounted for. Also, male professors from the period typically tried to obscure or belittle the accomplishments of their female students (at least in the presence of their male students). A colleague told a great story about being the only woman in a otherwise all-male class. In handing back her test, the professor commented to the class on the “silly” error she had made. As he passed out the rest of the exams one of the other students asked who had gotten the high score. The professor obviously didn’t want to answer, but then sheepishly admitted that it had been her. “But,” he added, “she stays home and studies on Friday nights.”

[Karin]

David wrote: "Speaking of work credentials, did anyone else feel that Elma’s double doctorate was overkill?."

Given her profound giftedness, that she was in univeristy when she was 11 and that the Ph.D's were in Math and Physics, no, I had no problem with that, because if you are good at Physics you are also good at math. She would have had both of them by a fairly young age, as well. She would have had her BSc no later than age 15 as she was in university at 11, which is not unusual for kids at that level of intelligence if they have the ability to handle it, and possibly younger.

My uncle, who graduated at age 18 and won a Governor General's scholarship in the late 1950ms had 2 Ph.D's by the time he was in his mid to late 20s and he didn't even get to start early, but he is a genius, although not profoundly gifted like Elma (who is closer to Carl Frederich Gauss's brilliance).

Bear in mind, also, that Carl Friederich Gauss moved from primarily doing math to doing more Astrophysics at a fairly young age as well--she appears to have been close to his level of brilliance.

Most mathematicians who make big discoveries such as Gauss did, make them by their early 20s--physicists who make them usually by their early thirties. These are fields where the elasticity of the youthful brain seem to be essential to the big break-throughs.

[Kim]

I love this book, I am waffling between reading another book on this month’s list and just jumping into the next volume of this to see what is happening with Elma, Nathaniel, and friends.

I can say the sexism was alive and well when I joined and served as a Naval Officer, some stuff still makes me shudder. And that was in the 1980s through the ‘90s, the 1950s would be so much worse.

This book did not feel at all Y.A. to me, it felt a
little like an echo of a 1950s novel, it carries the sensibilities of the time, with a little bit of the spiciness of The Group or Peyton Place.

I think the presence of so many diverse groups weighs the plot down in the earnest attempt to imagine the discrimination on many fronts, but I respect her for trying to address the various aspects of it. Messages are important, but they need to be organic to the plot, otherwise they can cause plot drag. Ella’s mental health issues & guilt are another area where a little goes a long way, I was tired of hearing about vomit.

On the Nathaniel front, I think of the RBG documentary and how supportive her real-life husband was in about the same era and how much he did to make it possible for her to succeed. Also, my own husband and fellow Naval Officer who did the same for me, and I for him. Sometimes I think 2 professionals in a similar field can see each other differently than many married couples.

Anyway, I have thoroughly enjoyed this book, one of my favorites this year, and I am sending copies to my favorite people.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Kim, I'm so glad it resonated with you, and your insights are particularly on point! Thanks for sharing those--we've had a lot of really great anecdotes in this thread! I found myself nodding when you compared Elma to RBG (which I really must see!)

Karin and David, you might be interested in popping over to the Q&A thread--Mary kindly touched on a lot of this discussion and it was helpful to me at least to see her thought process :-)

[Ariana]

David wrote: "@Ariana: Including the atypical is important in any story, it just needs to be accounted for. Also, male professors from the period typically tried to obscure or belittle the accomplishments of their female students (at least in the presence of their male students). A colleague
..."

I'm a little unclear in what you're trying to convey here. That what we hear of Elma's experience in college is not uncommon for women in academia, especially in traditionally under-represented fields? If so, I agree!

[David]

@Ariana

Before the 1960s, women in university disciplines outside nursing and teaching were considered dilettantes, because they were expected to give up their professional development, marry, and rear children. Men wanted to think that their value derived from an ability to do things women couldn't do for themselves. They felt threatened by women proving them wrong, and they saw marriage as the low-hanging-fruit to which women would naturally gravitate. Professors felt that only men would use their educations, and that women were therefore usurping the class space that might actually be taken advantage of by a male. The professors were failing to consider Hume's Problem of Induction, but sea change is seldom anticipated by the entrenched.

[Ariana]

David wrote: "@Ariana

Before the 1960s, women in university disciplines outside nursing and teaching were considered dilettantes, because they were expected to give up their professional development, marry, and..."

Sure, I'm aware of this.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Right...David are you saying you didn't feel that Elma's particular atypical brilliance was explored enough? Right now you're just repeating facts we all know (I still get shit for not being a sweet housewife, and I received both my degrees this century!) I really resonated, as a woman in a male dominated field, with how Elma's experiences really separated her both from the men that were her colleagues and the women who saw her as different from them.

Mary also explained in the Q&A that the double doctorate was (another super relatable thing for me) mostly because Elma's parents (also incredibly talented, obviously exceptionally forward-thinking parents, to be a doctor and a general, southern Jews in the war with a son with polio and a genius daughter who both ended in exceptional careers) both very supportive and a little over zealous. I know when I had stumbling blocks, my dad's inclination was to have me do whatever it was until it became rote. I now hate math, but can do fractions and percentages faster than a calculator so who knows who won that round haha! I could see if I'd been "graduate college at 15" levels of smart, I'd have had a lot more pressure to collect degrees like my peers collected Pokemon.

It's fine of course to see that differently. I really liked how we got to see all sorts of levels of education, experience and general skill from many folks in the early space program.

[David]

Allison wrote: "Right...David are you saying you didn't feel that Elma's particular atypical brilliance was explored enough?"

Yes. She would have been a more interesting character without the degrees, her math savant skills subsumed by her husband, reluctantly admitted to the astronaut corps because of the tech, which couldn't duplicate her capacity with machines small enough to fit into the nosecone of a rocket.

Sorry for pontificating. I vacillate between thinking that everyone knows everything I know, and that no one know the things I learned before they were born. I spent many years with undergraduates.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

:) No worries.

I see, so for you, maybe witnessing more of her struggle for, maybe we call it glory, or her own place in the world would have been something you could latch on to more?

I think I can kinda see that...I believe Elma is based on a real person and I liked having a "happy" story, but I do have a few quibbles myself about where maybe some tension could have been added.

[Ariana]

David wrote: "Allison wrote: "Right...David are you saying you didn't feel that Elma's particular atypical brilliance was explored enough?"

Yes. She would have been a more interesting character without the degr..."

I gotta disagree there. One of the things I liked about the book was how much agency Elma had, despite the patriarchal norms. She was able to work within the system and change people's minds. And as others have mentioned, it was great to see her being open to changing her perspective about racial inequity. But then, I tend to like stories that are about societal change vs. enshrining the status quo. Could just be a difference in personal taste!

I agree with you, though, about how difficult it would have been for her to obtain these degrees. This was my point, it seemed odd to me that we didn't get some backstory about what grad school was like for her.

[Rachel]

Well I haven't even read the book but now I feel I ought to give it to my mother who was one of the first women admitted to Yale in the 60s and she in fact majored in math and physics there!

It sounds like this might be a very meaningful book for her. She also got a JD (law degree) and later a PHD in meteorology....should I buy this for her?

(Fun fact- I think she was very early in the trend of keeping her own name )

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Oh, Rachel, I think you and she might just love this book. And that's so cool about your mom! Good for her!

[Anna]

Rachel, it sounds like your mother would love this book!

edit: Oops, I guess I left this tab open for pretty long :D

[Dawn F]

Just to be clear, I don’t have to use spoiler tags, right? Cos I’m on my phone so I can’t do them but really need to rant somewhere XD

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

No spoilers needed! Go for it!

[Dawn F]

Awesome!

Okay. So. Please bear with me, I haven’t finished it yet (am 75% done), so I may repeat other people or it’s been discussed before, but here we go.

I really, really love the math and rocket science of this. When they discover the fusion engine mentioned in one of the news snippets I smiled cos they didn’t say what it was but I knew from scifi from when I was a kid, possibly Larry Niven’s Neutron Star, what it meant. I remember my dad explaining how it only worked in theory cos nothing could contain this amount of enery yet, but it was so fascinating anyway. All those things are great to read in a historical context that’s actually realistic. I love space and rocket science, give it to me!

I also greatly appreciate the newfound knowledge of women and poc in the space program that I had no idea about and I’ll continue to pursue knowledge of this (I’ve not watched Hidden Figures but I definitely will now!). So a huge thanks is owed to this book for giving me this knowledge.

However. I have issues with the writing itself. Tbh, I find her style immature and preaching. I’m not into that at all, and if it wasn’t about a topic - or topics - that I found interesting, I wouldn’t read it. I often found myself rephrasing in my head to make it more digestible or skimming pages to get past the endless gossip and chatter that frankly takes away from the serious issues battled here. Elma’s reunion dinner with her family? It felt like what I feel sitting in on my in-laws discussing family or friends over my head that I’ve never met and it just makes me zone out. I don’t mind conversations if they’re imperative to the plot but a lot of it is just mindless filler and I wished I could just narrow it down to what the characters did, and get the important conversarions stripped of superfluous filler. It may just be my personal preference.

I also have to say that on the surface the characters feel shallow and stereotypical to me. The good people are extremely good, the bad people are truly bad. Elma is wildly surprised than an asshole can have more than one side to them, gasp shock. The issue for me is Everything Is Bent In Neon. It’s tiring, like I’m not able to assume a person has more than one but have to buy into the constant surprise of it.

Also the sex scenes, please stop them, they’re so awkward 🙈 I had to skim past those pages. I think the last thing I read was Nathaniel having her toe in his mouth, that’s the last thing I ever want to read, it couldn’t be less sexy lol!

I do want to say there are moving moments, but it was mostly in the beginning, then as the novel progressed they felt a bit cliche and manipulative and I felt more and more removed from them.

Maybe I’m too harsh, I don’t know? I respect the author so much for the amount of work amd reaearch she put into this. I just wished it was better written. Just my personal preference I guess.