The Calculating Stars by Marie Robinette Kowal sure is a book. It is set in the US in the 50s, just shortly after a meteorite drops into the sea next to Washington, kills millions, and starts what might be an extinction level event. Our protagonist is a woman with a PhD in maths, who flew planes in WW2 for WASP (officially never saw combat, but, y’know …), and whose husband is lead engineer for the NACA/IAC.
Now that the earth might become uninhabitable within decades, the space programme kicks off in earnest and our protagonist works as a computer for the IAC. Then she realizes that she is perfectly qualified to go to space (apart from her being constantly on the Bad Old Drugs against her crippling anxiety, but hey, who’s counting), but as you can imagine, in the US in the 50s, going to space as a woman is more-or-less unthinkable.
This book shows a lot of important things, but … like running down a checklist. Life as a religious minority (the protagonist is Jewish). Life for black people (the protagonist slowly starts recognizing her own racial biases when confronted with them). Sexism, naturally. Some politicking, fake news, all that jazz. (And space, obviously.)
Also. The characters are so one-dimensional. The protagonist’s by-the-numbers issues were not handled well: It’s as if she was created as a Mary Sue, then got slapped with a major crippling flaw to make up for it, and then the flaw was only clumsily integrated in the story. These are things I only noticed a couple of days after finishing the book, though – while reading it I was racing through it. If space or planes or alternate history or general geeky enthusiasm is your thing, and you can ignore flat characters and disregard for a global catastrophe, and incredibly, infinitely cringe sex scenes, this will be for you!
