It’s not a romance, but the relationship between Elma and Nathaniel is sweet, passionate, and mutually supportive. I enjoyed this book once I accepted the slow pace and the fact that this is not a book with much action. However, she becomes increasingly aware of the impact she has on girls, who say they want to be an astronaut “like her.” Will Elma actually go into space? I will leave that for the reader to discover. Elma hates the ensuing publicity because public speaking triggers her panic attacks, and because technically she’s not an astronaut yet. Much of the book involves Elma’s growing awareness about the challenges faced by her friends of color, and the women’s frustrations with sexism and sexual harassment, as well as Elma’s struggles with anxiety and panic attacks.Īs the book progresses, the women fight for the right to enter the astronaut training program. Elma makes friends with the other computers, who include a woman from Algiers, a woman from Taiwan, and a black woman (Elma and Nathaniel are Jewish).
She has doctorates in physics and mathematics. Nathaniel is a literal rocket scientist and Elma is a pilot and a computer (a person who makes complex calculations, prior to the standard use of mechanical computers). If humanity wants to survive the coming disastrous climate change, they will have to colonize Mars within the next fifty years. The strike destroys much of the East Coast, and the first quarter of the book deals with the aftermath and the realization that this will, in the long term, be an extinction level event. The book starts in 1952, with main character and narrator Elma York and her husband Nathaniel witnessing a meteorite strike. However, in this version of history, a natural disaster accelerates the space program and gives a different outcome to the astronaut-training program. Much of what happens in the book happened in real life (see: Hidden Figures and The Mercury 13). This alternate-history novel by Mary Robinette Kowal tells a story of women who worked as computers for the US Space Program and who fight to become astronauts. The other thing you need to know is that it is feminist and nerdy. The main thing you need to know about The Calculating Stars is that it has a slow pace. Genre: Historical: American, Science Fiction/Fantasy
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