The Calculating Stars

Really liked this. The science and rocket stuff felt very real.
The dialogue during rocket launches took me back to watching the Saturn 5 go up.
Happily the sequel just came out so I don't have to have this world just yet

Finally, after years of returning most books unfinished to the library, I've found a book that I actually made efforts to sit down and read, and dragged around in my purse for spur of the moment opportunities.

I love the space race of the 50s and 60s, the Mercury 13, stories of the beginning of rocket science (some very weird), and the beginnings of our technology advances. Although I don't ever remember there being anything in my home state of Kansas that remotely resembled something that could be mistaken for rocket creation, launch sites, and mission control centers... just the Triton missile silos and the traveling warheads.

Around this were alot of subjects for contemplation; discrimination of sex and race, some insight to being Jewish after World War 2, and an earth-changing catastrophe.

I'm crossing my fingers the sequel is just as appealing.

Fantastic book! Has to be in my top five for the year. Really well written, with a quirky crew of characters. I can't wait for book 2.

Executive Summary: Less Sci-Fi and more Historical Fiction, but really enjoyable. I'd pitch it as a cross between [b:The Martian 18007564 The Martian Andy Weir https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1413706054s/18007564.jpg 21825181] and [b:Hidden Figures 30840370 Hidden Figures The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation into Space Margot Lee Shetterly https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1474752658s/30840370.jpg 55627110]Audiobook: Normally I'm not a fan of authors reading their own work, but I've listened to Ms. Kowal as a narrator for other books before and she is good. She does a few voices and accents that add that little extra something to the audio version.Full ReviewI've been wanting to read a book by Ms. Kowal for a few years, but the blurbs for her previous books just never really appealed to me. This one however was right up my alley.I'm not sure how much research she did, but it seems like a lot. The fiction part of this book is mostly setting up a reason to accelerate the US space program by about a decade and then continue to push it forward from that point in a way we never really did. It sort of posits: “What would our space exploration look like if we made it the main focus and not just a Cold War arms race?”.I really like Elma. I can relate a lot to her and her social anxiety. I love the way she counts numbers in her head when she's feeling anxious. Maybe I should give that a try. All of the characters are pretty great though, even those I don't like at all (I'm looking at you Parker).I'm not really a fan of romance stories, which I think is one of the things that has kept me away from Ms. Kowal's previous works. There is definitely a romance subplot here, but it's not the focus. I will say there is A LOT of sexual innuendo/double entrades. I mostly found it funny, but if that kind of thing bothers you, you could get tired of it.Even though this book is set in the 1950s, there is a lot of commentary relevant today. I'm not sure how much of that is clever writing and how much is just the sad fact of how little progress has been made since that time. I thought it was well done without being heavy handed. It was important to the plot, but not the point of the plot if that makes any sense.Overall I really enjoyed this book a lot and immediately jumped right into the second one. I'm glad I was finally able to pick up a book by Ms. Kowal and that I liked it as much as I did.

Quite frankly one of the best books I've read for some time. I was expecting this to be more sci fi than what it was. This was much more along the lines of historical fiction - which I really have absolutely NO interest in.
Says so much then that I struggled to put this book down. Not once was I disappointed hat this wasn't what I was expecting.
I don't think I've read a book where the characters have been so masterfully developed.
I felt physical sensations with the the characters that I have never felt before because they were written so descriptively - yet without ever looking like the author is trying to get me to understand something I couldn't possibly understand.

The beauty of the writing demonstrated wonderfully with the following quote:

The light of the rocket reflected off her bright eyes as if the fire of her soul were coming out to push the rocket into the sky.

3.0 out of 5 stars

When a meteorite strikes the Eastern seaboard of the United States and obliterates Washington, D.C., Elma York knows that it's only a matter of time before the after effects of this impact make Earth uninhabitable. The race to outer space is kick-started by this incident, with an ultimate goal of resettling the human race on the moon before it's too late.

Elma's sharp, witty narration made this an enjoyable read. She's a likable character who is easy to root for, but I was hoping for a story that focused more on moon colonization than her origin story as the first female astronaut. The book starts with a bang and then quiets down a lot as the focus shifts to Elma fighting for respect in the male-dominated world of space travel. It's a well told tale, and seems to realistically portray what it would take for Elma to achieve her goal, but I was just waiting and waiting for some urgency to kick in and to see Elma make it to the moon. I think the second book in this duology is probably more in line with what I wanted this book to be, so I will have to check it out!

See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.