I'm sorry, Hugo Awards, but you and I are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
How is it possible that a book from the series titled "Lady Astronaut Universe" could be so woefully lacking in anything exciting, I'm still kind of in shock. I was expecting female astronauts kicking ass left and right, interspersed with scenes of thrilling action in space and agonizing decisions for survival. But no, alas, that was not what I got at all.
There's nothing wrong with the premise. The Calculating Stars creates an alternative history in which a meteor is about to hit the earth in 1952, leading to what will eventually become an extinction level event. In light of this, earth must fast track its efforts to colonize space. And so steps in this group of amazing women astronauts ready to save the world. Sounds awesome, right? Well, it turns out to be terribly disappointing.
First, I just couldn't connect with Elma. She wants to become an astronaut at a time when women aren't really considered for more than housewife duty, which I'm so on board with. But the part that lost me was that instead of being written as a strong character, she's timid and dithering, constantly hiding behind her husband and letting him take care of things for her.
She is scared of everything—people she doesn't know, her boss, reporters, talking to the media, having her pictures taken, the list goes on and on—and has panic attacks constantly in the form of vomiting. She doesn't think she has a problem and refuses to see a doctor, instead reciting the number pi or the Fibonacci sequence every time to try to get over it. Yep, that's the sound of my eyeballs bruising from all that rolling around.
The majority of this story is mundane as all heck, driven by stilted writing and dull dialogue between uninteresting characters. Hardly anything happens, certainly nothing I would qualify as worthwhile action. There's also a few awkward sex scenes with truly cringeworthy nerdy dialogue and random religious tidbits sprinkled throughout, neither of which added anything to the story (or lack thereof).
All in all, the premise was good, I'll give you that, but that's about the only positive thing I can say for this book. Clearly, the much touted space race was meant only to serve as an illustrious backdrop (and Hugo Award bait) for a story mostly about gender/religious/racial discrimination and mental health. And it wasn't even a good one at that.
Talk about a bait and switch. You could've named this "Lady Meek Mouse Housewife Universe" and had pretty much the same story.
Readaroo Rating: 2 stars
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