Novella review: To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: To Be Taught, If Fortunate
Author: Becky Chambers
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Publication date: August 8, 2019
Length: 153 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

A stand-alone science fiction novella from the award-winning, bestselling, critically-acclaimed author of the Wayfarer series.

At the turn of the twenty-second century, scientists make a breakthrough in human spaceflight. Through a revolutionary method known as somaforming, astronauts can survive in hostile environments off Earth using synthetic biological supplementations. They can produce antifreeze in subzero temperatures, absorb radiation and convert it for food, and conveniently adjust to the pull of different gravitational forces. With the fragility of the body no longer a limiting factor, human beings are at last able to journey to neighboring exoplanets long known to harbor life.

A team of these explorers, Ariadne O’Neill and her three crewmates, are hard at work in a planetary system fifteen light-years from Sol, on a mission to ecologically survey four habitable worlds. But as Ariadne shifts through both form and time, the culture back on Earth has also been transformed. Faced with the possibility of returning to a planet that has forgotten those who have left, Ariadne begins to chronicle the story of the wonders and dangers of her mission, in the hope that someone back home might still be listening.

The title of this novella is a line from former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim’s message carried on the Voyager space probe in 1977:

We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship — to teach, if we are called upon; to be taught, if we are fortunate.

These lines provide a beautiful summary of the theme of Becky Chambers’ deeply thoughtful novella, To Be Taught, If Fortunate. The novella tells the story of the four-person crew of the Lawki 6 mission — a team of astronauts sent on a decades-spanning mission to explore four potentially life-supporting planets located outside Earth’s solar system. The astronauts embark on their journey knowing that their friends, families, and colleagues will all be gone by the time they return to Earth some 80 years in the future — but knowledge is their holy grail, and they’re devoted to their higher purpose.

We learn about the mission through Ariadne, the mission engineer, who writes a letter back to Earth — this is the narrative we read. Ariadne describes the ship’s journey through space — the years of torpor (deep sleep/stasis in which the crew members pass the years of long transit, awakening when they reach their destinations), the glory of discovery as they set foot on each new world, and the traumatizing despair that sets in when they seem to have reached a dead end with no means of continuing the journey.

The story is full of moments of sheer joy, as the team revels in each new world and its wonders — but there’s also sorrow, as communications from Earth inexplicably stop arriving, and the crew is left to consider what, if anything, they might find upon their eventual return.

I’ve described Becky Chambers’ books as “gentle science fiction”, and I’d say the same applies here. Not gentle as in boring or uneventful, but gentle meaning focusing on the people, their emotions and relationships, their hopes and fears. There are no evil forces, no catastrophic invasions, no epic tragedies, and certainly no space battles or laser guns! This is science fiction on a human scale — it’s what the people experience, think, and feel that matters here, and that’s plenty.

We are human. We are fragile. Are we who you want out here?

The writing is lovely, and through the medium of Ariadne’s letter back to Earth, we get to know her on a deep and intimate level. What would a person feel in these circumstances, cut off from home, living in a restricted space with three other people, seeing the passage of time by the changing length of her hair and fingernails each time she emerges from torpor? This book makes the reader feel it all as well, all within just 153 pages.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate is a spare, finely-tuned portrait of humanity’s quest for knowledge and pursuit of higher purpose, as well as a moving depiction of particular people in a unique circumstance.

Don’t miss it!

1Jul2022

Book Review: In the Quick by Kate Hope Day

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: In the Quick
Author: Kate Hope Day
Publisher: Random House
Publication date: March 2, 2021
Print length: 251 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

June is a brilliant but difficult girl with a gift for mechanical invention who leaves home to begin grueling astronaut training at the National Space Program. Younger by two years than her classmates at Peter Reed, the school on campus named for her uncle, she flourishes in her classes but struggles to make friends and find true intellectual peers. Six years later, she has gained a coveted post as an engineer on a space station—and a hard-won sense of belonging—but is haunted by the mystery of Inquiry, a revolutionary spacecraft powered by her beloved late uncle’s fuel cells. The spacecraft went missing when June was twelve years old, and while the rest of the world seems to have forgotten the crew, June alone has evidence that makes her believe they are still alive.
She seeks out James, her uncle’s former protégé, also brilliant, also difficult, who has been trying to discover why Inquiry’s fuel cells failed. James and June forge an intense intellectual bond that becomes an electric attraction. But the relationship that develops between them as they work to solve the fuel cell’s fatal flaw threatens to destroy everything they’ve worked so hard to create—and any chance of bringing the Inquiry crew home alive.
A propulsive narrative of one woman’s persistence and journey to self-discovery, In the Quick is an exploration of the strengths and limits of human ability in the face of hardship, and the costs of human ingenuity.

I’m not going to lie — I book this book on a whim based solely and completely on the fact that the pink astronaut cover grabbed my attention in a bookstore and wouldn’t let me walk away!

Much to my surprise, while In the Quick is a science fiction book about a young engineering prodigy whose obsessive need to understand the why of things leads her into a fiercely competitive astronaut program and ultimately, into interplanetary exploration… it’s also a retelling of Jane Eyre. How wild is that?

In In the Quick, June’s beloved uncle, a renowned pioneer in spaceship engineering, dies when June is twelve. He raised her to think, to question, to seek answers, and she delighted in hovering in the background while his students worked with him on challenging prototypes and design projects. But after his death, June is lost in her aunt’s house, unloved and misunderstood — and when the spaceship Inquiry goes dark after a fuel cell failure, June’s worldview is thrown into chaos.

The fuel cells were her uncle’s greatest achievement. What could have gone wrong, and why? Even past the point when the world seems to have concluded that the Inquiry and its crew are lost, June is compelled to seek answers. She soon enrolls at the National Space Program school, determined to forge a path for herself that takes her into space and gives her the knowledge to understand and unravel the mysteries of the failed fuel cells.

June’s journey ultimately takes her to a moon called the Pink Planet, where swirling silt creates a permanently pink atmosphere, and where exposure to the silt results in a hallucinogenic, numbed state. The Pink Planet is an outpost developed as a jumping off point for the vast voyages intended for the Inquiry and its sister ship, but once the Inquiry mission failed, the Pink Planet stations were left in a state of minimal use and shocking disrepair. Once on the Pink Planet, June reconnects with her uncle’s former student James, who is similarly obsessed with June’s uncle’s work. Together, they begin an intense creative phase to finally solve the puzzle of the fuel cells… and to figure out if there truly is any hope still of finding the Inquiry after all this time.

In the Quick is a fairly short book, and it’s a quick read. It’s oddly compelling — the forays into engineering and design are kept to lightly descriptive passages, so the science is never overwhelming for those of us without advanced degrees. The story of June’s growth and education is interesting, although she’s a somewhat hard character to love. We don’t get very deep into her inner life, apart from her never-satisfied quest for knowledge. We know she experiences loss and loneliness, but the friendships she forms along her journey always feel secondary to her scientific obsession.

It’s entertaining to see the Jane Eyre storylines woven into In the Quick. We’re not beaten over the head with them — if someone reading In the Quick hasn’t read Jane Eyre, they’re not going to feel lost or confused in any way. Instead, there are some basic patterns and motifs built into the story (I had to giggle over the opening scene of June reading a book while hidden away in a window seat), and it’s surprising to see how well it all works in a novel of space exploration and interplanetary travel!

I did find the overall plot to have a somewhat flat effect by the end. There are pieces that are never fully explained — in fact, given how central the Pink Planet is to the story, I don’t believe we’re ever told where it is. We know that it’s a moon, despite being named the Pink Planet, but a moon of what?

The book ends, in my opinion, on a very abrupt note, and left me feeling frustrated. Without saying exactly what the ending is, I’ll just say that I wanted more explained about what had transpired over the years since the Inquiry was lost. June’s obsession with the Inquiry leads to her conviction that the crew was still out there somewhere, alive but unable to power their ship or communicate — but if that’s true, how did they survive all these years? The lack of an explanation felt very unsatifsying to me.

If I had to categorize this book, I’d describe it as “literary science fiction”. It’s an interesting, ambitious novel, with themes of classic literature woven into a space story. Overall, I enjoyed reading In the Quick, but for me, I prefer my sci-fi with a lot clearer grounding in the science of it all. I want to understand the details and marvel at how a work of fiction can make it all seem possible. In the Quick is more about the moods and passions and human drives involved, and while it was a good read, it wasn’t 100% my style of science fiction.

Still, I’m glad I gave in to the impulse to grab a copy! In a year where much of my reading is planned well in advance, it was a treat to read on a whim and experience something unexpected. Jane Eyre in space? Well, that was definitely a new, unexpected twist for me, and I’m happy that I gave it a chance.

10Jun2020

Shelf Control #220: The Last Astronaut by David Wellington

Posted in Shelf Control by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.

Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!

Title: The Last Astronaut
Author: David Wellington
Published: 2019
Length: 400 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

Mission Commander Sally Jansen is Earth’s last astronaut–and last hope–in this gripping near-future thriller where a mission to make first contact becomes a terrifying struggle for survival in the depths of space.
Sally Jansen was NASA’s leading astronaut, until a mission to Mars ended in disaster. Haunted by her failure, she lives in quiet anonymity, convinced her days in space are over.
She’s wrong.
A large alien object has entered the solar system on a straight course toward Earth. It has made no attempt to communicate and is ignoring all incoming transmissions.
Out of time and out of options, NASA turns to Jansen. For all the dangers of the mission, it’s the shot at redemption she always longed for.
But as the object slowly begins to reveal its secrets, one thing becomes horribly clear: the future of humanity lies in Jansen’s hands.

How and when I got it:

I received an ARC from Orbit last summer.

Why I want to read it:

I always love a good space adventure — and throw in women astronauts, especially one trying to save the world — and it all just sounds too perfect for me. My only excuse for not having read this already is that I’ve just had too much else to read, and never got around to it.

What do you think? Would you read this book?

Please share your thoughts!

Literary Potpourri
Bookmarked
Life in the Book Lane
The Book Connection
A Hot Cup of Pleasure

__________________________________

Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:

Write a blog post about a book that you own that you haven’t read yet.
Add your link in the comments!
If you’d be so kind, I’d appreciate a link back from your own post.
Check out other posts, and…

Have fun!

4Aug2019

Book Review: Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

When an Earth-like planet is discovered, a team of six teens, along with three veteran astronauts, embark on a twenty-year trip to set up a planet for human colonization—but find that space is more deadly than they ever could have imagined.

Have you ever hoped you could leave everything behind?
Have you ever dreamt of a better world?
Can a dream sustain a lifetime?

A century ago, an astronomer discovered an Earth-like planet orbiting a nearby star. She predicted that one day humans would travel there to build a utopia. Today, ten astronauts are leaving everything behind to find it. Four are veterans of the twentieth century’s space-race.

And six are teenagers who’ve trained for this mission most of their lives.

It will take the team twenty-three years to reach Terra-Two. Twenty-three years locked in close quarters. Twenty-three years with no one to rely on but each other. Twenty-three years with no rescue possible, should something go wrong.

And something always goes wrong.

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? is set during our lifetime, but in a world in which space exploration has advanced much further than in our own. There have already been successful human missions to Mars and Europa, and now, the ultimate goal is being frantically pursued.

Terra-Two is an Earth-like planet light years away, uninhabited but with atmosphere, geology, and natural resources suited for human life. With advanced technology, it will be possible for an initial expedition to reach Terra-Two with a 23-year flight.

The UKSA (United Kingdom Space Agency) is leading the way, and they’ve come up with a controversial approach: Train children from the age of 11 or 12 in an intensely competitive learning environment, so that by age 18, when the expedition is ready to launch, there will be a crew with a senior team and a younger generation in training. After all, even if they launch as teens, they’ll be in their 40s by the time they land. And once they land, it will be their role to prepare Terra-Two for the colonists coming after them.

As the book opens, we meet the students at Dalton Academy, the space training institution. They’re all fiercely smart, but motivated by different dreams and goals. There’s the rich pretty boy who’s the all-star athlete, who seems to have the easiest, most cushioned life; the twins, who each have secret dreams and desires motivating them; the beautiful girl who speaks over 20 languages but has her own demons, and more.

When an unexpected tragedy occurs the day before launch, the remaining crew is thrown into tumult, and a last-minute substitute is both elated at his opportunity and miserable over feeling like he’ll never be accepted or be good enough.

The book really gets going once the mission has launched. One striking element is how well we readers get a sense of the practically unbearable claustrophobia and monotony of being stuck in a contained vessel with the same small group of people FOR DECADES. Can you imagine how awful that must be, knowing that these other nine people are the only ones you’ll ever see or interact with for twenty-three years? I don’t know how they could manage to not go completely bonkers. (It’s not a spoiler to say that there are some pretty spectacular meltdowns and conflicts along the way — these are high-strung teens, after all.)

The plot of Do You Dream of Terra-Two? is fascinating and thrilling. I’m a sucker for a good space story, and I loved reading about the terror and the challenges of prolonged space flight, as well as the intricate interpersonal relationships that ensue when you have a small group in an enclosed space for such a long time.

I did feel that the book was possibly longer than it needed to be. At 500+ pages, it’s a lot, and sections dragged. Again, I don’t feel it’s a particular spoiler to say that the book does not cover all 23 years, but rather focuses on the lead-up to launch and mainly the first year after that — but it does wrap up in a way that’s both hopeful and satisfying (although one character’s conclusion particularly bothered me, but that’s by intention.)

Is it realistic that a space agency would train teens in this way and then send them into space? Well, maybe not — but even in this book,, we see that this is a controversial program that leads to international inquiries and protests. And because these are teens, despite their advanced training, there are moments of disobedience, rule-breaking, and emotional upset that wouldn’t occur with a more mature crew, yet serve here to create some of the drama between characters that drives the story.

All in all, I really enjoyed reading Do You Dream of Terra-Two?, and by the halfway point, just couldn’t put it down. It’s a great story, very unlike anything else I’ve read lately, and I’m really glad I gave it a chance. If you like stories of space exploration, check this one out!

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: Do You Dream of Terra-Two?
Author: Temi Oh
Publisher: Saga Press
Publication date: August 13 2019
Length: 544 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley

**Save

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17Jul2019

Shelf Control #175: SPACE!!

Posted in Shelf Control by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!

Switching things up a bit this week, I thought I’d include THREE books on one theme: SPACE! I’ve always loved reading about space exploration and the development of the space program (and don’t even get me started on all the variety of fiction — historical, science fiction, contemporary fiction, even horror — set in the context of space). In terms of non-fiction space books, I’ve read a bunch, and I seem to keep accumulating them! Here are three from my shelves that I’ve picked up over the years, but still haven’t read.

Title: An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth
Author: Chris Hadfield
Published: 2013
Length: 295 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

Colonel Chris Hadfield has spent decades training as an astronaut and has logged nearly 4000 hours in space. During this time he has broken into a Space Station with a Swiss army knife, disposed of a live snake while piloting a plane, and been temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft. The secret to Col. Hadfield’s success-and survival-is an unconventional philosophy he learned at NASA: prepare for the worst-and enjoy every moment of it.

In An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, Col. Hadfield takes readers deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible. Through eye-opening, entertaining stories filled with the adrenaline of launch, the mesmerizing wonder of spacewalks, and the measured, calm responses mandated by crises, he explains how conventional wisdom can get in the way of achievement-and happiness. His own extraordinary education in space has taught him some counterintuitive lessons: don’t visualize success, do care what others think, and always sweat the small stuff.

You might never be able to build a robot, pilot a spacecraft, make a music video or perform basic surgery in zero gravity like Col. Hadfield. But his vivid and refreshing insights will teach you how to think like an astronaut, and will change, completely, the way you view life on Earth-especially your own.

Title: Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut
Author: Mike Mullane
Published: 2006
Length: 382 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

On February 1, 1978, the first group of space shuttle astronauts, twenty-nine men and six women, were introduced to the world. Among them would be history makers, including the first American woman and the first African American in space. This assembly of astronauts would carry NASA through the most tumultuous years of the space shuttle program. Four would die on Challenger.

USAF Colonel Mike Mullane was a member of this astronaut class, and Riding Rockets is his story — told with a candor never before seen in an astronaut’s memoir. Mullane strips the heroic veneer from the astronaut corps and paints them as they are — human. His tales of arrested development among military flyboys working with feminist pioneers and post-doc scientists are sometimes bawdy, often hilarious, and always entertaining.

Mullane vividly portrays every aspect of the astronaut experience — from telling a female technician which urine-collection condom size is a fit; to walking along a Florida beach in a last, tearful goodbye with a spouse; to a wild, intoxicating, terrifying ride into space; to hearing “Taps” played over a friend’s grave. Mullane is brutally honest in his criticism of a NASA leadership whose bungling would precipitate the Challenger disaster.

Riding Rockets is a story of life in all its fateful uncertainty, of the impact of a family tragedy on a nine-year-old boy, of the revelatory effect of a machine called Sputnik, and of the life-steering powers of lust, love, and marriage. It is a story of the human experience that will resonate long after the call of “Wheel stop.”

Title: Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon
Author: Craig Nelson
Published: 2009
Length: 404 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

A richly detailed and dramatic account of one of the greatest achievements of humankind

At 9:32 A.M. on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 rocket launched in the presence of more than a million spectators who had gathered to witness a truly historic event. It carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins to the last frontier of human imagination: the moon.

Rocket Men is the thrilling story of the moon mission, and it restores the mystery and majesty to an event that may have become too familiar for most people to realize what a stunning achievement it represented in planning, technology, and execution.

Through interviews, twenty-three thousand pages of NASA oral histories, and declassified CIA documents on the space race, Craig Nelson re-creates a vivid and detailed account of the Apollo 11 mission. From the quotidian to the scientific to the magical, readers are taken right into the cockpit with Aldrin and Armstrong and behind the scenes at Mission Control.

Rocket Men is the story of a twentieth-century pilgrimage; a voyage into the unknown motivated by politics, faith, science, and wonder that changed the course of history.

Other great space reads:

Since I’m talking space, I thought I’d mention three terrific books I’ve read on the subject, one long ago and two others more recently:

The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe: A modern classic. If you want to know more, check out Barbara’s recent post at Book Club Mom!
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach: The science of space travel, presented in (sometimes) gross detail, with tons of hilarity.
Spaceman by Mike Massimino: A terrific memoir, both inspiring and moving.

Do you have any great non-fiction books about space to recommend? Inquiring minds want to know!

__________________________________

Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:

Write a blog post about a book that you own that you haven’t read yet.
Add your link in the comments!
If you’d be so kind, I’d appreciate a link back from your own post.
Check out other posts, and…

Have fun!

12Sep2018

Drop everything and read this book!!! (A review): The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

A meteor decimates the U.S. government and paves the way for a climate cataclysm that will eventually render the earth inhospitable to humanity. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated timeline in the earth’s efforts to colonize space, as well as an unprecedented opportunity for a much larger share of humanity to take part.

One of these new entrants in the space race is Elma York, whose experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place in the International Aerospace Coalition’s attempts to put man on the moon. But with so many skilled and experienced women pilots and scientists involved with the program, it doesn’t take long before Elma begins to wonder why they can’t go into space, too—aside from some pesky barriers like thousands of years of history and a host of expectations about the proper place of the fairer sex. And yet, Elma’s drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions may not stand a chance.

Once again, I find myself in the position of wanting my entire review to simply say:

This book is amazing.

Read it.

Not enough? Okay, I’ll elaborate.

What do you get when you throw 90s asteroid films Deep Impact and Armageddon into a blender with Hidden Figures, The Right Stuff, and Interstellar? Probably something good, but maybe not as thrilling and inspiring as Mary Robinette Kowal’s first of two Lady Astronaut books, The Calculating Stars.

(Yes, this review is going to be one big gushy love fest. Buckle up.)

The Calculating Stars starts with disaster. The year is 1952. Newlyweds Elma and Nathaniel York are enjoying a romantic getaway in an isolated cabin in the Pocono mountains, when there’s a flash that lights up the sky. Atomic bomb? Nope. Elma and Nathaniel are both scientists, and they can rule out a bomb pretty quickly. But the flash is followed by an earthquake that brings the cabin down around them, and they figure out what it must be: a meteorite strike, someplace near enough for them to feel the aftershocks, and they brace for the airblast that they know must follow.

It’s an unimaginable catastrophe. The meteorite has struck Earth just off the eastern seaboard. Washington DC has been obliterated, as have most of the coastal areas of the United States. But this is only the beginning of the disaster. Elma has advanced degrees in both physics and mathematics, and is able to calculate before anyone else that this isn’t just a rough period that society will eventually overcome. The cataclysm and its impact on the world environment will, inevitably, over a period of years, lead to extinction. The Earth will become uninhabitable within their lifetimes.

There’s only one solution: Space. The world’s scientific communities must come together to accelerate research into space travel, with the aim of establishing colonies on the moon and on Mars.

Nathaniel becomes lead engineer for the international space agency, and Elma works in mission control as a computer, one of the brilliant mathematicians who calculate trajectories and all the complicated equations that enable rockets to leave earth and enter orbit. But Elma, a WASP pilot during World War II, has even bigger ambitions. She wants to fly… and she’s determined to become an astronaut.

Those little girls thought I could do anything. They thought that women could go to the moon. And because of that, they thought that they could go to the moon, too. They were why I needed to continue, because when I was their age, I needed someone like me. A woman like me.

This story is just so damned amazing. The author clearly draws heavily from history, and provides a guide to historical events and references and a bibliography. Her depiction of the space race, moved up a decade to the 1950s, feels real and exciting. By placing events in the 1950s, she also captures the social inequities and injustices of the time. The story takes place pre-Civil Rights, pre-feminism and women’s liberation. Women may be able to apply for the astronaut training program, but they’d better be damned sure to put on lipstick first. Their press conferences feature inane questions about what they might cook in space, and the women are forced into skimpy swimsuits for their underwater tests – not the flightsuits the male candidates wore.

The (male) speaker, at a briefing for the first batch of female trainees:

“Good morning. I wish all conference rooms looked this lovely when I walked in.”

Women of color don’t even make it through the door, excluded from the application process entirely, even those with advanced degrees and unbeatable hours as pilots. You might think that in the desperation to save a species, these types of discrimination might fall by the wayside for the greater good of preserving humanity… but people in control tend to want to stay in control. It’s just as infuriating to read about in The Calculating Stars as in any non-fiction account of the era – and because we come to know these women and understand just how amazingly smart and talented they are, it’s all the more frustrating and painful.

Elma is a magnificent lead character, brave and brilliant, but by no means perfect. She has hidden weaknesses to overcome, and battles her own inner demons every step of the way. Elma’s husband Nathaniel is almost too good to be true – a scientist who’s incredibly gifted and dedicated, and yet also a man who adores his wife and supports her in her quest to become an astronaut. Their bedroom banter is adorable in its sexy dorkiness:

He shifted so he could reach between us. His fingers found the bright bundle of delight between my legs and… sparked my ignition sequence. Everything else could wait.

“Oh… oh God. We are Go for launch.”

I think you get the picture. If you’ve stuck with me this far, you can probably tell just how very much I loved this book. My inclination is to move straight on with book #2, The Fated Sky… but I think I want to savor this moment for a bit before continuing (and reaching the end of the story).

The Calculating Stars is a brilliant read, combining a story of people we come to care tremendously about with a world-ending disaster and the human spirit of ingenuity that’s so key to the early days of space exploration. This book is by turns heart-breaking and inspiring, and I loved every moment.

READ THIS BOOK!

Note: In 2012, the author published a short story called The Lady Astronaut of Mars. You could consider The Calculating Stars as a prequel of sorts, as it’s set in the same world and features certain of the same characters. I was charmed and moved by the story when I first read it, and read it again after finishing The Calculating Stars — and was even more moved than I was originally. If you’re interested in the flavor of this world, you can find the story here… but I recommend starting with the novels for the full, rich experience.

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)
Author: Mary Robinette Kowal
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: July 3, 2018
Length: 431 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Purchased

**Save

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14Mar2017

Shelf Control #74: Riding Rockets

Posted in Shelf Control by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! Fore more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.

Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!

My Shelf Control pick this week is:

Title: Riding Rockets
Author: Mike Mullane
Published: 2006
Length: 382 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

On February 1, 1978, the first group of space shuttle astronauts, twenty-nine men and six women, were introduced to the world. Among them would be history makers, including the first American woman and the first African American in space. This assembly of astronauts would carry NASA through the most tumultuous years of the space shuttle program. Four would die on Challenger.

USAF Colonel Mike Mullane was a member of this astronaut class, and Riding Rockets is his story — told with a candor never before seen in an astronaut’s memoir. Mullane strips the heroic veneer from the astronaut corps and paints them as they are — human. His tales of arrested development among military flyboys working with feminist pioneers and post-doc scientists are sometimes bawdy, often hilarious, and always entertaining.

Mullane vividly portrays every aspect of the astronaut experience — from telling a female technician which urine-collection condom size is a fit; to walking along a Florida beach in a last, tearful goodbye with a spouse; to a wild, intoxicating, terrifying ride into space; to hearing “Taps” played over a friend’s grave. Mullane is brutally honest in his criticism of a NASA leadership whose bungling would precipitate the Challenger disaster.

Riding Rockets is a story of life in all its fateful uncertainty, of the impact of a family tragedy on a nine-year-old boy, of the revelatory effect of a machine called Sputnik, and of the life-steering powers of lust, love, and marriage. It is a story of the human experience that will resonate long after the call of “Wheel stop.”

How I got it:

I bought it.

When I got it:

2010 or thereabouts.

Why I want to read it:

I have a soft spot for a good space exploration story! I read Mary Roach’s Packing for Mars when it came out, and thought it was hilarious — and I’m pretty sure I either read or heard her recommending this book. Memoirs by people involved in NASA and the space race and the science of space exploration are just so fascinating to me. I really do need to make a point of reading this one!

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