The Martian Contingency

December 9, 2024
The tense fourth alternate history in Kowal’s Hugo Award–winning Lady Astronaut series (after The Relentless Moon) traces the dicey late 1960s Second Expedition to establish a human settlement on Mars. After 26 million people were killed by a 1952 meteor strike that set off catastrophic global warming, scientists recruited from across the world constructed the Martian Bradbury Base in 1963. It was piloted to the red planet by Elma York, aka “Lady Astronaut,” a Jewish aviator and mathematician who became the public face of the space program during WWII. Deeply in love with her husband Nathaniel, a space engineer, Elma at 48 is now second in command for the Second Mars Expedition, this time with the intent of settling the red planet for good. Soon after setting foot on Mars’s sulfurous surface, however, Elma’s lifelong conviction that something always goes wrong is confirmed by unsettling discoveries about the fate of the first expedition. Now Elma must overcome hot flashes, sexism, racial tensions, and political machinations to find out what happened. Though Elma occasionally comes off as preachy, it’s a pleasure to watch this hypercompetent woman succeed. Kowal’s fans will not be disappointed.

February 1, 2025
Elma York, lady astronaut, has a major leadership challenge ahead of her as second-in-command of the new Mars habitat. As soon as she arrives, she notices little oddities, from painted-over hate speech on a wall to an unlogged patch in a cargo bay. The members of the first Mars expedition say it's no big deal, and--space being space--she is soon confronted with a much more immediate problem. One of their supply drops exploded on impact, and it was the one carrying parts to make Dome 2's HVAC system. The entire fate of the space program hinges on successful improvisation. The solution is complicated by the question of whether the explosion was an unhappy accident or sabotage; events of the first Mars mission may not be as irrelevant as the original crew implied. This isn't just a story about a space expedition; it's about people preparing to make a home. Ultimately, relationships are the key to this thoughtful wrap-up to York's time in the spotlight that leaves plenty of room for Kowal to return to the series (which began with The Calculating Stars, 2018) if the whim strikes.

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