Skip to main content

The Relentless Moon




You may have heard me talk about The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal (maybe just once or twice). I have said it is my favorite novel of the past decade. That book was the first installment in her “Lady Astronaut” series. It was followed up by The Fated Sky. I have now just finished the third book in the series The Relentless Moon. The Fated Sky was a welcome sequel that fulfilled its promise, and The Relentless Moon does not disappoint.

The first two novels follow the journey of Elma York as she fights her way through the prejudices of her times to be taken seriously as an astronaut. It was a journey that I was glad to follow. Even though she is completely different from me, Elma was a character that touched me. The books dealt with social issues of an alternate history (which has much the same social issues of our own history), but the books were never weighed down by lecturing. They were, in fact, fun. Remember fun?

I was a little concerned as I started reading the third book, as I realized that we are no longer following Elma York, but instead the main character is Nicole Wargin (also a “lady astronaut” who had been introduced to us in the first book). I wanted to continue to follow Elma. But Nicole soon won me over with her depth of character. She may have had help getting into the astronaut program from her husband who was a Senator, now a governor, and soon to be running for president.  And she may have her weaknesses (anorexia), but nonetheless, Nicole is a badass. She is definitely someone you want on your side if you find yourself isolated on the moon with an unknown number of terrorists among the population. She is smart and she’s got skills. Convincing the powers that be that they should actually use her skills is another story, while the people on the moon find themselves going from the frying pan to the fire, to a bigger fire, to a . . . well, you get the picture. The increasing peril that the characters are placed in never feels forced but proceeds logically.

I should mention that the reason we must follow a different lead character in this book is that the events of this book take place roughly at the same time as events of the second book. So, while Elma York is on her way to Mars with the first Martian expedition, Nicole is on her way to the moon to join the lunar colony to try to help sort out a conspiracy. There are certain events that take place in The Relentless Moon that don’t come as a surprise to us who have read the second book. But the plots are so different that nothing is “spoiled” by having read the second book

Mary Robinette Kowal is a master storyteller. I am not a fast reader and it only took me a few days to whip through this 500-plus page book. I didn’t want it to end. I see that there is a planned fourth book in the series (The Derivative Base) slated for release in 2022. I can’t wait. 

(My science fiction novel Star Liner, is now available in paperback or as an e-book through Amazon and other online sources).


Link to Star Liner

Comments

  1. BerniceAugust 30, 2020 at 3:22 PM

    Other than your engaging "Star Liner" I am generally not a science fiction reader. But your description above has made me add two books to my "read" list. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Second Wind

  You have heard about athletes getting their second wind? It is not that they feel better, that they are warmed up and ready to run more easily. It is not psychological (at least, not all psychological). No. There is an actual physiological truth to a second wind. It all has to do with respiration. When I say respiration, I am not talking about breathing. Respiration is a biochemical process that happens at the cellular level. It is how the cell gets energy. There are lots of chemical processes that are constantly going on in each cell, and those processes require energy. Without a constant feed of energy, the cell will die. The more demands there are on a cell, the more energy it needs. For example, every one of your muscle cells need more energy when you are running.   In fact, you won’t be able to run if the cells don’t have sufficient energy for it. The energy currency of the cell is a molecule called ATP. You may have heard that sugar is how our bodies get energy, wh...
1 comment
Read more

The Outsider

  I am reading The Outsider by Stephen King. The first 150 pages or so I found disturbing. Not for the reason you might think. It is not scary, not creepy in a traditional horror way, but disturbing in a tragic way. The first hundred to 150 pages is tragedy on top of tragedy. The most disturbing thing to me (it is disturbing to me anytime I encounter it in any story) is a false accusation. A man is falsely accused and may well be convicted of a horrific crime. That kind of thing disturbs my soul. It makes the whole world seem wrong. I have always been disturbed by stories with that kind of thing. And why not? It happens in real life too. That makes it all the more horrific. In the Jim Crow South, all you had to do was make an accusation against a black man to set the lynch mob in action. No need to bother with a trial. But even if there was a trial, the outcome was a foregone conclusion, innocent or not. We see Vladimir Putin inventing charges against people and they get locked up...
1 comment
Read more

A Child of the . . .

  What was it like to grow up as a child in the 90s? How about the 1940’s? Thinking about a child growing up in each different decade, conjures up images in my mind. But that is all they are: images. I was a child in the 1960’s. I can tell you what it felt like to be growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, but what it felt like to me is not what the history books remember. History will tell you the 60’s was about the Viet Nam War, civil rights, and the space race. The 70’s was Disco and Watergate. I remember being aware of all of those things, but to me this era was about finding time to play with my friends, something I probably share with a child of any decade. It was about navigating the social intricacies of school.   It was about the Beatles, Three Dog Night, The Moody Blues, The Animals, Jefferson Airplane. It was Bullwinkle, the Wonderful World of Color, and Ed Sullivan. There are things that a kid pays attention to that the grown-ups don’t. Then there are things the adults ...
Post a Comment
Read more