Like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.Įxcept that human beings are capable of figuring out what is coming. That water strike was an extinction-level event.
That’s what she does, she’s a mathematics genius who can do most of the work in her head.Īnd the results, eventually confirmed by climatologists and meteorologists around the world, is chilling in its results. Which initially is thought to be better – for extremely select definitions of better – but is actually much, much worse than a land strike.Īs Elma York flies herself and her husband inland to someplace where there might still be “civilization” or at least safety, she begins the calculations. Because the meteor strikes water and not land. It turns out to be the Chesapeake Bay, or thereabouts. Nathaniel and Elma York are vacationing in the Poconos when they witness, from a barely safe enough distance, a meteor crashing into the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. The first is the very big bang that sets off the entire story.
They happen simultaneously and are completely interwoven, but there are three of them just the same. There are three, let’s call them prongs, to this story. And those are three things that are just not meant to go together. The Calculating Stars is enthralling, exhilarating and infuriating, sometimes in equal measure. And I’m still not sure I’m going to manage it. This was one of those times when I had to put off writing my review for a few days after finishing the book so that I could tone down the squeeing and be halfway coherent. 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.Įlma’s drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space, and requires a much larger share of humanity to take part in the process.Įlma York’s experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place in the International Aerospace Coalition’s attempts to put man on the moon, as a calculator. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs.
On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington D.C. Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Genres: alternate history, science fiction
Source: purchased from Audible, supplied by publisher via Edelweissįormats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1) by Mary Robinette Kowal
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