So far in the Lady Astronaut series, we have followed the travels of Elma York, but in The Relentless Moon, Kowal switches narrators to Nicole Wargin. Nicole is one of the original six "lady astronauts," like Elma, but she is older than Elma (just past 50 as the novel begins) and is married to the governor of Kansas who is considering a run for the presidency. This book is essentially the same time as The Fated Sky, but tells the story of the those who are colonizing the Moon, rather than those going to Mars.
This series is so good. I thought it would be jarring to have a new narrator, but it really wasn't. Kowal just does such a great job of introducing characters and giving them depth that I didn't really miss Elma. This is another character that Kowal has created who is in a long-term happy marriage and I really can't stress enough how refreshing it is to read about two adult humans who clearly love each other, attempt to communicate clearly, and enjoy each other's company, but have been together for longer than a year. It's truly a joy.
I was not prepared for this to be partially about a pandemic, though. As soon as "quarantine" was mentioned, I felt a bit sick to my stomach, but I did persevere. Because, although there was an illness plotline, this book is really about racism and sexism and how to deal with it and how not to deal with it and although it's all a little rich coming from a white lady author, I also like how Kowal deals with that in the book by having the privileged white lady have to confront "doing nothing" as an option, even as she butts against it.
I am pleasantly surprised by how much I love this book. With Becky Chambers, Martha Wells, and now Mary Robinette Kowal, my list of women writing sci-fi has increased dramatically in recent months.
Notable lines:
1) "There's nothing wrong with being short, and under normal circumstances I wouldn't have hit an area that he was sensitive about, but let me tell you a joke that is not funny. When you see a woman with stitches in her chin and ask her what she did to make her husband angry.
There are two scenarios. The first is she's happily married and you've insulted their relationship. The other is that her husband is abusive and she will not thank you for endangering her by drawing attention to it. In the range of possibilities in between, there's not a single one in which a joke about being a battered woman is funny." (pages 54-55)
I will leave this for you to ponder.
2) "It's amazing how many lies one can tell with the truth." (page 94)
Even when people in healthy marriages try, sometimes miscommunication is on purpose.
3) "And then I remember that you are essentially a cat and really only tolerate people. There are, perhaps, twenty-seven people in all the worlds that you find genuinely appealing. This is one of your charms, I think, but I am somewhat biased. I might be counting high. Maybe you only like ten." (page 470)
I think my husband is like a cat and I suspect the number of people he genuinely enjoys being around could be counted on one hand.
No comments:
Post a Comment