Elma was trying to be portrayed as holier than thou, but at several places she came off as self-centered jerk. Characterizations in this book felt quite weird to me. Does the author not know any other way of referring to that? I was irritated by repeat of this from the beginning. This book again starts with the "rocket launch" innuendo. If you liked book one, just go ahead and read this one. Not a stellar recommendation? Sorry, it's what I got. The one redeeming quality: You don't have to endure the overinundation of repetitive foreplay talk and the idealized marital relationship that hijacked book one. If the lack of action in book one bothered you, book two is worse. Even so, this installment did press the edges of my interest by the end. But it's well written, which is more than I can say for the many other novels I have started and abandoned in the last few weeks, and I enjoyed it. This is a slice of life story dressed up in astronaut's gear - to the nines. With that off my chest, a review: This series has been critiqued for being low on sci fi but excessive on characterization and interpersonal drama. Thank heavens she backed off of the caricature voices and the disturbing emotive outbursts as the story went on or I wouldn't have been able to finish these books.
(Aug.Mary Robinette Kowal should not read for the audio renditions of her work. The clever details of life in space-from baking challah in zero gravity to finding tricks for communicating privately, as well as the more horrifying practicalities of how to deal with illness and corpses-create an immersive world that will stay with the reader well past the final page. For Elma and her colleagues on both ships, contained in close quarters for three years far from family and friends, the journey is filled with tension, joy, terror, and sorrow, including the deaths of crew members and an anxious period when contact with Earth is cut off. After she survives being taken hostage by a terrorist organization opposed to space travel, Elma is asked to join the first Mars mission, replacing a close friend and incurring the resentment of the existing crew. The stunning second part of Kowal’s duology picks up 10 years after a meteor strikes Earth (depicted in The Calculating Stars) with series heroine Elma now serving as a pilot to the lunar colony. Kowal continues her exquisite exploration of race and gender relations in an alternate 1961 that is still shockingly close to our own.
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