Publisher's Weekly Review
Kowal continues her exquisite exploration of race and gender relations in an alternate 1961 that is still shockingly close to our own. 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. 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. 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. 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. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
After successfully establishing base colonies on the moon, the International Space Coalition looks to the next step: traveling to Mars. Lady Astronaut Elma York definitely wants in on that trip, but this voyage will be both historic and especially dangerous. It's 1961, and the burgeoning civil rights movement may finally see individuals of all races on equal footing across the globe. But in the meantime, Elma must face the ups and downs of being a woman in a male-dominated field as she struggles to make her mark. As a nearly three-year trip to the next planet in our solar -system looms, will Elma be able to leave her husband and chance at a family behind? VERDICT This gripping follow-up to The Calculating Stars is a near-perfect combination of real-world issues set in an alternate universe. Highlighting the racial tensions of the early 1960s with a frantic race for space colonization, Kowal's deft writing is sf at its best.-Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.