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The Calculating Stars book recommendation
🕑 Added 2018-09-28 15:16:26 +0000 UTC Hello! I just flew across the country and would like to recommend a book that made my trip fly by. After being given many glowing recommendations, I finally read The Calculating Stars: A Lady Astronaut Novel by Mary Robinette Kowal, and it was every bit as amazing as my recommenders promised it would be.The Calculating Stars is a hard scifi alternate history where two changes have been made to the universe:
1. Dewey beats Truman, leading to a plausible shift in federal funding where the space program develops just a little faster and digital computing technology is a bit behind.
2. An asteroid creates an urgency to get humanity off the planet.
I'd guess a more than average number of you know that before "computers" were machines, Computer was a job title. Almost always, computers were women, including women of color---at this point in history doing math was an underpaid unglamorous job considered women's work.
A lot of people don't know this, and apparently some readers of this novel have trouble suspending their disbelief, not realizing that this isn't part of the fictional alternate history Mary Robinette Kowal creates! But in fact, before there was money and power in being good at math and programming, women generally did these jobs and it was not considered exceptional for them to like it or be good at it.
In The Calculating Stars, due to the urgency of developing the space program plus the lagging behind of digital computing, the brilliant women computers of the time were less easily dismissed. All the social and political forces that make people want to forget their contributions still exist in this novel, but since the near future of humanity is at stake it's just barely possible for our lady astronaut heroes (including women of color) to fight for inclusion. This book is hard scifi not just in technical details, but also in social and political details.
And it's awesome, and a gripping tale, and it's funny, and delightful, and has lots of math love in it. I even forgive the main character being a Pi person...
So while I work on coming back from vacation and getting back to work, may I recommend reading this excellent book?
Vi
Comments
Vi Hart
The US definitely has its own special brand of sexism that's not quite like anywhere else.
Marek
is this American thing to think woman are not good at math? I have not noticed this in Europe but maybe I'm overlooking something.
Abhayakara
Yes, it was awesome, as was the sequel. Have you read the Murderbot Chronicles? Despite the alarming name, it's actually a really nice (if scientifically improbable) series. The main character is a security android who has to live with the fact that a flaw in her programming caused her to go berserk, hence "murderbot." And yes, Seveneves was fantastic. Unfortunately not enough good hard SF in my recent reading history. :(
