It has been five years since the last Lady Astronaut novel (The Relentless Moon) so to say that getting reacquainted with Elma York (especially since that most recent novel didn’t have the focus on Elma) and her husband Nathanial is a most welcome. This fourth novel jumps ahead some more years and takes place in 1970, with global tension son the rise while colonizing Mars becomes a priority.
Years after a meteorite strike obliterated Washington, D.C.—triggering an extinction-level global warming event—Earth’s survivors have started an international effort to establish homes on space stations and the Moon.
The next step – Mars.
Elma York, the Lady Astronaut, lands on the Red Planet, optimistic about preparing for the first true wave of inhabitants. The mission objective is more than just building the infrastructure of a habitat – they are trying to preserve the many cultures and nuances of life on Earth without importing the hate.
But from the moment she arrives, something is off.
Disturbing signs hint at a hidden disaster during the First Mars Expedition that never made it into the official transcript. As Elma and her crew try to investigate, they face a wall of silence and obfuscation. Their attempts to build a thriving Martian community grind to a halt.
What you don’t know CAN harm you. And if the truth doesn’t come to light, the ripple effects could leave humanity stranded on a dying Earth…
There are dangers in colonization and they just aren’t from the harsh environment. Politics make things fraught with stress and potential dangers as do some events of the very recent past that were buried only to be rediscovered. Something occurred during that first mission to Mars, but there’s no record of it and people who Elma thinks might know something (i.e. the people on Mars who helped to build the Bradbury habitat) about it aren’t saying anything.
The novel is set largely on the surface of Mars and in orbit around Mars. We get snippets of the continuing chaos and unrest on Earth. Part of the underlying tension comes from how the “Martians” are dealing with what they learn about current events on Earth, and that political potboil definitely has an affect on later developments later in the novel.
Throughout these novels, Kowal backs her story with solid science – she consults with Astronauts after all. Nothing posited seems far-fetched. As the time of the series gets farther away from the meteor strike that started everything and closer to our current day, some of the “headlines” about current Earth events that preface each chapter resonate with our current world. On one hand, that’s still almost 60 years separating the publication date of the novel and time in which the novel is set. On the other, science (especially as it relates to space travel and habitation) has been forced to advanced at a different pace than our own world, so the political climate of the novel resonating with our world isn’t too big a leap.
What keeps these novels going; however, are the characters and Kowal has crafted extremely charming characters in Elma, Nathaniel, Leonard, Nicole, Parker (it was unexpectedly nice to see him return) as well as all the others. There was a scene towards the end the end of the novel that I found very believable: Elma is a problem solver, she’s always trying to make things right. Her role is somewhat reversed and somebody else is leading an initiative and had to put Elma in her place. It was a genuine moment and the kind of interaction I’d expect to see between trusted colleagues and friends.
I said in my review of the first book of the series (The Calculating Stars) that Elma and Nathaniel very much remind think of her as Leslie Knope and her husband Ben Wyatt (from the great TV show Parks and Recreation). I adore that show and a big part of it is their relationship. Kowal captures something akin to that with Elma and Nathaniel, because they shine and are of course the stars of the novel and series.
While set in the past, The Lady Astronaut novels and stories are forward thinking, aspirational novels of what science could be and can do for humanity. Again, the comparison to Parks and Recreation is apt because that show is hopeful and about government (if a relatively small subset of the government). Kowal gets so much right in these novels and if this is the final novel in the series, she’s accomplished something really special with these books.
Recommended.
© 2025 Rob H. Bedford
March 2025 | Tor
384 Pages | Trade Paperback
http://maryrobinettekowal.com
Review copy courtesy of the publisher, Tor
Excerpt: https://reactormag.com/excerpts-the-martian-contingency-by-mary-robinette-kowal/
