heavyboots reviewed The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to Earth and obliterated …
Simultaneously great and frustrating
3 stars
I really like her alternate timeline series; it's fascinating that in this one the women are the ones who get to go to space and that we're rushing to escape a now dying Earth. But on the other hand, she tends to be pretty blunt about beating us over the head time and again with the fight against gender and race prejudices that the characters are going through. Obviously, this is stuff that needs to be brought to light and such, but I did reach my limit usually midway through each of her books and would just want to gloss & skim any part where a character is yet again internally bemoaning the frustrations that she's having with getting everything done that needs to be done when so many people are assuming so much about her incorrectly based on gender/race. It ended up (for me) being almost as irritating as …
I really like her alternate timeline series; it's fascinating that in this one the women are the ones who get to go to space and that we're rushing to escape a now dying Earth. But on the other hand, she tends to be pretty blunt about beating us over the head time and again with the fight against gender and race prejudices that the characters are going through. Obviously, this is stuff that needs to be brought to light and such, but I did reach my limit usually midway through each of her books and would just want to gloss & skim any part where a character is yet again internally bemoaning the frustrations that she's having with getting everything done that needs to be done when so many people are assuming so much about her incorrectly based on gender/race. It ended up (for me) being almost as irritating as it was advocating. And yet I honestly don't know what I'd have the author do differently approaching the issues she's bringing to light? Anyway, just something to be aware of, but definitely not worth stopping you reading the series. It just lowered my overall score of the books slightly.
