The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal

A lot of critical readers are being hard on this one. I think it's better than that, but in the end still not amazing.

The setting is a space cruise liner on a trip to Mars, set in the late 21st century. The author gives us touches of background that can help with understanding some of the plot elements, but it's such a light touch that it's easy to miss. Dogs are very rare and only the wealthy can afford them, thus her little Westie (a darling breed) is much doted upon and useful in our protagonist's crime solving. How this came to be the case would have been helpful, though it might be hard to know when to stop (it sort of seems like our present conditions continued in a straight line, with income inequality getting more severe?). But this story is all about the crime solving. The protagonist (Tesla Crane) is a daughter of privilege but has suffered a horrific accident that has left her in chronic pain. Her pain and her wealth feature prominently in the crime solving.

As a mystery though, it's not a great one. I won't totally spoil the ending except to say that I don't think it works given the state of technology at the time, or even now for that matter. Tesla Crane is concerned about equity and treating less powerful people well, but that goes right out the window when her new husband is accused of the murders. Some find that to be a bug, but it might be a feature for me--Tesla is a pretty accurate portrayal of white privilege, in that she makes full use of it when she feels that she needs to.

It's a decently fun read, but not super compelling. A generous 3 stars.

My Goodreads Review

The Relentless Moon, by Mary Robinette Kowal

I've enjoyed this series so far--fairly light reading but has good takes on serious topics, including climate change, women's rights and racism. The series is coming together as a world, centered on the United States, that has to grow up faster than they would want.

This entry in the series is pretty typical. We get the perspective of Nicole Wargin, astronaut and society woman married to an aspiring presidential candidate. She has a lot of difficult territory to navigate, including severe anorexia. The action is solid, though the villains are still mostly faceless.

For me it's a 3.5 rounded up. I have some misgivings. Mostly I think it's OK to gloss the science a bit in order to develop characters, but in this case the science on the challenges of living in space, particularly on the Moon, is pretty readily available. There's basically no way the early astronauts from 1968 on could have stayed on the moon any longer than they did. The dust got into their suits and equipment. The suits were leaking like sieves when they left. We aren't particularly close to figuring out how to have self-sustaining space colonies, and all that gets glossed in order to drive the plot on how to escape earth. With the technology demonstrated in this series so far, they couldn't save anyone.

For a fun and entertaining read that keeps up with current sensibilities this works just fine.

My Goodreads Review

The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It's no surprise this novel scooped up all the major awards this year. It's a solid book by a veteran author in a year of many good first efforts and less great books from the usual suspects. It showcases how SF can illuminate current events, and has enough hard SF in it to be satisfying to a technical fan. Is it the best thing I ever read? Not quite. As much as this book sprawls (covering race, gender, and religious discrimination, as well as science denial) it ends up missing a lot that's important in alternate histories. The tension comes entirely from the aforementioned social context issues, and while that's real, in the outside world those issues intertwine with geopolitics and personal conflict. We get none of the latter. The result for me is that Elma's story is compelling (I eagerly read it all the way through) but not really challenging in any way. Stetson Parker, overbearing white-guy test pilot, is about the only character with any real complexity in the book.

Still, I liked it, and it's an easy book to like.



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The Worshipful Society of Glovers, by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Worshipful Society of Glovers is a well-executed morality tale, with the magic drivers being gloves and brownies.  The protagonist is a journeyman glover closing in on master status, but his financial and home position is precarious--in addition to having only just enough money to buy into the necessary training, his sister has severe and life-threatening epilepsy that distracts him.  Temptation presents in the form of black-market gloves, a pair of which are used to push him over the edge.

What Kowal does well here is to present the moral dilemma starkly but with nuance.  Could all the possible choices be bad?  Fun to read, and a worthy award nominee (in this case the Locus awards).

The Lady Astronaut of Mars, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal has nice range as an author.  She can do an effective hard SF story, and also does well in fantasy.  The Lady Astronaut of Mars falls on the hard SF side, but it is really more of a human relations story.

We have an alternate history element--in this history Washington, D.C. was obliterated by a meteorite strike early in the space age (insert politician doom joke here).  Earth was thus energized to pursue space travel in self defense, trying to start colonies elsewhere in order to ensure continuity of the race.  We thus went to Mars with technology similar to that which took us to the Moon.

Our protagonist is one of the first (and very few) female astronauts.  She has both taken advantage of this, and been held back by it.  But she was one of the most popular figures in the space program.  She is now 63, and her husband, who did (and sometimes still does) programming for the space program is in very poor health.  They live on Mars.

She is offered the opportunity to travel to a nearby star with an inhabitable planet.  Near light speed, but she will still be gone three years.  Her husband will die soon.  Should she go, or not?  That's the frame in which the emotions play out.

It's a good story, and worth the time to read.  3 stars from me.

Glamour in Glass, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Glamour in Glass is the second in Mary Robinette Kowal's series about Jane and David Vincent, Jane being the main character.  They are done in the style of Jane Austen, with magic.  In this one they become involved in Napoleon's return from his first exile.

I would say the books are decent but not quite my cup of tea--but then again that's why I'm reading the award nominees.  I am looking for reading challenges.  Not that this book is in any way challenging--it's a nice light read.  Certainly not going to keep you up at night.  It's well-done and all, Kowal is a good writer.  But it is definitely intended to appeal to a very specific audience, possibly the same one as Tina Conolly's Ironskin.  Or possibly a less specific audience--these are romance novels, with magic in them.  Approachable for that audience.  So I'm not really a romance reader and don't get as much out of them--that's OK.  3 stars from me, and may you enjoy it. 

Evil Robot Monkey, by Mary Robinette Kowal

When you read a really short story it can be a pretty challenging review. This review will be almost as long as the story. Evil Robot Monkey is a vignette of an experiment wherein a chimp is given a brain implant that enhances his intelligence. But he isn't human, so he is still in captivity and on display. Working clay preserves his sanity. The story includes comments, and Kowal says she is thinking of writing a longer tale with chimp and keeper because she likes them. Plenty of room for that. Three stars, go take five and read it.

Kiss Me Twice, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Next up for Nebula nominees in 2012 is Kiss Me Twice, by Mary Robinette Kowal, in the Novella category.  Close collaboration between an AI and human is an old theme.  My first SF novel that affected me emotionally was The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein.  I was very moved when the AI lost too many nodes to be conscious.

Kowal's entry is quite fine.  We have an AI with somewhat realistic computing capabilities (indeed, along those lines it probably doesn't go far enough), and a lonely detective that encourages "her" emotional side.  The adventure is a good police procedural and nicely tense, with likeable characters throughout.  The story is ripe for a breakout--the AIs seem about ready to go independent, I might be curious to see that.  It makes a good try at imagining what "life" would be like for a being that normally never goes offline, if they do so unexpectedly.  Good fun and a great read.  I gave it four stars, somewhat impulsively but so what.

Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Continuing my reading of award winners, I have just finished Shades of Milk and Honey.  Also available at a public library near you.  Makes me glad for some compulsive tendencies on reading, as it is not something normally in my comfort zone.  Kowal sets out to write a novel in the style of Jane Austen.  I have never read Jane Austen, at least not more than paragraphs, so I get an echo here.  It's a shortish and easy read.  The speculative part is only one power, that of "glamour", which closely associates with femininity though it is a form of illusion.  Like beauty, some men work in it particularly well.  It's a standard plot, fitting for a style novel, wherein our "plain Jane" heroine, though smart and skilled, is not thought of as wife material and is resigned to spinsterhood.  And yet she is the one who must save her family honor.  The action is satisfying, if a bit long delayed.  And the novel actually closes off, so there's not a lot of room for a sequel.  Unlikely she'll revisit the space, though it is possible.  There is a somewhat weak attempt to age the spelling--"shewed" for "showed" is about the only instance, but it's used a lot--and it wasn't necessary.  The style is carried in the choice of words, the spelling was not important.  Not quite four stars, but I will give it a comfortable three.

For Want of a Nail, by Mary Robinette Kowal

For Want of a Nail gives a good lesson in both the development of artificial intelligence, and in single points of failure.  Cordelia is the ship's AI, a beloved figure because she does all kinds of handy things for the ship.  But an accident exposes the fact that she's been covering for her last "wrangler", who should have been "recycled".  It's well told with sympathetic characters.  A strong Hugo contender.  Though I don't quite get the title, it is quoted in the story but still doesn't quite fit.

Kowal has a novel nominated as well, which I hope to read once I make my way up the library queue.