The Lady Astronaut of Mars

By Mary Robinette Kowal Rip-off! (Audible) and Tor.com

This is a very readable story of Elma York, aged 63, who led the way to start a colony on Mars thirty years previous to the start of the book. I stumbled across this novella well after it was published (it was winner of the Hugo Novelette Award in 2014) and it appealed to me in several ways.

Firstly, this is no far-fetched tale of alien worlds and the sophisticated equipment needed to "boldly go"—although the technical details are solidly based—but it is set, for the most part, on Mars in an artificial dome that functions very much like the world we know on Earth. This gives us an already familiar atmosphere (no pun intended) without the need for extra special effects. The new settlement was planned after a large asteroid hit Earth and the nations of our world realised that they needed to unite to find a better future for the human race elsewhere and so the move to the Red Planet was set in motion. We have descriptions of the current (dusty) living quarters on Mars, the tourists at the space centre, the need for vitamin D, the effects of space radiation, and Elma, the main character, looking back at space history and her own pioneering role in it.

Elma is a true pioneer, as a female astronaut and as one of the key people in the First Mars Expedition. She was the focus of a massive publicity campaign to promote it, a poster girl to drum up support for the move to another planet. It gives an interesting take on the struggle that women go through to find their place in space, and beyond, the pressure to be presentable, and the balancing act between work life and home life. We learn about her marriage to and partnership with Nathanial, a space engineer programmer, still working despite weakening health. Elma has to take a hard decision.

It is also a story about the importance of role models, especially for women, as we meet another character, Dorothy, seen both as a child when Elma was most recognisable, and as she is in the current situation, a doctor on Mars. I enjoyed the very human side of this tale of trailblazing in the stars, and felt that the scenario was credible. I warmed to the main characters and was gripped until the end.

And it’s available in an audio format too (it appeared first in fact as an audio book in 2012) and can thus reach a wider audience. Which it deserves to. There are two other stories in this mini-series, The Fated Sky and The Calculating Stars, covering other periods of the Lady Astronaut’s career, but they can be read independently.