El primero me gustó mucho y creo que este es mejor incluso, quizá porque gran parte sucede en el espacio. Un libro de viaje espacial, con una tripulación carismática y muchas dosis de ciencia bastante fiel a como seria en la realidad, my kind of jam. ( )

I had no idea the second Lady Astronaut book would come out so soon after the first. It was pure luck that it surfaced in one of my news feeds. Kowal's novel series continues to be engrossing, both as an alternate timeline narrative and as a social commentary. If there are no further books in this series, this is a satisfying place to end it. But I still hope there's more.
[Audiobook note: Kowal reads the audiobook herself. She was already one of my favorite readers of other people's novels. So I knew that it would be a treat to hear her read her own work.] ( )

Heart-wrenching in all the right ways. The lives of astronauts are like the lives of everyone: complicated, messy, and in need of a lot of grace. ( )

The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal is the second book in the Lady Astronaut series and it manages to be an even better story than its predecessor. I thought Calculating Stars was a really fascinating alternative history of space flight which I loved. I found it to be a fun and relevant book. The Fated Sky might be an even better read. There is more action, more adversity, more emotion (there are a few devastating moments in this book). The stakes here feel a bit higher and I therefore found it more powerfully written. I think it has to do with the story-line.

Our heroine Elma York gets put on the crew for the first mission to Mars working again with Stetson Parker (a man she hates). The main crux of the novel is about how not only Elma and Parker must find ways to get along on a multiple year long mission to Mars but how the rest of the crew (which is highly diverse) must overcome adversity and the assumptions of that Parker and Elma often place upon them. The tension of being stuck on a space ship with a diverse array of individuals and someone like Parker (who very much embodies the sexist, racist Mad Men 1960s trope) makes from some fascinating character interactions. Additionally, there are riveting technical scenes of operations aboard the space shuttle gone awry. Some of these descriptions are just as riveting as the technical aspects of an Andy Weir or alastair reynolds novel. Elma York continues to be a charming, smart, woman who we willingly cheer on as her and her crew near Mars.

This really was a great continuation of the story started in The Calculating Stars. I look forward to reading The Restless Moon soon. ( )

Every bit as good as the first one. ( )