Play Book Tag discussion

This was mostly a fun read, telling an alternative history of the 1950s. The world is familiar, but not quite. Dewey not Truman is president in 1952 when the US east coast is decimated by a meteorite landing in the ocean. A physicist/mathematics genius space program computer named Elma, whose husband is the lead engineer on the successful satelite program, very soon after calculates that this is an extinction event just like at the time of the dinosaurs. Colonizing space was no longer a dream for the future, it was now a near immediate necessity.

Emma is also a trained pilot, was a WASP in WWII, and now dreams of becoming an astronaut. Of course, this is the 1950s, and neither 'ladies' of any color nor non-white males were going to be considered. As the book spans the 4 years after the meteorite as the world copes and an international effort races to get to the moon to start colonizing the moon, Elma becomes known as the Lady Astronaut and journeys to making the title reality.

The first third and the last third were pretty strong, just techy and geeky enough to read as real in a book about the NASA space program set in an alternative historical US. The middle third, however, strays into territory that just undermines what was a good story. Towards the very end, in a scene between Emma and another character, I realized the entire plot point that I found so bothersome was a device interjected to create a Sword of Damocles situation for Emma. It was a device that just did not to me fit Emma's character.

And let's talk about the too perfect husband....or let's not. He does fit many women's fantasies though. Other things that irritated me were far too many half described or hinted at conditions or situations that either were left dangling or only explained in a passing comment 100 pages later. Now there is a sequel and 3 short stories that fit together with The Calculating Stars, but these were not major story arcs, just for me evidence of careless writing and editing.

For all those gripes, I did enjoy reading this a lot and intend to read the sequel and series stories. It just did not live up to its promise.

I agree, this was ok but could have been better. The introductory section with the meteorite was great.