Science Fiction & Fantasy Award Winning Book Group discussion

Hello everyone,

This month's group read is The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. We're reading it because it won The 2019 Hugo Award. It also won the Locus Award and the Nebula Award.

Sorry for the late start in December - real life stuff got in the way - but I hope this will be a fun and uplifting read for the holiday season!

This has been on my TBR list for years now. And it is different from what I thought it might be. I will be interested to know how men like this one. I think this will have different views by gender and age.

Same, I've had an ecopy languishing in my kindle for ages

I'm about 20% into the story and so far it's promising. The characters are a little.bland but we'll see how we go.

However, I have just finished (view spoiler)[the sex scene and it is possibly the funniest and most cheesy scene I've read in ages. I laughed out loud at "we are go for launch". (hide spoiler)]

OK, I've finished the book.

It had some good bits. I thought Elma and Nathaniel were a very sweet couple - I really enjoy seeing loving supportive relationships in fiction.
The parts where they were grieving all the people lost in the blast and the holocaust were very touching.

On the other hand, I felt like there just wasn't enough in the story about the plans to save humanity - it didn't feel like there was enough urgency or enough difficult choices, or enough good, old, fashioned SF info-dumping, lol.

I really liked this one. You are right about the SF info-dumping lack. I like alternate history, and this was well done. The gender and racial and religious discrimination were true to the 50's and still today. (In the 70's I was often the only or one of very few women in a male dominated BBA program.) So I was frustrated for Elma and the other women.

The lack of urgency to get going did bother me, but humans seem to be able to ignore even the most dire warnings when they are inconvenient or difficult.

I will be continuing on with this series when I get the chance. I'm still curious about how men might feel about this one. Any new thoughts?

Let me know how to rest of the series goes.

I didn't love it but I wonder if that's becuase I was expecting a selfcontained novel, and this is really the first act. Maybe there will be a lot more action in the next installments.

I read this one a few years ago and rated it pretty high but I had no interest in a reread and I didn't continue the series.

This felt like a rewrite of a classic science fiction story but updated for today's reader. I thought it was well written with interesting characters. The characters were better written than in most hard sci-fi, especially the 'classic' stuff. Having said that the story bored me. It felt like I had read it several times before and seen it in multiple movies. Maybe the story improves and moves in different directions in the following books but I'll pass.

I will say that if ever there is someone in my life who is interested in trying sci-fi for the first time this one might make the list. Approachable, well written and modern.

Nick wrote: I didn't love it but I wonder if that's because I was expecting a selfcontained novel,

How much do you think your opinion would change if you knew it was the first in a series? I just ask because I'm always interested in how people think about series. I typically love a good long series, especially if there is good character growth. But some people prefer standalones and short series, like a duology or trilogy. Also some series have self contained books where you can read them out of order while in others you can't.

Deb this novel in my opinion is exactly what the sad puppies hated and railed against. A female author with a female pov and progressive ideas. I don't have a problem with the novel in those areas but I was never a sad puppy. :)

I think my opinion would have been less favorable if I hadn't known it was the first of a series. Not horribly, but expecting a resolution and not getting anything can be so frustrating. But I can get easily bored with series if they don't further the story.

Sad puppies probably didn't like this one very much.

Jon wrote: "How much do you think your opinion would change if you knew it was the first in a series?"

I am a lot more patient with 'long stories'. Like, 18th century novelists wrote enormous books with thousands of words wasted on the scenery or other stuff that would be ruthlessly edited in a modern novel. I give them a pass because they were writing in a different time and they do get to the point eventually.

I think if I'd been judging this book as 'act 1' I would be kinder to it. I'd think of it as 'a bit of a slow start, but characters are interesting enough so let's see where it goes'.
As a single novel I wanted more science and more action.