The Calculating Stars

Hidden Figures meets the Big Bang in Mary Robinette Kowal's The Calculating Stars (#759).  In this alternative history novel of America's Space Race, it's 1952 when a meteorite strikes the East Coast of the United States, wiping out most of the cities along with it.  Dewey was President, and the United States has already successfully launched three satellites ahead of their rivals, the Russians.

Elma York is in the Poconos with her husband, head engineer for the satellite program, when the strike occurs.  Her skills as a WASP pilot during World War II allow them to escape the devastation all around them in her small Cessna.  They make it safely to Wright-Patterson Airfield, the closest surviving installation, where Dr. York is immediately pressed into service.  What those in charge fail to realize at first is that Elma, too, is Dr. York, with doctorates in both physics and mathematics.  With refugees pouring in from the East Coast, she is reduced to passing out drinks to the new arrivals instead of using her unique skills.  As she soon discovers, she is not alone.  Many of the women around her are equally unhappy with being forced back into a "happy homemaker" role after serving in critical roles during the War.  Some with those same skills were never even given the chance to serve because of their race or nationality.

This book was hard to put down.  Elma York is a well-rounded character, appealing as both the heroine of disaster survival, and emotionally in her attempts to use her incredible skills to overcome the casual dismissal of her work because she is a woman.  She soon has her eyes opened to realize that she is having an easy time of it, compared to many of those around her.  Once she makes up her mind to become a "Lady Astronaut" in fact as well as PR releases, you can't help but root for her.

If you are at all interested in the Space Program, or saw or read Margot Lee Shetterly's wonderful non-fiction account of real-life "computers" Hidden Figures, this book should be right up your alley.  I can't wait for the second book in this Lady Astronaut series - The Fated Sky - to come out in August!
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