Mary Robinette Kowal returns to the universe she created in the award winning The Calculating Stars. It’s 1970 and Elma York is a member of the second expedition to Mars. The Martian Contingency (hard from TOR) details problems faced by the astronauts including a crashed supply dump, pregnancy, and problems exacerbated by the racial and sexual tensions of the era. On Earth the coming intense global warming effects from the meteor are beginning and I look forward to the next installment.

Compelling from the start! I loved getting to revisit these characters and this alternate universe, and it's enjoyable to see how time has progressed to 1970 both on Earth and on the Mars habitat. (Am I wrong for hoping for another companion novel from Nicole's POV?)

THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY by Mary Robinette Kowal is her latest Lady Astronaut Novel and I am noting that there are four titles in the series because I believe they should be read in order, even though I started with the last one and was happily captivated by the characters and their adventures. Kowal won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award for the first book in this series, The Calculating Stars, a title in which she introduces an alternate history and the struggles in the 1950s and beyond by a group of women striving to be astronauts. Subsequent novels take place on the Moon and the latest one chronicles efforts to inhabit Mars. Throughout, Elma York is a key character, standing up for what she believes, taking on added command responsibilities, and dealing with personal and professional relationships. The publisher notes "The mission objective is more than just building the infrastructure of a habitat - they are trying to preserve the many cultures and nuances of life on Earth without importing the hate." There's an interesting contrast between actual 1970s headline stories which begin most chapters and the racism and sexism the astronaut core is working to erase. Survival, of course, is another key theme and THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY contains both mishap and mystery, plus friction with Mission Control. Although I was surprised at the amount of "cheesy" banter between married astronauts, I definitely recommend this series. In her acknowledgments, Kowal notes how calendar and culture are so intertwined. Citing numerous holidays and using diary-like entries, she definitely conveyed that idea in this novel and she encourages readers to check out the TEDtalk "What Time is it on Mars?" Enjoy! 4.5 stars overall

https://www.ted.com/talks/nagin_cox_what_time_is_it_on_mars

An excellent edition to a terrific series! The Martian Contingency is a powerful continuation of the story of Elma York, the Lady Astronaut who is one of the pioneers of humanity's journey into space following a cataclysmic event on Earth. The characters are amazing, the storytelling is masterful, and the overall world-building and plotlines are fascinating. The entire series is highly recommended.

Did I enjoy this book?
Greatly.

Do I recommend it?
Yes. I need more people to read it and the whole series!

This series is hard sci-fi at its very best and The Martian Contingency continues that trend. What I love about the stories is that I get totally lost in them. They are one of the few books where I lose all sense of reality when reading. Robinette Kowal’s writing is so emotive. I am sure I was getting secondary anxiety at one point because my connection to Elma was just so strong. I want more than anything to be a part of the Bradbury Base crew. With their banter, comradery and flaws you can’t help falling in love with them.
The book also made me angry. Robinette Kowal is never afraid to address social issues and this one in particular filled me with justified rage. It takes real skill to be able to do this in a way that is realistic and in keeping with the story.
I couldn’t but this book down, racing through the story because I just needed to know what happened. A part of me wish I had savoured it a little more. Elma and Nathanial are one of my favourite literary couples. Even if sometimes they frustrate me to Mars and back.

If you like hard sci-fi then this is a must read. Even if you don’t like hard sci-fi you should give the first bool in the series a go because I think most people will love it.


Any criticisms?
No. Wait, the long acknowledgement that made me think I had longer left in the book hah!

Will I read it again?
Maybe. I would like to do a full series reread but *looks at TBR pile*.

Will I read the sequel?
Yes. Please. I would love a sequel but I don’t know if there will be one.

For fans of:
Imagine someone combined Hidden Figures with The Martian. I would also say the Murderbot series because it is that same level of hard sci-fi.

The Martian Contingency is the Fourth installment in author Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut Series. Set in an alternate history where a meteorite strike in 1952 devastates Earth and accelerates humanity’s push to the stars, this novel finds Elma York aka the Lady Astronaut and her team on Mars, tasked with laying the groundwork for a permanent human presence. Elma has been instrumental in getting women in the space program, while also helping getting people to the Moon, and now Mars where the story takes place where she will have more of a command responsibility.

Elma's optimistic about building a habitat that preserves Earth’s diverse cultures without its prejudices—a noble goal in a timeline where humanity’s survival hinges on escaping a dying planet. One of the main challenges has been a terrorist group known as Earth First which has caused serious damage to the plans of saving as many people on Earth before it's too late. But from the outset, something feels off. Kowal introduces a mystery rooted in the First Mars Expedition, hinting at a disaster buried in silence.

As Elma digs deeper into what happened during First Mars Expedition that seems to be buried in secrets and silence, she and her husband Nathaniel face a litany of challenges and cascading technical failures that threaten the mission. The stakes are clear: uncovering the truth could mean the difference between a thriving Martian colony and humanity’s extinction. The science, as always, is a highlight. Kowal’s explanations are accessible yet rigorous, grounding the narrative in a way that invites readers to geek out over Martian engineering while still feeling the weight of human stakes.

Still, those less versed in STEM might find themselves skimming, though the emotional core keeps the story relatable. Those who don't like to be preached at via religion or about abortion will likely find this book highly uncomfortable since the author spends way too much time on both. Compared to the series’ earlier entries, this book pushing Elma into new territory—literally and figuratively—while wrestling with the consequences of past missions. It’s not a standalone; familiarity with The Fated Sky and The Relentless Moon enriches the experience, as callbacks to prior events and characters deepen the stakes.

Where were you in 1952 when the asteroid hit the Atlantic Ocean and destroyed the Eastern Seaboard? The US capitol moved to Kansas City and NASA began a furious program to develop space travel. The Earth is dying and the human race has to make it to Mars as soon as possible. It is now 1972 and the Second Martian Contingent had arrived on the Red Planet and are working to build a habitat. But what they discover is that several of the previously shipped cargo flights crashed on landing, leaving short supplies for planned building. And, there were major issues on the First Martian Contingent that no one ever reported. Drs. York, both Elma and her husband, Nathaniel, are stuck in the middle, trying to lead and trying to overcome all the difficulties posed by living in space and sabotage back on Earth. Trying to negotiate between their personal life and their professional lives is challenging. Trying to build a future for the human race is a really big challenge. This is an exciting continuation of The Lady Astronaut series. Highly recommended.

I'm not big on reading series. I'm always on the lookout for great new books, great new authors, and fresh stories. That said I'll often dip into a series just so I will have a reference point when talking with those who have read it. I'll often grab a book because it looks interesting and later realize it is part of a series.

I did just that with the Mary Robinette Kowal's The Martian Contingency which is definitely worth reading. Turns out it is 4th! in her Lady Astronauts series, set in the mid twentieth century. I have not read any of the previous books in the series. It stands on its own. Enough of the backstory shows up organically throughout that I never felt anything was missing that I needed to know. I love it when a book in a series can stand on its own. I had picked it up because I loved her locked room mystery in space, The Spare Man that I had mentioned in my review of Murder by Memory earlier today.

The Martian Contingency marks a disappointing turn in what was once an exciting series. Elma York, the Lady Astronaut, has made it to Mars, where humanity is working to establish a foothold on the Red Planet. Yet, despite the intriguing setting and the promise of a new frontier, this book fails to live up to the compelling character-driven narrative of its predecessors.

Part of the issue is the lack of a clear plot. While there are hints of secrets surrounding the First Mars Expedition, the story meanders with no real central conflict. Instead, we get a lot of logistical details—procedural checklists, political debates, and scientific jargon—that bog down the narrative. While it’s fascinating to imagine the complexities of building a society on Mars, it doesn’t make for the most gripping reading.

Elma herself feels sidelined here. In the first two books, she was a force—a woman navigating a male-dominated field while dealing with anxiety and a passionate relationship with her husband. In The Martian Contingency, though, Elma merely reacts to events, never truly driving the story forward. What could have been an exploration of women’s reproductive rights in a world without Roe v. Wade is reduced to a subplot that never feels fully realized.

Even though the world Kowal has created still feels immersive, it’s not enough to redeem a plot that falters in every direction. Longtime fans of the series may still find some value in revisiting this alternate history, but it’s definitely best to reread the earlier books.

What a great continuation of this series!

The Martian Contingency picks up with Elma on Mars with her husband to colonize the planet and help shift the population of humans on Earth desperate to leave as the homeworld worsens thanks to the meteor that hit so many years ago.

This book is perfect for the NASA lovers and the space enthusiasts. I believe this is the final novel in the series, so now is a great time to pick up all 4 and read them!

Thanks to Tor and NetGalley for this eARC!

This is the fourth book in Mary Robinette's "Lady Astronaut" series. This book continues to both highlight many of the strengths and weaknesses of the series overall.

I did really enjoy the Habitat storyline in the first half of the book. The discussion of all that was needed to make the base more permanent was really fascinating. The dangers of Mars are well realized here and I really understood the hard work that was ahead for our characters.

I also was intrigued that the mystery about the First Expedition and what happened that Elma (and the reader) doesn't know about. I had ideas behind the mystery, but I thought that Kowal's answers for it were in line with the series and really fascinating.

I also enjoyed reading the dynamic between Elm and Nathaniel. Although I don't appreciate having to read the more...ahem...physical nature of their relationship, their banter is sweet and fun to read, and they make for fascinating characters on the screen.

I did enjoy the humor in the book, particularly when the characters are problem solving and freudien slips abound. I was laughing out loud at many of these moments.

While not a major part of the book, I enjoyed the glimpses into the political difficulties of continuing Mars missions, and reading how the crew made decisions to maximize public support was fun to read.

I also really enjoyed a lot of the other characters, such as Leonard, Nicole, and what little we see of Wilburt. I actually would love to see more Wilburt in subsequent books.

One more positive is that the book moves at a very fast pace. I was never bored or felt like the book was moving too slow at all. That's an excellent aspect that books 2 and 3 in this series didn't have.

Now I do have some critiques.

First of all: the book has a major issue that had me scratching my head. If the IAC did not want or expect children to be born on Mars during the Second Expedition...why on Earth (or maybe why on Mars) did they decide to make the crew almost entirely married couples. This seems to be asking for pregnancies to happen, especially when the oldest couple is like 48 and still...ahem...active. There is a small reason for a specific couple that is explained, but not for the rest. Seems like a really unwise move.

Also: the book has a plot device that requires the separation of the sexes so that the women are all in orbit and the men are on the planet. Kowal gives explanations for this, but it really read like a contrivance just to cause the social issues in the book and also cause a problem with a certain character back on earth. This isn't a minor issue, as its a major plot point in the book too!

My final criticism in the book comes from a worldview perspective. The book has a very pro-abortion/anti-natalism perspective that doesn't really fit in optimistic space stories like this. A major portion of the book, particularly the second half of the book, is dedicated to a plotpoint about a lady astronette getting pregnant, and trying to determine whether to have an abortion or to keep the baby. This plot point might have worked if handled differently. Unfortunately, not only does the character make the obviously wrong choice in the book, but the argument is heavily weighed in one direction, and there is no solid counter argument or major consequence for the characters' actions. Science Fiction books have this wonderful opportunity to promote Natalism in a way that won't be heavy handed, and unfortunately, this book missed the mark. (

Overall, I enjoyed the novel, but I was really frustrated with it at the same time. It reads super fast, and had a lot that I loved. Unfortunately, it loses some points for some plot issues, contrivences, and just very frustrating messaging.

7 out of 10.

Link to my Goodreads Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7401149578?book_show_action=false

YouTube Review to Release on Book Release Day (March 18th): Channel: Jonathan Koan

"Mary Robinette Kowal returns to Mars in this latest entry to the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Lady Astronaut series.

Years after a meteorite strike obliterated Washington, D.C. - triggering an extinction-level global warming event - Earth's survivors have started an international effort to establish homes on space stations and the Moon.

The next step - Mars.

Elma York, the Lady Astronaut, lands on the Red Planet, optimistic about preparing for the first true wave of inhabitants. The mission objective is more than just building the infrastructure of a habitat - they are trying to preserve the many cultures and nuances of life on Earth without importing the hate.

But from the moment she arrives, something is off.

Disturbing signs hint at a hidden disaster during the First Mars Expedition that never made it into the official transcript. As Elma and her crew try to investigate, they face a wall of silence and obfuscation. Their attempts to build a thriving Martian community grind to a halt.

What you don't know CAN harm you. And if the truth doesn't come to light, the ripple effects could leave humanity stranded on a dying Earth..."

I mean, I meteorite obliterating Washington, D.C. sounds nice right now.

I haven’t read the entirety of Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series, but I was impressed by The Calculating Stars and even more impressed by The Relentless Moon, the latter of which was part of my first Hugo Readalong back in 2021. So it wasn’t a hard decision to request an ARC of the latest installment in the series, The Martian Contingency. 

The Martian Contingency returns to the perspective of Elma York, the original Lady Astronaut, who along with her husband is joining the second wave of scientists building up Mars for long-term settlement. But living on Mars is not without its difficulties, and it doesn’t take long before problems left over from the first wave, the shifting winds of Earthside politics, and a bit of “things happen in space” puts the whole mission in grave danger. 

The Lady Astronaut series is beloved for the way it focuses on brilliant women solving hard problems and navigating delicate social and political situations to win opportunities for those who had previously been locked out of important positions. And from that perspective, The Martian Contingency plays the hits. There are problems in space, and it takes a lot of competence and coordination to solve them. The stakes are high, the situation is tense, and every scrap of the astronauts’ abilities are needed to save the mission. So far, so good. 

But three books building up the connections among the main cast, coupled with the consistent, careful modeling of healthy disagreements sometimes makes it feel as though there really aren’t any significant disagreements—everything can be solved if the characters just talk it out. After a remarkably humanizing portrait of a terrorist organization in The Relentless Moon, the true villains in The Martian Contingency are portrayed as distant, faceless, and unenlightened. And a significant chunk of the danger stem from simple miscommunication, signposted in a way that makes it impossible for readers to miss and occurring between characters with sufficient rapport as to make it feel forced. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not denying that good relationships can have communication problems. It’s just that there’s not enough subtlety here for the reader to really feel it. 

One of my favorite subplots from the previous books in the series orbits around the psychological ailments of the main characters. But again, The Martian Contingency runs into late-series problems where everything is sufficiently well-managed that it doesn’t deliver the same tension. Elma still fights anxiety in key moments, but she also has reliable coping mechanisms to fall back on. The fact is that first three books made a lot of progress, and the fourth suffers from too much already accomplished. 

Kowal is a good writer, so there’s a fairly high floor with this series. The whole thing is easy to read, and there are scenes that show glimpses of what the series had been to this point. But on the whole, it just doesn’t hit the level of the prior books. The villains are less compelling, the miscommunication is less believable, and the problems overcome in prior books haven’t been replaced with quite enough new ones. The result is a fine book that’s not making me scour release dates for a potential fifth. 

Recommended if you like: competence porn, working the system to advance liberal politics.

Overall rating: 12 of Tar Vol's 20. Three stars on Goodreads.

I am a fan of the Lady Astronaut series, so I was delighted to be offered the opportunity to review the latest entry. When I say I didn’t like it as much as The Relentless Moon, you have to understand that I’m not sure I put The Relentless Moon down. It was the kind of propulsive narrative that grabs you and won’t let go.

This had a good bit of tension, and moved briskly, but it took a while to get going, and the stakes never felt quite as high. I also think I just like Nicole as a narrator better than I like Elma. But I loved the calendar structure to this one, and we got a bunch of really fun new characters to work in the background.

As this is number four in a series, we get to play one of my favorite review games: should I read this book if I like the series, and should I read this series if I haven’t started it. If you are a fan of the series, you should definitely read this book. It has all the things you enjoy about the prior entries--people in all their wonderful complexity, relationships that model trust and equality, and a planet spanning future that everyone gets to be a part of. If you haven’t started the series--and want to know if you’d like it, you definitely should start at the beginning. And I think if you cry at Apollo 13, if you liked Hidden Figures, if you loved The Martian, you’ll enjoy this book.

Ad astra per aspera.

I received an advance reader copy in exchange for this honest review.
Will add links when posted closer to pub date.

I love this series and these characters so much; it was great to be back with them, and to return to Elma's point of view as she and Nathaniel are both members of the Second Mars Expedition. I love the combination of fast-paced action and reflective character exploration. Elma faces challenges as she takes on a leadership role in the Mars habitat, and she also has to ferret out a mystery from the First Mars Expedition. Kowal does a great job reflecting the 1960s norms and mores through the lens of an alternate history (in this case, the meteor strike at the start of this series). Elma is a complicated character that I love spending time with. Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for a digital review copy.

The Second Expedition is on Mars and working to get the facility ready for both the rest of the settlers up on the orbiting ship and, more importantly, the Third Expedition when families will start to arrive. As Elma works towards that goal she becomes increasingly sure that something - something bad - happened on Mars during the First Expedition and that those in the know are keeping secrets from her. How can they build a new society on Mars if they cannot trust each other?
This fourth outing in the Lady Astronauts series is in turns a mystery, what happened during the First Expedition, and a character study as we learn so much more about many of the characters’ pasts and humans in general. The meteor that hit earth in the first book has seen humanity come together in many ways to combat the resulting global warming along with a leap in to space to give humans new places to survive. As is typical with humanity there are also those who oppose the science, refuse to acknowledge that the change in climate will mean, if not the end of humanity on earth, at the very least severe consequences and mass deaths - insisting on Earth First and actively sabotaging the efforts to spread humans to the Moon and Mars. This alternative post World War II earth sees humans coming together in some ways that we still are searching for now in the real 21st century but we also see the injustices that plagued our world in the mid-20th century - racial prejudice, religious prejudice and misogyny. As we come to speculate, with Elma, on what the various hints of trouble during the First Expedition might mean when we do learn the truth it is more disturbing than imagined. That our settlers can come together to create a society on Mars that respects each other and embraces their differences is both a hopeful sign for the future of humanity as well as a stinging indictment of many on earth.
This entry in the series is more thought provoking than previous entries and while we have a satisfactory conclusion to the issues presented in this book I hope to see more in the series as we look to the younger generations of Lady Astronauts. Highly recommended.

I have been following the Martian Contingency books since they came out and was so excited to see this one!

Absolutely loved it, was true to the feel of the originals and it was great to be on Mars now with elma and the others that we've grown to know. Id recommend this to anyone who enjoyed the rest of the series.

There's a point in time where doing the work becomes tedious. It needs to be done. It will be done. There's newness, yes, there's still wonder to be had, but the ups and downs are gone, and now there is the work.

Kowal does a good job of immersing the reader in this work, in these people. For those familiar with the series, this book is a comfort. As its own story, it feels a little light. But again, this is the work part of the story, not the origin story, not the time for thrilling heroics. It is important that this series ends not with "and they all live happily ever after," but "and they all worked together for a common good" in today's society. Or maybe for any society.

"And they all worked together for a common good, the most fulfilling of ever afters."

While getting ready to write about The Martian Contingency I listened to the Hugo, Girl pod on Red Mars, obviously, that’s a very different novel published some thirty plus years ago, and the only real point of comparison between the two novels is that they are generally about the colonization of Mars. Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel is intensely detailed (painfully so, at many times) and Mary Robinette Kowal is focused on the space science, some politics and conspiracy, and handles it all with a light and gentle touch. I bring it up because the pod made me think about the differences in how stories are told about settling Mars and what different writers choose to focus on.

The Martian Contingency is a VERY Lady Astronaut novel, which is probably a dumb thing to say given that this is the fourth Lady Astronaut novel and the third one focusing on Elma York but this is a *very* Lady Astronaut novel.

What that means is that if you’re all the way in on this series like I am, you’ll find a lot to love here. It’s familiar and comforting. If The Calculating Stars or The Fated Sky did not land for you, though, The Martian Contingency won’t change your mind. It’s more of the same as far as how Kowal tells her story and does her characterization. If you liked the first two books but struggled a bit more with The Relentless Moon because of the protagonist shift to Nicole Wargin, The Martian Contingency is right back to Elma York for everything that entails.

The plotting aspect of The Martian Contingency’s narrative is the second mission of Martian settlement and the challenges that it faces to accomplish that mission, from technical challenges to identifying and addressing an unspoken issue from the First Mars Expedition to dealing with political obstacles back on Earth despite being millions of miles away. I dig how Mary Robinette Kowal tells her stories with easy, breezy prose so this book like so many of her previous books is borderline comfort food. She’s dealing with big ideas, but because the lens she uses is with characters who could be our friends, the big ideas don’t overwhelm the book.

The Martian Contingency is aspirational science fiction and despite being set in the early 1970’s as alternate history (and even more so the farther away they get from The Meteor in The Calculating Stars) the novel very much feels like a response to America and the world today. Some aspects are handled very quietly, like Nicole Wargin being the first woman President of the United States (after her Presidential Candidate husband was killed in The Relentless Moon, which makes me wonder about the rest of *that* story), the perpetual issues with “lady” astronauts and the inherent sexism the women face, and abortion issues much more overtly in this novel. This is along with Elma York’s working her way through understanding and misunderstanding of cultural differences.

This is a generally standalone novel and I think it works as such. The only Lady Astronaut novel that isn’t is The Fated Sky and that’s because it follows immediately after The Calculating Stars and reads more of a duology as a distinct work on its own. To that point, I’d recommend starting with the Hugo Award winning The Calculating Stars. I adored that novel and it really sets everything up for this alternate history, but The Margian Contingency works without that base. This is fairly accessible science fiction for non science fiction readers and there’s a lot to like here for everyone.

The Martian Contingency follows the continuing story of Elma York, as she goes from world-famous Lady Astronaut to Martian. This book is like a slice of life in space. While I found the traditions of the 1950s slowed the pace of the story more than I would have liked, there are some deeply heartfelt and well-written suspensive moments here that fans of the series will love. The mystery that Elma encounters as she starts her journey towards calling Mars home is one that tragically illustrates the desire of the entire contingency to not make Mars just a second Earth, but a better home for all humanity than the one they left.