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.

Elma York the Lady Astronaut is back in Mary Robinette Kowel’s fourth book in this series.

The Martian Contingency picks back up with Elma on Mars, this time with her brilliant husband as part of the team. The team is there to colonize Mars so that the population of Earth can have another planet to flee to as Earth gradually becomes non-habitable.

I’m such a NASA geek so I love astronauts and space travel and space and gravity or no gravity or low gravity or any thing related to any of this. I love the moon and Mars and colonizing planets. I love the science of it all! Mary Robinette holds nothing back at explaining the science! Did I understand it all? Heck no! But I got enough to get the gist.

I enjoyed this story so much and would love if there were more books to this storyline. Alas, I think there were only 4 books in this series. Maybe we’ll see some short stories though. A gal can only hope.

*Thanks so much to partner Tor Books and NetGalley for the gifted eARC!*

I’m definitely going to need a trophy print copy for my library.

"The Martian Contingency" is another fantastic installment to the Lady Astronaut series. The social political dynamics in this book were relevant and interesting. The layers of drama in the plot propelled me through the book, and the characters were the same astronauts I've grown to love.

Series Info/Source: This is the 4th book in the Lady Astronaut series. I got a copy of this on ebook from NetGalley for review.

Thoughts: I enjoyed this fourth installment in the Lady Astronaut series; it was well worth the long wait. This was a bit more "day in the life of", but on Mars. There are political issues going on in the background, but we are a bit distanced from them.

Elma is serving as second in command in the Mars habitat. The habitat is preparing for a large wave of inhabitants. Elma is finding strange discrepancies around the habitat and is trying to figure out what happened with the first mission, but the crew leftover from that mission are lying about what happened. As Elma is trying to unravel this mystery, one of their deliveries explodes leaving the team short on supplies. The crew must figure out if the explosion was an accident or sabotage.

What I enjoyed most in this story was watching how Elma has grown. She is now in her upper 40's and is second in command of the Mars habitat. I love how Kowal dealt with things like Elma having a bit of imposter syndrome; she is still unsure about demanding people do things and really taking control. Elma doesn't see herself as a mentor (but the young women following in her footsteps greatly do) and is plagued by her anxiety of speaking (although she knows how to work through it now).

As a lifelong scientist, I also really appreciated that Kowal delved into the topic of what happens as scientists progress in their careers. Inevitably, as you move along in your career (if you are decent at it) you get asked to take on more and more leadership roles. Of course, this takes you further away from the day to day science you love to do. I wish more companies understood that what makes someone a good scientist doesn't necessarily make them a good leader. And even if they are a good leader, they are moving away from what they love. I really enjoyed how this issue was dealt with in this book. Okay, I am stepping down from my soap box now :-)

I also very much enjoyed Kowal's afterward. A lot of research and study goes into writing these books and I really appreciate that. I didn't feel comfortable giving this a higher review because the story didn't have a lot of urgency behind it and I had trouble engaging with characters aside from Elma. Parts of the story are a bit slow, and having Elma move from Mars to the orbiting ship made things feel pretty disjointed (almost like this was two stories).

I also really wish we got to explore Mars more and deal with silly people on Earth less. This book is much more about interpersonal relations and much less about space discovery.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed this and am glad I read it. I really love seeing how Elma has grown as a character throughout the series and could relate to her struggles as a scientist and leader. I love the Mars setting and some of the mysteries they deal with there. I did have trouble engaging with some of the other characters (they hold Elma, and hence the reader, at a distance) and parts of the story felt slow. I do wish we had been able to spend more time exploring Mars and less time dealing with politics and interpersonal relations. I am curious if there will be additional books in this series; if there are, I will read them.

I liked The Martian Contingency a lot, but I think I liked the first three in the series a bit more overall. Perhaps it is just because of how much time has passed since book 3 (in real life, and in the story), but the 'vibe' felt different somehow. Again, it could be due to how long it's been since reading the rest of the series, but I don't remember there being quite so much internal dialogue for Elma, and certainly not so much repetitiveness (some points that could have been mentioned 75% less: she is a pilot and astronaut; she has anxiety; she still finds her husband very attractive; she's THE Lady Astronaut). Despite those annoyances, I'm very happy that there is a new installment in the Lady Astronaut series, and do hope there's more to come!

A thoroughly satisfying continuation of the Lady Astronaut series. We are back to Elma as the point of view character, and the setting has shifted (as you might expect from the title) to Mars from the Moon. Elma is part of the second IAC Mars mission, charged with expanding the habitat so that additional habitants can join the initial team and begin building a larger community on Mars. Elma, as one of the longest-tenured astronauts, now has command responsibilities. Elma struggles at times with the challenges of (re)building relationships when power dynamics have changed. The challenges that come with that responsibility continue to accumulate, as she slowly learns of things that happened on the first Mars mission that directly affect the current one. This event affects not only the technical side (mechanical failures cascade from some of it, putting the habitants in danger), but every interaction she has with her colleagues and loved ones.

Kowal continues to build riveting, fast-paced action, with thoughtful, powerful character development. I’m always happy to spend time with Elma, and this novel is no exception.

Highly recommended.

The natural follow-up to its predecessors, The Martian Contingency returns Kowal's series to its titular Lady Astronaut, Elma York, as she and other intrasolar explorers set about the arduous task of preparing Mars for human habitation. But not all is well on Earth's first interplanetary colony, as it soon becomes clear that humanity has not discarded its burdens of racism and classism on its way to the stars.

The Martian Contingency is perhaps the slowest-paced entry in the series, though there's enough action and complication involved in preparing the Martian habitation for further settlement to keep the reader's interest. In a way, it feels like an almost transitional novel, as Elma and her compatriots lay the groundwork for the next wave of settlers. The great joy of this novel is watching the birth of a new society and culture, as the astronauts repurpose and adjust their native holidays to fit the Martian calendar and create new traditions for their budding civilization to celebrate. The fundamental universality of these basic human needs--to mourn loss, to celebrate success, to build community together--form a stark and moving contrast to the book's ongoing struggle with similarly fundamental human sins: strife, jealousy, prejudice. But as Elma and her fellow scientists build their new Martian society, we feel reassured that, perhaps, the humanity they are shepherding into the stars will one day become a kinder and more united species than they were upon the world that birthed them.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC!
I'm already a fan of this series and was delighted there was a new book.
I liked the suspense in this one, and also the slow discovery of a terrible thing, and the upfront beginning to deal with issues of race and colonization and the hopeful ideas of the community becoming just Martian and trying to leave all that stuff behind. A good addition to a good series!
Publisher, I did find one continuity error--the Latin phrase was referred to as Greek once. It's definitely Latin.

I was excited to read the next installment in the Lady Astronaut series, and it was great! I enjoyed all the details of what it would be like to work in a Martian habitat environment, and it was also interesting to see how the author built an alternate history. I appreciate Kowal's inclusion of what it was like in this society to be a member of an underrepresented group.

My thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for an advance copy of this novel of speculative fiction set in an alternate timeline where a disaster has forced the Earth look to the stars for salvation, and look past much of the thinking that has limited society for so many for so long.

The saddest words a human can say about their lives is "What if". What if I had said hello to that person. What if I went back to school. What if I tried to follow my dream. Some of the best stories in science fiction also come from these words. What if a a meteor smashed in Washington D. C. in 1952, forcing not only a reappraisal in much of humanity's thinking, but a change in working together to get to the stars, as they might be humankind's only salvation. What kind of society, what kind of science, what kind of people would we be. And what if certain people couldn't accept it was a brave new world, and kept their ideas and beliefs, even at the cost of all the people of Earth. The Martian Contingency"A Lady Astronaut Novel by Mary Robinette Kowal is the fourth in the Lady Astronaut series, with our protagonist finding herself on Mars, but dealing with many of the same problems as on Earth, problems that could end the expedition, and humankind's last hopes of survival.

Eighteen years after the Meteor changed everything Dr. Elma York, called by the press the Lady Astronaut, stands with her husband, Nathaniel, on the planet Mars, smelling the faint sulphur that won't go away. York is the co-leader of the second expedition to the Red Planet, tasked with getting the previously built habitat up and running, to allow more people down from orbit, and allow further travellers to make a life on Mars. As Earth is slowly dying. York though is finding that Mars has its secrets. Previous members of the expedition are silent about events that happened earlier. The habitat is showing signs of wear and design changes that could have disastrous effects on people trying to live there. A supply mission has gone wrong, with no ideas how or why. Additionally people being people, there are problems that are arising, that few want to deal with. York must navigate this, finding out many uncomfortable truths, and discovering that even the face of humanity dying, some beliefs and some hates are to ingrained in people to forget.

There have been many books on people trying to live on different worlds, but this one is one of the few I think of that looks more at the interpersonal problems that would arise. There are a lot. Kowal is a very good writer, one capable of describing how to fix a hole in space suit with food stuffs, and give specific government policies from almost fifty years ago. This is a hard science story with a lot of heart. With a mystery that seems clear to us, but to York still hurts. I have really enjoyed this series quite a bit. The mix of history, and the tweaks that Kowal has done speaks to the history nerd in me, and the story speaks to the person who loves good stories. Kowal raises questions as York opens her own mind. Colonies are really a bad term to a lot of people, so what would be a better term. How would religious holidays be celebrated on a planet with a different orbit hence different days. Little things that add to the story. Kowal takes the time to try and figure these questions out, as well as craft a really good story, with a lot of twists, turns and suspense. Also sadness. With hope.

A series I have come to look forward too. This would be an ok jumping on point, but really start at the beginning, and track down the ancillary stories that go with this. I can' t wait to see how this story continues.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this read. All opinions are my own.
I've long enjoyed Mary Robinette Kowal's books, and especially the Lady Astronaut series. In this installment, the Mars habitat has been created and while living together the astronauts have to struggle through cultural differences, technology and communication issues, and health concerns (including pregnancy/abortion). Alongside this, Elma discovers some physical evidence of "something" that conflicts with the accounts provided by her team. She's unsure what to make of this, and it overlaps with her everyday tasks so that she's not able to move forward. There are some touching moments throughout where the astronauts mark holidays and other sacred days alongside one another. I really enjoyed this read and learning more about the story of this alternate world. The technical explanation of living on Mars is so helpful in understanding the complexity involved in their lives.