Book Review: The Martian Contingency

Way back in 2021, I read The Lady Astronaut Series by Mary Robinette Kowal, and finally the latest installment arrived this year. As a refresher, the series follows Elma York, a Jewish woman in the 1950s who works for NASA, as does her engineer husband, when a meteor hits earth and changes the trajectory of NASA forever.

In The Martian Contingency, years after the events of The Fated Sky, Elma is helping to build the first long term colony on Mars with her husband and other male and female scientists. Signs in the habitat from the first set of builders suggest something unusual occurred. but Elma is iced out and not told what happened. Due to several strange events, which everyone worries is sabotage, the men and women are separated during habitat expansion. Then, an explosion makes Elma realize what actually matters to her most.

Much like the other books in the series, the world building remains top notch. Elma is an empathetic character who is easy to like and root for, and the sexism she continues to face is, of course, all too real. This book had me on edge worried over everyone.

My one complaint about what might be the end of this series is that the end of the book felt a bit anticlimactic. Everything wrapped up quickly, in a way that wasn't exciting or new, just over. If this was a publisher's choice to limit word count, please know I would have kept reading! Let women write doorstoppers!

This book is for you if you read and enjoyed the other Lady Astronaut books and wanted more of Elma's story, if you enjoyed the survival and science of The Martian by Andy Weir, and if you love books about women in STEM. This book is not for you if you're looking for a STEM romance (Elma is happily married and the drama in here is not about their romance waning), if you were more invested in getting more story about the moon (continuing from The Relentless Moon), or if you're looking for non-fiction about women at NASA. 


Did you read The Martian Contingency? What did you think? And which pie would be hardest to make in space? Let's discuss in the comments!