The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal is the third novel in the Lady Astronaut universe. I have previously read, reviewed and enjoyed the first two books: The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky. The Relentless Moon takes place chronologically after the first two books, but follows a different character, so it almost stands alone, aside from spoiling a lot of what went before it.

The Earth is coming to the boiling point as the climate disaster of the Meteor strike becomes more and more clear, but the political situation is already overheated. Riots and sabotage plague the space program. The IAC's goal of getting as many people as possible off Earth before it becomes uninhabitable is being threatened.

Elma York is on her way to Mars, but the Moon colony is still being established. Her friend and fellow Lady Astronaut Nicole Wargin is thrilled to be one of those pioneer settlers, using her considerable flight and political skills to keep the program on track. But she is less happy that her husband, the Governor of Kansas, is considering a run for President. 

I really enjoyed this book. The protagonist is Nicole, who I only vague remember from the earlier books, but that vagueness was not at all a problem in picking up and following this new story. There were also several recurring characters who I had stronger memories of, like Nathaniel (Elma's husband), Eugene and Myrtle, and Helen. We actually got to learn a lot more about the latter three as they became increasingly central to the plot. My absolutely favourite part of the whole book was actually the epilogue, for what it sets up for future books, but of course it is a massive spoiler so I won't say any more about it.

The story follows Nicole, one of the original lady astronauts and now governor's wife as she prepares for and then goes on another mission to the moon. But recently the astronaut programme has been experiencing more failures than usual, even though their various failsafes are keeping people safe. Given reason to believe that sabotage is afoot, Nicole spends a lot of the book investigating, while hampered by a lot of things.

It was a bit sad to see that, still, even 20 years after the first book in the series, a lot of sexist jerks remain, as well as some racist jerks, which are highlighted thanks to the diverse cast in the story. That said, it was also probably fairly realistic, as were the science deniers who don't believe in the future consequences of the meteor from book one. To counteract that, some random little things that I enjoyed about the book: Nicole living anorexia was depicted very sensitively; spies and harking back to the war; a couple of minor background characters called Armstrong and Aldrin; the general scientific/engineering rigour Kowal applies to her worldbuilding.

Overall this was an excellent read and I highly recommend it to fans of the Lady Astronaut books. Especially anyone that was hesitant to pick up a book with a new protagonist, I found Nicole to be just as compelling as Elma. To new readers, I suggest starting with The Calculating Stars to better enjoy the worldbuilding and the deviations from our real-world historical timeline. I am excitedly looking forward to the next book in the series.

5 / 5 stars

First published: July 2020, Tor
Series: Lady Astronaut, book 3 of 3 so far
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley