The Martian Contingency, by Mary Robinette Kowal

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 received a review copy of this book from the publisher.

Mystery and adventure on Mars

I loved returning to the Lady Astronaut universe after several years. This installment looks at the Second Mars Expedition, and the start of the permanent colony. Elma York, the “Lady Astronaut,” is back as the first-person narrator. Her character has grown over the years, and continues to do so during this book, but she still has her blind spots and residual unconscious biases–though to her credit, she keeps working on these as she recognizes them.

There’s a mystery at the heart of this novel. Something happened during the First Mars Expedition, something unpleasant. Something that isn’t in the official reports, and that Elma was unaware of then, because she had to remain in orbit on the spaceship. Something that may be adversely affecting the colony now. But no one—none of the members of the First Expedition who built Bradbury Base—will talk about it. Their stories don’t match, in odd little ways. And the secrecy, and her concerns about what it conceals, are deeply worrying to Elma.

A lot of the familiar characters from the previous three novels are present, either on Mars or on Earth: Parker, Nicole, Helen, Kam, Leonard, and others. Nathaniel is with Elma on Mars; I missed him and their interactions in the second book, The Fated Sky, and I was glad to have them together again. (That came out wrong; they were never “apart” in the relationship sense, merely separated by millions of kilometers of space. They did communicate via teletyped letters, but it’s not the same.) I know some readers find Nathaniel’s devotion to Elma hard to believe; he puts her and her needs first, while she has often put her need to fly and to be in space ahead of him their relationship. Reverse the genders, though, and it’s not so hard to believe; many women do this as a matter of course. (As do some of the men in my own family.) And in his own way, Nathaniel does prioritize his work, both in working long hours, and when it comes to the safety of the mission. But he loves Elma enough not to stand in the way of what she needs and wants to do; that takes strength, commitment, and dedication. I felt by the end of this book that Elma (whose love for Nathaniel is never in doubt) understands this better, and has grown to match it.

She has grown, too, in how she supports other women, how she listens. She is less brash and more forgiving. I love the Elma of the first two books as much for (most of) her flaws as for her strengths, but I’m also loving seeing what the older, wiser Elma is like, an Elma who still has anxiety but is better at dealing with it, an Elma who is learning to be both a mentor and a commander.

And of course, I love the sci-fi aspects of the story. Mary Robinette Kowal does her research, so the science is pretty much correct (though in one or two areas, she admits she resorted to minor “hand-wavium,” as she calls it.) The plot is engrossing, the pacing is very good, and as always, Kowal excels at storytelling, characterization, and worldbuilding. She is also sensitive to modern concerns around diversity and equality, addressing them in ways that make sense within the alt-historical context of the novel. The crew of the spaceship and the inhabitants of Bradbury Base are a diverse group in terms of racial/ethnic background, gender, and sexuality, though the latter isn’t as obvious to Elma as it may be to the reader.

If I have any quibble with the novel, it has to do with the secret at its heart. I found it hard to believe that those in the know would continue to keep the secret once it became possible that their secrecy might endanger the mission and the inhabitants of Bradbury Base. I also had difficulty believing that a secret of that magnitude could have been kept in the first place. I did eventually begin to understand why those involved had chosen secrecy in the first place, though.

I don’t know if there will be any more Lady Astronaut novels; this novel completes the author’s contractual obligation to the series. I hope there will, because it’s a wonderful universe and I’m sure there are more stories to tell in it, with or without Elma in them. And I would love to read them. (Which reminds me; I should go see what good fanfic I can find! Or write, for that matter.) But if this is the last book—and if chronologically, the series ends with the story that began it all, “The Lady Astronaut of Mars”*. . . well, I can accept that. Elma’s tale is complete.

A final note: I read a Kindle ARC, but if you enjoy audiobooks, I highly recommend listening to the audiobook. While I haven’t listened to this one, the author’s narration of the previous three books was excellent—which is unsurprising, given that Mary Robinette Kowal is, among her many other talents, a professional audiobook narrator.

*Warning: the short story contains some spoilers for The Martian Contingency.

Challenges: COYER 2025: Out to Lunch; NetGalley & Edelweiss Challenge 2025

About Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of the Lady Astronaut Universe, The Spare Man and six historical fantasy novels: The Glamourist Histories series and Ghost Talkers. She’s a member of the award-winning podcast Writing Excuses and has received the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, four Hugo awards, the RT Reviews award for Best Fantasy Novel, the Nebula, and Locus awards. Stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, several Year’s Best anthologies and her collections Word Puppets and Scenting the Dark and Other Stories.

Her novel The Calculating Stars is one of only eighteen novels to win the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards in a single year.

As a professional puppeteer and voice actor (SAG/AFTRA), Mary Robinette has performed for LazyTown (CBS), the Center for Puppetry Arts, Jim Henson Pictures, and founded Other Hand Productions. Her designs have garnered two UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence, the highest award an American puppeteer can achieve. She records fiction for authors such as Seanan McGuire, Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi.

Mary Robinette cohosts the popular podcast Writing Excuses, and teaches writing through online classes and her Patreon.

Mary Robinette lives in Denver with her husband Robert, their dog Guppy, and their “talking” cat Elsie.

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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

• COYER 2025: Out to Lunch
• Netgalley & Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2025

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