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The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Winner of the 2019 Nebula, Locus and Hugo Awards, I had high hopes for this, the first in the Lady Astronaut Series. Honestly, I was disappointed. 

Overall I would say the set up is good and the world building is pretty solid: A comet hits 1950’s America and doesn’t wipe out life as we know it (for now), just the whole east coast. Leaving a humanitarian crisis in its wake, the comet also triggers a slow motion extinction event and a world which must now come together with a plan to colonise space. 

So far, so good and the story carries along OK, but all in all, it feels overly long and too schmalzy for my taste. The feminism is heavy handed, there’s not much character development, and the romantic elements quite honestly stray into gag-inducing (if I ever some across another bit of rocket/blast off innuendo I will punch someone).

I guess if you like airport literature and are intrigued by the idea of historical sci-fi, this might be your bag. It wasn’t mine and I won’t be continuing with the series.

Disagree? Let me know why in the comments and don’t forget to sign up for future blog updates.

Buy on kindle £5.99 

Paperback from Blackwells £7.77

Want more book recommendations? Follow me on twitter @SLangridgeUK for updates on what I’m reading.

Like poetry? Check me out on TikTok @theyrhymesometime

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Agua Viva, by Clarice Lispector

One of the most unexpected reads of my life – not an exaggeration. I thought I was picking up a novel, felt very hard done by after the first couple of pages which felt like slippery, stream of consciousness poetry, and then got wrapped up in one of the most exciting literary journeys of my life. You should read Agua Viva, even though its going to ask a lot from you – it more than repays the effort.

The book is about being alive. It channels a raging hunger to connect honestly and completely with lived experience; an insatiable desire to hold and know the elusive moment of existing even as it passes us by. It is heartbreaking and vivid and empowering and as unique as the incredible mind it sprung from.

“My only salvation is joy. An atonal joy inside the essential ‘it’. Doesn’t that make sense? Well it has to. Because it’s too cruel to know that life is unique and that we don’t have, as a guarantee, more than faith in darkness; because it’s too cruel, I respond with the purity of indomitable joy.” Agua Viva

Clarice Lispector, born Chaya Pinkhasivna Lispector (Хая Пінкасівна Ліспектор), was a Ukrainian born novelist and short story writer. She moved to Rio de Janeiro in her teens, spent a decade living across Europe and The United States, and then returned to Brazil in 1959. Injured in an accident in 1966, she spent the last decade of her short life in frequent pain and it is during this period that she produced the lion’s share of her published work. She wrote Agua Viva in 1973 and died four years later, at the age of fifty-seven. 

Her legacy is now wrapped in mythology; her writing frequently described as spell casting in which the effusive elegance of her prose possesses her readers, earning her a cult status among her fans. Whatever your take on this, Clarice Lispector’s potency is undeniable, and the experience of reading Agua Viva a profound one. So take a deep breath, and plunge in.

Let me know what you think in the comments and don’t forget to sign up for future blog updates.

Buy on kindle £4.99 

Paperback from Blackwells £7.56

Want more book recommendations? Follow me on twitter @SLangridgeUK for updates on what I’m reading.

Like poetry? Check me out on TikTok @theyrhymesometime