The Calculating Stars
I am revisiting the Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal, listening to the first three books again, in anticipation of the long-awaited Martian Contingent finally arriving in March!
I'd forgotten just how bleak a lot of The Calculating Stars is - the opening especially, but also pretty much all the way through. I mean, sure - it starts with a meteorite strike that sparks off an extinction event on Earth, so yes, rather a lot of doom. But there's so much weeping! And Kowal injects such a lot of emotion into her narration - which is largely a good thing.
I love Kowal as a narrator - I've listened to books I hadn't previously heard of just because she's the narrator - and she clearly knows her own story very well indeed. But her non-American accents are truly atrocious!
I love all the characters, I love all the gender and race politics, I love the mental health representation, I love how personal a story it is even with the global stakes.
I'm not sure I enjoyed it quite as much the second time around, but it was still a very solidly entertaining listen at the start of a year that hasn't presented me with any particularly good new books so far.