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Winter Moon
Feb. 21st, 2025 08:25 pmThe Relentless Moon is the third in the Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal, which I've been revisiting, in anticipation of the fourth instalment finally coming out in March.
This third one is my favourite, though it's a bit odd in some ways, since it shifts perspective from Elma York, the Lady Astronaut, to Nicole Wargin, one of the other women in the astronaut program. It also takes place during the same period of time as the second book, but following events on Earth and on the Moon, while Elma is travelling to Mars.
I actually like Nicole's perspective better than Elma's and, in some ways, the events in this book are more interesting than those of the Mars expedition. There's really good eating disorder representation, as Nicole's anorexia plays a large part in the book and is well written. I also like the complexities in Nicole's relationship with her husband, and the development of some of the other characters I've grown to know and love from the other books.
It's desperately sad, though - as all these books are, which I'd forgotten. And it gets pretty dark by the end, too.
I love the realism of how the news reports always describe what the female astronauts are wearing - but I also love the total unrealism of where Nicole ends up by the conclusion of this book.
I'm really looking forward to finding out what the focus of the next instalment is going to be - though I'm guessing it's going to pick up after the time jump at the end of The Fated Sky, with the establishment of the permanent Mars colony, since it's called The Martian Contingent. That presumably means Nicole and the Lindholms won't be in it, which will be a shame, but I expect it will still be good!
The Winter House by Nicci Gerrard tells the story of Marnie, called to a remote cottage in Scotland, where her childhood friend, Ralph, is dying of cancer. There, she remembers their youth and all the various complexities of their relationship and those they forged with other friends during the same years. It's about misplaced love, not being able to let go of things that should perhaps have been left in adolescence, and essentially what seem to have been largely wasted lives (though that's a bit unfair, if I'm honest). The structure is a familiar one - a present-day narrative, interspersed with flashbacks to an earlier time, which gradually built up a picture of the characters' lives. But the framing conceit of Marnie retelling their own shared history to Ralph on his deathbed felt very contrived. And the whole thing was just a bit dreary... The writing was good, and I connected to Marnie as a character, but I didn't relate to the desperation of what they went through as teenagers or how it continued to affect them into middle age. Not a bad book, by any means, just not really for me.
This third one is my favourite, though it's a bit odd in some ways, since it shifts perspective from Elma York, the Lady Astronaut, to Nicole Wargin, one of the other women in the astronaut program. It also takes place during the same period of time as the second book, but following events on Earth and on the Moon, while Elma is travelling to Mars.
I actually like Nicole's perspective better than Elma's and, in some ways, the events in this book are more interesting than those of the Mars expedition. There's really good eating disorder representation, as Nicole's anorexia plays a large part in the book and is well written. I also like the complexities in Nicole's relationship with her husband, and the development of some of the other characters I've grown to know and love from the other books.
It's desperately sad, though - as all these books are, which I'd forgotten. And it gets pretty dark by the end, too.
I love the realism of how the news reports always describe what the female astronauts are wearing - but I also love the total unrealism of where Nicole ends up by the conclusion of this book.
I'm really looking forward to finding out what the focus of the next instalment is going to be - though I'm guessing it's going to pick up after the time jump at the end of The Fated Sky, with the establishment of the permanent Mars colony, since it's called The Martian Contingent. That presumably means Nicole and the Lindholms won't be in it, which will be a shame, but I expect it will still be good!
The Winter House by Nicci Gerrard tells the story of Marnie, called to a remote cottage in Scotland, where her childhood friend, Ralph, is dying of cancer. There, she remembers their youth and all the various complexities of their relationship and those they forged with other friends during the same years. It's about misplaced love, not being able to let go of things that should perhaps have been left in adolescence, and essentially what seem to have been largely wasted lives (though that's a bit unfair, if I'm honest). The structure is a familiar one - a present-day narrative, interspersed with flashbacks to an earlier time, which gradually built up a picture of the characters' lives. But the framing conceit of Marnie retelling their own shared history to Ralph on his deathbed felt very contrived. And the whole thing was just a bit dreary... The writing was good, and I connected to Marnie as a character, but I didn't relate to the desperation of what they went through as teenagers or how it continued to affect them into middle age. Not a bad book, by any means, just not really for me.
