Review: The Martian Contingency
By Matthew Kresal.
Alternate history and space exploration feel made for each other. Missions and crews that might have been, firsts that could have gone another way, and the tantalizing idea that had events in the middle of the 20th century played out another way, humanity might very well have become a multi-planet species by now. Among those who’ve explored such possibilities is Mary Robinette Kowal in her award-winning Lady Astronaut novels, the latest entry in which was The Martian Contingency, released after a long delay in 2025. Was it worth the wait and does the series continue at its high standard?
For those unfamiliar with the series or having been away from it, a brief refresher might be in order. On the 3rd of March 1952, an asteroid struck off Chesapeake Beach, Maryland (the reasons for this, unknown to the world at large, are detailed in Kowal's 2014 short story We Interrupt This Broadcast, free to read on her website). An impact that not only wipes out President Thomas Dewey and virtually the entire American government but also, despite being in the ocean, created a chain of events that will render the Earth uninhabitable in a matter of decades. Imagine a step further that, due to a bit more foresight by the American government, we were already placing satellites in orbit, with an accelerated space program following the impact to save as much of humanity as possible.
The first novel, The Calculating Stars (reviewed here in 2019 by my fellow SLP blog writer Max Johansson), saw Dr. Elma York, a human-computer and former World War II WASP pilot, going from surviving impact to becoming the titular Lady Astronaut in the UN’s International Aerospace Coalition (IAC). The second novel, The Fated Sky (reviewed by me in September 2021), brought events into the early 1960s and saw Elma becoming part of the first mission to Mars. During the Mars Expedition, contact with Earth ended for a long stretch, with York and her crewmates learning eventually that the Earth First opposition movement had turned to violence and sabotage in their efforts to force the US to withdraw from the IAC. Those events were detailed in the series third novel The Relentless Moon (reviewed in 2021) which focused on York’s friend and fellow astronaut Nicole Wargin in a spy thriller set on the Artemis moonbase as she plays molehunter to root out Earth First sabotage.
Picking up after the epilogue of The Fated Sky, The Martian Contingency takes events to 1970 as York, her husband Nathaniel, and others take part in the Second Mars Expedition and set about the process of expanding humanity’s foothold on the red planet. Having stayed in Martian orbit previously, it’s a new experience for York as she’s reunited with former crewmates and introduced to a host of new faces. All ought to be well but very soon a supply drop goes wrong, leaving the future of the Bradbury habitat in question, not to mention raising the specter of Earth First sabotage. York also comes across evidence of something terrible having occurred on the original expedition, something that those from it still on Mars have no interest in revealing. Dealing with crisis and playing a role in planning humanity’s future, York has mysteries to solve as the fate of the IAC’s grand vision for humanity’s survival hangs in the balance.
Unlike the previous novels in the series, this is most decidedly not a standalone read. For those who know the earlier novels, there are plenty of returning faces and ongoing story lines. Something that is both good and bad. It’s good in the sense that there’s plenty of familiar elements for the reader to latch onto, from the York couple (and Nathaniel having a role he’s not really occupied since The Calculating Stars) to the returning characters. Almost a decade on from the last time we met them, readers get to share in York’s sense of meeting old friends again. With the delay in the novel’s release, it’s a welcome return.
The bad is that with the central plot point of what happened on the surface during that first expedition, you better remember the characters and details of The Fated Sky for it to make sense. Worse is that might also be a problem if you do because, despite everything York goes through and what Kowal attempts to throw at the reader, it’s exceedingly obvious from very early on what actually happened. Something made even worse for this reader because he got there hundreds of pages before the protagonist. If it wasn’t a major plot thread, it might be more easily forgiven but given that it is very much the spine of the entire narrative Kowal builds around, it leaves The Martian Contingency with a backache that no amount of literary medication is able to treat. The result makes for utterly frustrating reading at times, especially in a novel written in the first person.
Thankfully, Kowal brings more to the novel than that. This is a work of alternate history, after all, and the ongoing butterfly changes to history reverberate throughout. There’s the obvious elements of a different US president and there’s mention of at least a couple of real-life astronauts and cosmonauts who are part of the expedition. Yet one of the joys of the series to date has been the “punch card punk” element of seeing issues faced in modern (and future) space exploration dealt with via 1960s technology and that plays a role as the colony deals with various issues. The depth of her research (including being to call upon former NASA astronauts as mentioned in the acknowledgments) is apparent in those moments and in how characters respond to one issue after another.
Though this is set in alternate past, Kowal continues the series hallmark of engaging with real world issues and also uses it to explore issues that have become more apparent since the earlier novels was published, namely the legacy of colonization here on Earth (which makes itself felt though the international crew of the base and whether it should be called a “colony” at all) and women’s rights. In that regard, the novel sees Kowal and the series moving from strength to strength.
Was The Martian Contingency worth the long wait? In many regards, yes, as the characterizations and details of humanity establishing a Martian foothold with 1960s technology will attest. That is, after all, the appeal of the series. That the plot revolves around a mystery that isn’t a mystery (especially given just how much it ties into an earlier novel) does it no favors, causing the novel to lack the drive of its predecessors. To say that this is the weakest of the four Lady Astronaut novels feels unfair to type but, given how strong those earlier entries were, it’s still better than many other novels other there. As such, especially for those who’ve followed the series, it is worth a read.
Matthew Kresal is, among other things, the author of the SLP book Our Man on the Hill and short stories in the anthologies AlloAmericana, The Emerald Isles, and The Scottish Anthology.
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