This is actually my first time reading a book by Mary Robinette Kowal, and I only read it because one of my book clubs elected to discuss it. I’ve been aware of the “Lady Astronaut” series for a while, but found the title of that series to be kind of condescending. No one ever specifies “Gentleman Astronauts” so why do people feel the need to specify lady astronauts?
But this book is does a lot that flies in the face of gender norms, which made me think the slightly problematic title of that series might have more to do with her publishers than with Kowal.
This book is so good! It takes place on a space cruiseship traveling from Earth to Mars. The ship has three different levels, each with a different level of gravity based on its proximity to the center of the ship. The Tertian level simulates Earth’s gravity, the Martian level simulates Mars’s gravity, and the Lunar level simulates the moon’s gravity. Passengers can move between levels, but most of them need a moment to adjust to the change in gravity.
The main character, Tesla Crane, is the daughter of people who own a giant corporation that makes robots, among other things. While Tesla has celebrity status and has to don disguises to go about the ship without people trying to get a picture with her, she’s no Paris Hilton. She is actively involved in the family business and even hosted a robotics talent show for a number of years.
She’s also an engineer in her own right, but something went wrong during one of her lab experiments. The five or six people who were with her all died and she ended up with permanent damage to her spine. A lot of surgery, physical therapy, and regular therapy later, she can walk on her own, but still suffers from chronic pain and has mobility issues. She has titanium rods screwed to her spine and an implanted device called a DBPS. Don’t ask me what that stands for, because I don’t remember. I just know it helps her regulate her pain. When she dials it all the way up, she doesn’t feel a thing — literally she doesn’t feel anything, including anyone or anything touching her.
It’s understandably dangerous to have it dialed that high, and the implant does flash warnings at her when she dials it that high because she could either cause further damage to her spine by trying to do something she shouldn’t, or she could hurt herself in an entirely new way and not even realize it until it’s too late. She’s aware of the risks, but there are times when chasing down the bad guy is worth the risk.
Tesla is on her honeymoon with Shal Steward, a former investigative detective, which is super convenient when people on the ship start turning up dead.
First it’s a woman named George who is staying in a suite next to Tesla’s. When she gets stabbed in the hallway and Shal and Tesla are the first ones on the scene, Tesla stays with George while Shal runs after someone fleeing the scene. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get a good look at the guy, which is too bad because he immediately becomes the prime suspect.
Because he was first on the scene, and tried to help George before chasing after his own suspect, Shal is literally caught red handed. Then there’s the fact that the knife came from their room and has his fingerprints on it. How that happened takes a while to untangle.
Tesla is understandably furious that her new spouse has been arrested, and because she comes from money, she knows the smart thing is to call her lawyer, a woman named Fantine who manages to make crocheting look menacing. Unfortunately, they’re far enough away from Earth that there’s a time lag of a few minutes, which means each side is reacting to something the other person said a few minutes ago.
The ship’s security team don’t think they have to listen to Fantine, so it takes a while for Fantine to get the results she’s paid to get, but eventually she does deliver. She ends up having to look through the ship’s log to find the cruise company’s lawyer on board, whom she happens to know, and through him gets Tesla and Shal back into a suite similar to the one they had initially (they can’t go back to their own suite because it’s now under investigation.)
But Shal and Tesla, very understandably, have absolutely no confidence in the ship’s ability — or even desire? — to find the real murderer, so they start investigating on their own, despite repeated pleas from security and Fantine to not do so.
More people turn up dead, a nerdy teenager turns out to be a toddler who was kidnapped more than a decade ago, and a little white fluffball of a dog steals the show.
I loved everything about this book. I loved the humor, the banter between Tesla and Shal, the description of the dog and how perfectly she demonstrates that anyone who does not love dogs is not to be trusted. It was also a solid murder mystery.
I also liked that the main character had chronic pain that she’s constantly trying to manage throughout the course of the book. Sometimes she uses her DBPS to manage it, other times it’s breathing techniques, or using a cane instead of trying to walk without any kind of assistance.
As someone who also has titanium rods screwed into my spine and happened to be dealing with a minor back injury at the time I was reading this book, I could relate to that all too well. I felt my own back twinge in sympathy any time Tesla’s pain flared up, and the descriptions of limited mobility were all too real. It’s also just something we don’t see enough in fiction.
I also appreciated that each chapter starts with a recipe for a cocktail. Some of them were standard cocktails, like a martini or a Manhattan, but some of them were cocktails I had never heard of before, so of course I had to make them so I could sip while reading this delightful book!