The year is 1952. A meteor strikes just off the east coast of the United States, wiping out major population centers and their inhabitants, and sparking what will become an extinction-level greenhouse event.

What is a pilot, physicist, and mathematician to do?

What would Elma York and her compatriots have done in an era when women were relegated to acting as “computers” for the space program, a task vital to its success but limited in scope? How would they have convinced the men in charge, and it was all men, to judge them on the merits of their abilities rather than the presence, or absence, of certain genitalia? How would an expanded role for women in science and technology have affected the institutionalized sexism of the era? Would it have done so? Would the need for pilots, scientists, and people brave enough to risk space travel have accelerated the civil rights movement? International cooperation? Shortened the Cold War or eliminated it altogether?

Hugo, Nebula, and Campbell Award-winning author Mary Robinette Kowal explores all of these questions and so many more in The Calculating Stars (July 2018, Tor) and The Fated Sky (August 2018, Tor). Kowal’s first forays into long-form, hard sci-fi (her short story, The Lady Astronaut of Mars, the basis for these two Lady Astronaut novels, was first published in 2013) are resounding successes. And they are definitely not your mother’s (or father’s) sci-fi.

Yes, the plots are exciting and interesting; both the individual books and the larger story arc are a grand adventure in every sense of the word. The science is (as far as I can tell) as sound as that of The Expanse novels – which is to say very sound, and it’s clear from the small details she provides that Kowal did extensive research in physics, physiology, engineering, and chemistry (among other things) in preparation for writing The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky. There’s romance and there are space- and rocketry-related sex puns aplenty. There are tense moments, funny moments, tragic moments, and moments of great gravitas. Everything needed for successful science fiction is in these pages.

There’s also something more, and it’s that something that makes The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky so special.

While both novels are about space travel and science and adventure, they’re also first and foremost about people.

A great deal of hard sci-fi books overlook the importance of character development in the crafting of a compelling story. One of the reasons I don’t particularly care for Asimov and Clarke is, though I respect their contributions to the genre, I don’t connect with their protagonists or their ancillary actors and, therefore, always feel detached from their stories. Books are my escape from reality, and when I’m reading, I want to engage fully. I want the world to disappear, and I want to forget it exists while my eyes are on those pages. To do that, I need someone therein to care about. I don’t have to like them – hate can be just as compelling as love – but I need to attach. I need to care.

I care about Doctor Elma York. I care about Helen and Nathaniel and Leonard. Hell, I ever care about Parker.

I care about them because they are, none of them, perfect, which serves to make them human. I care about them because they make mistakes and because they are layered. I like neither their preconceptions nor their prejudices but we all have such things and we must all work to overcome them – the process of which is a huge part of these stories. Their struggles are our struggles, if couched in a different era and different modalities. Their failings, and their triumphs, are ours.

I love Elma York, the stories’ narrative voice, because she is imperfect. She is a good person, but as we embark on her story, she is an incomplete one, a work in progress. She has never had to examine her own privilege before. She has never had to make a decision between her desire for a family and her dreams. She has not always considered the consequences of her decisions for others before leaping. She has a tendency to be judgmental.

But she cares deeply for her friends and loves her husband fiercely. She does what she thinks is right even if, in the end, it isn’t globally right. She is brilliant and beautiful but suffers from social anxiety and what would now be called PTSD. She struggles with reaching for her dreams when they come in conflict with what society expects of her. Sometimes, she fails. Most importantly, though, it often takes her time. She is able to hold up her faults, examine them, and begin the work of growing socially and emotionally. Elma York is every woman who has ever tried to find a way to balance career and family, dreams and reality, humor and harassment, and so many other contradictory facets of life. She is also fundamentally Elma York and no one else.

There a few moments throughout The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky where I felt the focus on a specific interaction or conversation caused a little bit of drag on the story. There were a few times I found myself wondering if Elma’s husband, Nathaniel, was perhaps a bit too perfect, a bit too agreeable, but, well, that’s what makes this a review and not just a gush. If there were a few moments in which I really wanted out of Elma’s head, that’s likely because I saw so much of myself in her, too much of my own anxiety and guilt and conflict and started to feel a little trapped, well, that just shows how well-written Elma is – how realistic and how real.

If you enjoy hard sci-fi, character-driven stories – or both – The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky will definitely be welcome additions to your library.

And no, you can’t borrow my copies. They’re going on what is my very limited, “I’m absolutely reading these again” shelf, and I don’t trust you to return them.

Oh, and Valentine Tereshkova would be proud to count Elma York among her colleagues.

(Disclaimer: I received ARCs of The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky for review purposes. All opinions remain my own.)