The book starts pretty well: a giant asteroid hits the coast of the USA in the 50s, causing at first a nuclear winter and it is calculated later to cause a runaway hothouse phenomenon (that seemed a bit doubtful; certainly similar meteors have hit the Earth before). A decision is made to reach space as soon as possible and establish a colony at least on the moon to safeguard human existence.
A woman who used to be in the US Air Force during the Second World War and whose job was to fly transfer missions of fighter planes becomes involved with the effort. First, she works as a calculator (who manually calculates the formulas necessary for the space flight, as there are no real computers that are reliable or fast enough), and later as a pilot who is trying to get to space. Unfortunately, the 50s being 50s, there is a lot of misogyny and racism going on.
The start and the first hundred pages of the book were excellent, but then nothing happens, and after some unfairness towards women and black people (it apparently isn’t a problem worth mentioning that all of the male astronauts are white, but it is a major problem that all prospective female astronauts are white) nothing much happens. The characters weren’t very well described, and didn’t really evoke any feelings at all aside of slight boredom. The main character was supposed to be fanatical about getting to space, but this didn’t really come through on the pages.
She even behaved unethically: she withholds information about her panic attacks and barbiturate (!) use. The writing was fluent and easy to read; pity that the content was so mundane. This is not going to among my top choices at Hugo voting.
431 pp
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