While The Relentless Moon didn’t quite reach the heights of other books in the Lady Astronaut series I enjoyed my time with this story. Mary Robinette Kowal is a fantastic character writer and easily sucked me into the world of Nicola Wargin and the story she told in this installment was compelling overall.

The third book in the Lady Astronaut series follows a friend of Elma and fellow Lady Astronaut Nicola Wargin. We follow Nicola as she works to uncover a saboteur on the Lunar Colony. Nicola deals with both this high stakes investigation, a polio outbreak on the moon, and the repercussions of her husband Kenneth’s political career.

While I had a good time with The Relentless Moon I didn’t love it as much as The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky. My biggest problem with this book was its genre. I’m not the biggest fan of mystery and suspense so the plot of the book left a lot to be desired for me personally. Stories that ask me to solve mysteries and figure out twists generally don’t work for me so a huge part of the plot of this novel was unengaging. I will say the book felt fairly well constructed so anyone who enjoys the genre may love this book, but I found it difficult to connect with the story.

The Relentless Moon also lacked on a character level for me in comparison to the previous two books in this series. Because of the investigation, Nicola doesn’t allow herself to get to know the characters surrounding her. While this logically makes sense it made all of the suspects in the mystery feel shallow. The vast majority of characters in this book felt indistinct because we spent so little time with them and even if I wanted to attempt to solve the mystery along with Nicola I couldn’t because I knew so little about our list of suspects. Spending more time with the side characters in this book could’ve made the ultimate reveal more satisfying because we would have been invested in them beforehand.

I’ll also say it felt like there was a lot more technical jargon throughout this novel compared to previous installments. While I love the science-y feel of these novels The Relentless Moon felt a lot more packed with technical jargon and said jargon felt more integral to understanding the plot of the novel. I routinely forgot what acronyms stood for and the general set up of the Lunar pods. While I wouldn’t say this was a major issue with the book it did make the reading experience less smooth.

Despite my grievances, Mary Robinette Kowal’s writing, in general, was still stellar. She goes above and beyond with her character writing and Nicola Wargin was a fantastic protagonist to follow. Kowal knows how to write distinct character voices and Nicola was equally compelling as Elma.

The issues Nicola is dealing with in this novel, being a woman over 50 and knowing your value is directly tied to your age, being a wife of a politician and having every action criticized because of it, and how her battle with anorexia affected her ability to do her job was written incredibly well. I will warn if you are particularly sensitive to portrayals of eating disorders and food aversion this may be one to avoid, but Kowal discusses in her author’s note that she tried her best to avoid triggering depictions of Nicola’s anorexia and this element of her journey comes from Kowal’s personal experiences with ED. While Nicola does have an eating disorder it doesn’t define her and Kowal takes the time to portray how an eating disorder can affect someone during times of extreme stress without falling into harmful tropes and stereotypes.

The discussions of ageing in regards to Nicola was also done incredibly well. Nicola is over 50 and has arthritis. She’s incredibly aware that unlike her male counterparts she’s very close to being completely discounted for her age. Seeing her actively deal with the physical effects of ageing and the effects like being considered “old hat” by her superiors was an interesting layer to the story. Kowal examines the harsh double standards placed on women compared to men when their competence is challenged based on their age. Nicola is routinely considered washed up while men older than her are valued for their experience. Overall I loved seeing an older woman being placed front and center in an action-packed science fiction novel.

What I loved about Nicola was how the combination of competence and confidence progressed the narrative. Nicola’s history as a trained spy meant she had a lot of clever deductive reasoning that pushed the story in interesting directions. Compared to Elma who while incredibly competent struggled with social interaction. I loved seeing the various ways Nicola manipulated the people around her to get shit done. While things like her struggle with an eating disorder did affect her judgement she was overall a badass spy who routinely came up with clever solutions to tricky situations.

Like in the first two books of this series the relationship between Nicola and her husband Kenneth is a central part of the narrative. Mary Robinette Kowal is one of the few authors writing loving and supportive marriages in the speculative world. I love that Kowal centers functioning healthy marriages in her stories and depicts what mutual respect and proper communication looks like in relationships long term. Kowal writes top tier couples that stay in my feelings. The unending support Kenneth and Nicola had for each other’s careers and the ways Kowal shows how much they know and understand each other made my heart so soft. I associate the 50s and 60s with the patriarchal nuclear family and I love that Kowal goes the extra mile to completely subvert that stereotype.

One central aspect of this story I found fascinating was the polio outbreak. I will warn that if you’re not in the mood for stories about pandemics you should definitely avoid this book but I loved the way this novel contextualized polio as a disease. I’m privileged enough to have never had to concern myself with polio or its effects and this book taught me so much about it about what this disease looked like and how it affected people before there was a widespread vaccine. Kowal described in somewhat graphic detail how sudden and unexpected polio can be often depicting how quickly it spreads and how staggering its effects, from respiratory issues and fever to partial or complete paralysis, could be. I would recommend this book to any anti-vaxxer because I can’t imagine anyone walking away from this book dismissing the importance of vaccinating against horrible diseases like polio.

In the end, while The Relentless Moon is my least favourite book in the Lady Astronaut series so far it’s still a great novel. I love Mary Robinette Kowal’s writing and look forward to any and all future installments in this series. If you’re a sci-fi lover or a fan of stories about complex women being badass there is no reason not to pick up these books.