{"id":112408,"date":"2020-05-29T12:27:39","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T11:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=112408"},"modified":"2023-03-15T10:49:18","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T10:49:18","slug":"the-relentless-moon-exclusive-cover-reveal-and-novel-excerpt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/books\/the-relentless-moon-exclusive-cover-reveal-and-novel-excerpt\/","title":{"rendered":"The Relentless Moon: Exclusive UK cover reveal and novel excerpt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mary Robinette Kowal continues her Hugo and Nebula award-winning Lady Astronaut series, following The Calculating Stars<\/strong> <\/em>and The Fated Sky<\/strong><\/em>, with The Relentless Moon<\/strong><\/em>, and we’re proud to reveal the wonderful cover and include an excerpt from the first chapter of the novel.<\/p>\n

In The Relentless Moon<\/strong><\/em> the Earth is coming to the boiling point as the climate disaster of the Meteor strike becomes more and more clear, but the political situation is already overheated. Riots and sabotage plague the space program. The IAC\u2019s goal of getting as many people as possible off Earth before it becomes uninhabitable is being threatened.<\/p>\n

Elma York is on her way to Mars, but the Moon colony is still being established. Her friend and fellow Lady Astronaut Nicole Wargin is thrilled to be one of those pioneer settlers, using her considerable flight and political skills to keep the program on track…<\/p>\n

If that hasn’t whet your appetite for\u00a0The Relentless Moon<\/strong><\/em>, check out an excerpt of the novel here – starting with an interesting newspaper story…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

HALFWAY TO MARS<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

John Schwartz, Special to The National Times<\/strong><\/p>\n

KANSAS CITY, March\u00a028, 1963\u2014 If all goes as it should\u2014 and in space, that is no sure\u00a0 thing\u2014 then sometime today, thirteen brave voyagers\u00a0 will cross a Rubicon that no man ever has: the halfway point between our home planet and Mars. It has been a mission of triumph and terror, of disasters averted and disasters tragically experienced, as thirteen astronauts and astronettes speed across the cosmic void. The mission has been a test not just of technology, but also of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and the human spirit. \u201cLike Julius Caesar, we must prepare for the worst,\u201d said Norman Clemons, director of the International Aerospace Coalition, \u201cthat is our training. But we also strive for the best, and this wonderful team has trained for almost every eventuality.\u201d The astronauts and astronettes, a group composed of so many nationalities that \u201cLady Astronaut\u201d Elma York called it a \u201cWorld\u2019s Fair in Space,\u201d have prepared years for this moment, and every moment of the months to come.<\/em><\/p>\n

After tomorrow\u2019s milestone, the spacemen will have just 27 million kilo meters to go before reaching the Red Planet.<\/em><\/p>\n

How many places do you call home? For me, it could mean my parents\u2019 home in Detroit. Or the Governor\u2019s Mansion that I share with my husband, Kenneth. Or my bunk on the lunar colony. But I\u2019ve learned to not ask people where home is because after the Meteor, so many people no longer have their true home.<\/p>\n

I have switched to the more innocuous \u201cWhere are you based?\u201d which I was busily applying at the fundraiser to night. While Ella Fitzgerald sang, I smiled at all the powerful men my husband wanted to charm so they would support his policies as governor.<\/p>\n

My diamonds sparkled around my neck and made a striking contrast to the astronaut\u2019s wings pinned to the peacock- green taffeta of my evening gown. Being the glittering trophy wife was easier before I\u2019d passed fifty, but I was in better shape than I\u2019d been in my thirties.<\/p>\n

I say that, but the arthritis in my feet protested each high- heeled step I took. I kept that masked along with my sigh of relief when Kenneth stopped us on the parquet floor for the umpteenth time. \u201cYou remember Mr.\u00a0Vann, don\u2019t you, Nicole?\u201d<\/p>\n

I did not. Mr.\u00a0Vann was yet another flaccid middle- aged white man with his glittering wife in tow. \u201cHow lovely of you to come!\u201d My voice still had all the charm I\u2019d learned in Swiss finishing school.<\/p>\n

Thank God they taught us how to hide boredom behind glitter.<\/p>\n

\u201cA pleasure, Mrs.\u00a0Wargin.\u201d His accent was from the Midwest. I\u2019d need another sentence to pin it down, but his vowels leaned that way. \u201cI don\u2019t believe you\u2019ve met my wife, Bethany, yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oklahoma. It was the only place you got Midwest and Southern twang mixed in quite that way, which meant they probably hadn\u2019t lost a lot of family to the Meteor and also meant that the last eleven years had been enough to remove the urgency from their minds. I smiled at them both. \u201cSuch a pleasure. Please do come visit me on the Moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, now . . .\u00a0 I want Bethany here on Earth, where it\u2019s safe.\u201d Mr.\u00a0Vann patted his wife\u2019s arm in a way that would have had Kenneth sleeping on the couch for a week. \u201cI\u2019m surprised that you\u2019re letting the little lady go up there, Governor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kenneth laughed, but his hand pressed on my lower back, letting me know that he could field this one. I leaned into him to accept his offer in a silent language that we\u2019ve worked out over years of public service.<\/p>\n

He smiled at the man. \u201cI think you\u2019re mistaken, if you believe my wife is a woman that people \u2018let\u2019 do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides, living on the Moon isn\u2019t that different, really. In many ways, the lunar colony is just like being in a small town. Why, we even have an art gallery.\u201d Which I had set up, but the fact remained that it existed and that we had art.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you work with Elma York, don\u2019t you?\u201d His wife\u2019s gaze focused on me, and what I had seen as vapidity was actually a boredom as thick as my own.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh yes. Long before she was the famous \u2018Lady Astronaut\u2019!\u201d I was in the same class of astronauts as Elma, the first women chosen for the space program, but she would always be The Lady Astronaut.<\/p>\n

Mrs.\u00a0Vann\u2019s face brightened. \u201cHow did you two meet?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe met as WASPs during the Second World War.\u201d This is true. But the fuller truth is that I don\u2019t remember our first meeting. Oh, I know we were both Women Airforce Service Pilots, but it wasn\u2019t as though she was famous when we met. There were a lot of us. My first concrete memory of her is at a dance on the air base in Palm Springs where she was holding the hair of some hapless young pilot who had had too much to drink and was vomiting out her guts.<\/p>\n

But no one wants to hear about that as a first memory of the famous Lady Astronaut.<\/p>\n

Mrs.\u00a0Vann sighed. \u201cI\u2019d join up in a heartbeat, if I were qualified.\u201d<\/p>\n

If she were like me, her area of expertise was in planning menus, throwing fundraisers, and walking with a book balanced on her head. If not for being a WASP and having a husband who was, at the time, a senator, I never would have made the cut.<\/p>\n

Ella Fitzgerald\u2019s song came to an end. I wanted to yell at the people who did not understand what a gift her voice was to at least pretend and clap politely.<\/p>\n

In the pause before she started singing again, distant shouts sounded beyond the ballroom. They pulled my attention to the windows that stretched along one wall of the hotel. Beyond the filmy white curtains, there was a vivid orange glow like the base of a rocket at lift off.<\/p>\n

My spine straightened and I turned to Kenneth, leaning into him as if I were just being affectionate. \u201cIs something on fire outside?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHmm?\u201d He followed my gaze. At the small of my back, his fingers tightened. \u201cNicole . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

The window exploded in a shower of glass and flame. I grabbed Kenneth and spun him away, dragging us both down to a low crouch as my astronaut training kicked in. Something is exploding? Get low, seek cover, protect vulnerable body parts like your head and chest.<\/p>\n

And here I was in an off- the- shoulder gown.<\/p>\n

Screams sounded behind us. The haze of ennui that had coated me all evening evaporated. The room with its pudgy middle- aged white men and their glamorous wives and the waiters with their dark skin and white gloves snapped into focus as if I were in the seat of a T-38 jet. The best path to get Kenneth to safety was past the banquet tables and through the service door into the kitchen.<\/p>\n

\u201cKenneth.\u201d I grabbed the sleeve of his tuxedo. \u201cWe need to\u2014\u201d A swarm of black- suited security men, all square jaws and buzz cuts, surrounded us. \u201cThis way.\u201d One of them took my arm. Another had Kenneth\u2019s. Frustration at being managed filled me for a moment and it had no place here. These men were doing their jobs, protecting the governor and, by extension, his wife.<\/p>\n

Me? I was hauled along the path to safety as if I were no more than a decorative bauble. And when I was on Earth, that was, in fact, my job.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Relentless Moon will be available in the UK on eBook on 20 July and in paperback on\u00a026 November.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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