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Kowal, Mary Robinette

Entry updated 23 June 2025. Tagged: Author, Editor.

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(1969-    ) US professional puppeteer and author, initially known for her series of Jane Austen-inflected fantasies beginning with Shades of Milk and Honey (2010); see Checklist below for full listing. She has also written short fiction, some of it sf. Her first published story of genre interest was "Just Right" for The First Line in 2005; early short fiction was collected in Scenting the Dark and Other Stories (coll 2009). Kowal received the John W Campbell Award for best new writer in 2008. Her most notable stories include "Evil Robot Monkey" (in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two, anth 2008, ed George Mann), which movingly explores the plight of an Intelligence-augmented monkey (see Uplift). In "For Want of a Nail" (September 2010 Asimov's), an AI and its human co-worker aboard a Generation Starship winningly tackle a mutual problem.

The Lady Astronaut of Mars (February 2013 maryrobinettekowal.com; rev September 2013 Tor.com; 2014 ebook), an Alternate History in which humanity reached Mars in the 1950s, glows with affection for the dreams of the space age without becoming sentimental, and initiated the Lady Astronaut sequence in which a Comet strike has devastated Earth, a Disaster Homo sapiens must cope with. Both of the latter two stories won Hugo awards, for short story and novelette respectively; "The Lady Astronaut of Mars" had been shortlisted in the same category a year earlier after featuring in the spoken-word anthology Rip-Off! (anth 2012 audiobook) but was transferred by the Hugo administrators to the very heavily contested category Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), effectively disqualifying it and leading to some controversy. The Calculating Stars (2018) depicts an Alternate History in which a 1952 meteor-impact Disaster has obliterated the eastern USA and initiated a process of Climate Change that could ultimately make Earth uninhabitable; this threat kick-starts a Space Flight programme whose long-term aim is to colonize space, and the female protagonist comes into conflict with the default assumption that astronauts must be male (see Feminism; Women in SF). This book won a Hugo, Nebula and Locus Award as best novel, and also a Sidewise Award. By the time of The Martian Contingency (2025), the ongoing protagonist of the series has become weary of high office, and of having to continue insisting on her relevance (as a woman; see Feminism); but perseveres.

As one of several presenters of the Audiozine Writing Excuses, Kowal shared the 2013 Hugo for Best Related Work awarded to Writing Excuses, Season 7. The Spare Man (2022) shares a Mars-oriented backdrop with the Lady Astronaut sequence, though it is set on an interplanetary cruise ship (see Ship of Fools), starring an heiress whose first name is Tesla (see Nikola Tesla). Kowal's credits as a professional puppeteer have included work for Jim Henson Productions; she has served as Vice President and President (from July 2019) of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. [GS/DRL]

see also: Apex Magazine; Cosmos; Asimov's Science Fiction; Eastercon; Fantasy Review; Skylark Award.

Mary Robinette Kowal

born Raleigh, North Carolina: 8 February 1969

works

series

Glamourist History

Lady Astronaut

individual titles

collections

works as editor

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