Ground Control, by K.A. Hough, tells the story of Sarah, a spouse who sacrifices her own aspirations to follow the dreams of her husband, Grant as he furthers his own career. When he's asked to be part of a groundbreaking colony on Mars, Sarah, along with their two children, agrees to follow him there. Narrated from Sarah's point of view, and told through flashbacks and vignettes of their lives together, Ground Control is intriguing because it doesn't present a simple, straightforward picture of a woman who "gave it all" so that her husband could succeed. As the novel progresses, we find that the story is much more complicated than that, and that Sarah's failure to finish school and achieve success in her own professional life in the end have more to do with her own self-doubts and shortcomings than any self-centered failures of her husband. Complex, poignant, and intriguing, Ground Control will appeal to fans of both science fiction and general fiction as a story of space travel, but also the story of a family.

Ground Control begins with a familiar concept, the impulse to seek, discover, and colonize. The wagon train is replaced by a colony ship to Mars, sending families to settle there. Sarah is a woman who defines her life by her role as wife and mother. She gets a B in a class in college and suddenly she stops thinking of herself as capable and gifted. She marries a brilliant scientist and devotes her life to supporting him, but when he is invited to be part of the colonization of Mars she has her doubts.

Ground Control is not a good book. The only reason I finished it was because it is very short and I confess I am not sure it deserves that second star. We are, I think, supposed to sympathize with Sarah but she doesn’t feel real. Who really discards their self image of a life time due to getting a B+? Who, just when they are leaving the planet, divulges a deep, consequential secret to two people, one of them her supervisor? I don’t want to wreck the story for someone who ill-advisedly decides to read this, but this woman never told the people who most deserved to be told. Keeping this secret was immoral. The only hint that perhaps she is the result of bad parenting is her parents immediately telling her that she will go to Mars, of course. She tells plenty of people she doesn’t want to go, but not her husband. Passive-aggressive people are the worst.

I get that we are supposed to recognize a woman downtrodden by internalized sexism, but really she is oppressed by herself.

I received an ARC of Ground Control from the publisher through Library Thing

Ground Control at Sley House Publishing

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2023/01/07/ground-control-by-k-a-hou... ( )

I received this book from librarthing.com in return for a non-biased review.

How far should a woman go to follow her husband as he changes jobs, becoming more successful with each move? Across the country? Around the world? To Mars? That's the question this book asks. For Sarah and her two young children, the answer has always been yes. Even to Mars.

Written from Sara's view point, she's a self described "side kick". Her dreams and aspirations have always taken back seat to her husband. This of course is a traditional viewpoint and not necessarily wrong.

Sarah, a promising biology student when she meets her future husband Grant, pretty much gives up her potential (Sarah hates this word) for a great career to follow Grant where his job takes him. It's meant a lonely and at time frustrating life for Sarah as Grant was always so wrapped up in his work that he seemed to have little time for his family.

The family had finally moved into a house that Sarah liked, a good neighborhood, and even more important to Sarah, a job where she was appreciated for what she could do. But then, Grant, a microgravity biologist, gets the offer of a life time - to join 2,000 colonists to the newly formed Mars colony. One final move, because there will be no coming back.

Sarah is presented as a woman who is good at organizing. She has a system for everything. Raising the kids. packing and moving, you name it she has a system. In her current job she's working in a biology lab in charge of lab protocols and organization. She excels. Now what?

I really liked this story. Sarah comes across as a real person. You can understand her motivations. Grant is barely more than a cardboard cutout which is fair since he's hardly in focus to his family.

I read a lot of science fiction and that's how I approached this book. It certainly has the trappings of sci fi, most of it taking place on the space ship (more like a luxury space crusher ("Avenue 5" anyone?) then say the Nostromo but still a space ship. It is perhaps more an allegory than hard sci fi. The larger issues of how much should a woman subjugate her life to her husband are front and center.

As science fiction, one thing really bothered me. The ship spends a week in orbit around the earth and people a drinking coffee from stoneware mugs and ladling soup into bowls. Have we learned nothing from over 50 years of the US space program? Finally, on page 165, it's causally mentioned that the ship is equipped with artificial gravity. That's a good SF concept and I'm perhaps being picky to complain it wasn't brought up sooner. There was probably some mention of how the ship, even a month into its travels could instantaneously communicate back to earth but it there was I missed it.

Sarah's organizational skills were such a big part of her character that when the "unknown threat jeopardizes" the mission (mentioned on the back cover), I figured that her organization skills would save the day. The threat was something I didn't anticipate so the story wasn't very predictable. Does the mission succeed? Sorry you'll have to read the book to find out. ( )

Ground Control is a very well written book. The writer has a great method of story telling. Due to the subject matter it would very easy to dismiss this book as pure soap opera drama but it is considerably more than that. The writer keeps it real and does a good job of touching on things that make us who we are. I have a hard time sympathizing with the main character though. Yes. she is put into a bad situation....but half of that is her fault. I know how tough it is for spouses who are drug all over the world. I was in the armed forces and I know what it takes out of both the service member and the spouse. It is tough. I did not like the characters though. They are not the kind of people I would want to associate with. The women in the book reeked of uppitiness, self loathing and what seems like a contempt for those who they felt they were above. The book had a few surprises and that was nice. The end was quick and kind of shoved on the reader. It would be nice to see a continuation of this. I would surely read it. I dare to say that some of the soap opera facets could be left out of it...but hey, isn't that life? ( )

-ARC provided by LibraryThing and Sley House Publishing in exchange for a candid review.-

As a piece of character-driven fiction, "Ground Control" succeeds by having the whole unfold through the lens of the main character, Sarah. That Sarah really lives inside her own head walks the reader through her thoughts, rationalizations, and frequently dubious and regrettable decisions; it's refreshing that she is such an imperfect character, more relatable by most readers than a Heroic Woman Killing It In Every Way would have been. A near-forty adult doubting their value and questioning their life's course is a real and valid dynamic to play out, and Hough writes it well. Her husband, Grant, suffers however; he seems like a really good guy but ends up carrying the weight of Sarah's guilts and regrets. I suppose that's verisimilitude for you, but I have to feel for him.

The book is not without flaws, though, and two big ones bog it down for me. First is the pacing, or lack thereof. Non-linearity is great when executed well, but this text is so full of fits and starts and stalls and backpedaling that it drives like a 1962 Rambler on a Maine winter night. Too many times, there were flashbacks without segues or jumps in time from one paragraph to the next; a storyteller owes more to their audience.

The other problem is perhaps more in my head, but there again is a responsibility incumbent upon a storyteller to maintain their credibility. While "Ground Control" is not primarily a Science Fiction novel, Hough did choose to use the SF stage and trappings, even acknowledging her plant pathology research. But "GC" left me ice cold with the shuttle flight to Mars; the ship is described as similar to a cruise ship in layout, has technological limitations such that it cannot make a return flight to Earth, but magically has Earth-normal gravity when it suits Hough (mugs falling, beverages spilling, dancers dancing) but microgravity when it's needed (space bugs!). Acceleration isn't a thing, radiation is only a thing regarding bacteria.

I get it, it's not about SF; fine. But if you're on a submarine, pressure matters. If you're on a plane, airspeed matters. If you're on an interplanetary spaceship, space matters. ( )