Mary Robinette Kowal Books in Order

A captive monkey working at a potter's wheel turns a jokey title into something sad and unsettling. In just a few pages, Kowal asks what art and personhood might look like inside a cage.

An elderly woman steps into a time machine for one last encounter with the wonder that shaped her life. It is a gentle, wistful story about age, memory, and the dream of flight.

This slim early collection gathers eight speculative stories that lean strange, intimate, and character-centered. Fairy tale, fantasy, and science fiction all show up, but the human ache underneath is the through line.

In a magical version of Regency England, Jane Ellsworth is more gifted with glamour than with conventional beauty. When her family's honor comes under threat, she finds a way to matter on her own terms.

On a generation ship, Rava is supposed to keep her family's AI record-keeper running. When a breakdown exposes buried secrets, she has to choose between preserving the past and facing a cruel system head-on.

On their honeymoon in Europe, Jane and Vincent are caught in the chaos after Napoleon's escape from Elba. When Vincent is imprisoned, Jane has to rely on her glamour and her nerve to get them home.

An aging Mars pioneer is offered one last chance at spaceflight just as her husband's health is failing. It's a quiet, emotional look at love, duty, and the cost of a life spent reaching for the stars.

During the cold, uneasy summer of 1816, Jane and Vincent return to England and find family worries, social unrest, and a London commission waiting for them. The danger here is quieter than war, but no less unsettling.

Katin, hunted for her faith, hires passage toward the near-mythic land where her religion began. The voyage becomes a test of belief, trust, and what home might really cost.

After pirates leave Jane and Vincent stranded and penniless on the way to Murano, they try to win back what they lost. The result is a Regency fantasy adventure with glassmaking, disguises, and a clever heist at its heart.

Jane and Vincent travel to a family estate in the West Indies after Vincent's father's death and find lies, danger, and a brutal system that cannot be ignored. The trip forces them to face questions about inheritance, power, and complicity.

This larger collection brings together nineteen stories from across Kowal's short fiction, including Hugo winners and a Lady Astronaut piece. Expect a mix of fantasy, science fiction, fairy tale, and sharp character work.

Katya lives in a future where everything worth knowing can be recorded and verified, until she is cut off from the grid and forced to tell an unprovable story. A slim, eerie novella about memory, technology, and belief.

In World War I, medium Ginger Stuyvesant works for the Spirit Corps, gathering intelligence from soldiers just after they die. When she uncovers a traitor, she has to outmaneuver spies, skeptical officers, and enemies who understand exactly how dangerous her work is.

When the reclusive Duke of Blackledge comes of age, a formal celebration brings him face to face with a thief who means to rob him. Their meeting turns into a flirtatious, risky clockwork caper.

This stand alone story set in the Raven's Shadow world follows characters drawn to the glittering yet dangerous Hall of the Diamond Queen, where a single audience can reshape reputations, stir old grudges, and test how far people will go for honour or survival.

After a meteor strike triggers a climate disaster, pilot and mathematician Elma York joins a crash effort to get humanity off Earth. She also starts asking the question the men in charge would rather avoid: why not women in space?

With the Moon base established, the next step is Mars, and Elma York wants in. The mission forces her to reckon with sexism, racial exclusion, and the personal cost of chasing history.

As the space program pushes toward a bigger Moon colony, Ruby Donaldson juggles brutal astronaut training with the fragile pieces of life she still wants to keep from before the Meteor.

In a future where identities can be rebuilt and reality is customized, a woman is copied to hunt down her own “original.” The chase forces her to question which version is responsible—and whether she’s being used as a disposable tool.

While Elma heads toward Mars, Nicole Wargin fights to keep the young Moon colony alive as sabotage and political unrest threaten the whole program. It is part thriller, part colony drama, with pressure coming from every direction.

When Molly's family moves to the Moon, she can only bring one toy and her baby brother gets in the way of all her plans. A playful picture book about imagination, sharing, and making a home someplace strange.

Inventor and heiress Tesla Crane is on her honeymoon aboard a luxury liner between the Moon and Mars when her husband is accused of murder. With her service dog at her side, she sets out to solve the case before the killer strikes again.

Dawn is struggling to fit in with the backup crew for the next lunar mission, and everyone around her seems easier to read than they really are. This short Lady Astronaut story looks at teamwork, isolation, and the quiet strain behind competence.

In a rough medieval world where giant acid snails can destroy a village, Margery is busy caring for her sick mother and impulsive brother. When disaster strikes, practical courage matters more than rank.

Elma York finally reaches Mars, only to find signs that the First Mars Expedition hid something terrible. As the colony struggles to take root, uncovering the truth becomes a matter of survival.