Goldilocks

Goldilocks by Laura Lam is not your typical science fiction story. Lam has combined political unrest and women's rights with a desperate need to explore and save the Earth.

Because in Lam's story, the Earth has only about thirty years left.

In the not so distant future, humanity has all but destroyed the planet. We have the world on life support, but water is disappearing, the air is unsafe to breathe unmasked, and the animals are gone. All we have as a species is technology, human ingenuity, and the desperate need to survive. This is a promising start to a story. So much of that rings true for humanity right now. We are hurling ourselves down a path of environmental destruction that we might not be able to come back from. I understood this and empathized with this part of the plot. Lam Partnered the imminent ecological catastrophe with the degradation of women's rights; women have been relegated to a secondary position. Never as good as their male counterparts. However, this is where the plot became a bit messy for me.

Women's rights in science fiction and dystopic fiction are at the forefront of many stories. The Handmaids Tale, the me-too movement, and many new books have come out in the last few years that have had different angles on how to approach women's rights. Most of the stories had a hook, a reason why women were considered inferior whether it was religious patriarchy, inferiority due to menstruation, or the religation for women to become breeders for the good of humanity. Goldilock's hook was not clear to me. Women were considered inferior, looked over for promotions, and passed over for education. They needed to be twice as smart and twice as bold, as in the case of Valerie, to get anything done. But I was not sure if this was an extension of already existing conditions for women, or if there was some plot nuance I had missed early on. I couldn't engage fully with this exciting story because, for much of it, I couldn't figure out what had got humanity to the state it was in.

The story starts with five women, all who had been relegated to the sidelines, decide to steal the ship, Atalanta. This ship is slated to travel to a possible new home for Earth's inhabitants. A planet that exists in the Goldilocks zone, hence the title. The story is told from the perspective of Naomi Lovelace, a nice nod to Ada Lovelace, the ship's botanist. Naomi is brilliant but overshadowed by her fiercely driven adopted mother, Valerie. Valerie is the ship's captain. Much of the meat of the story is the dynamic between Valerie and Naomi. We are treated to flashbacks every few chapters by Naomi as she experiences monumental moments in her life. These moments help set her on the path that she is, stealing the Atalanta.

Along with Naomi and Valerie, the crew is made up of Lebedeva, a Russian ex-pat in charge of engineering. Hixon and Hart who are married, and in charge of Pilot and medical, respectively. They are all brilliant thinkers, top of their field, but the “why” still eluded me. Why did these women steal this ship? Later we come to find out that there are five men in cryostasis on-board. I was never sure why they were there. But they were five men who were leaders, mentors, shipmates, and in one case husband to the five women at some point in their careers. Why were these men considered inferior, especially considering the close relationships these men had with the women astronauts?

Aside from the head-scratching “why” I experienced much in the beginning of the book, I enjoyed the banter, characterizations, and pacing of the story. Goldilocks is a quick-moving story, and if you can get past the back-story holes, it is very engaging. This is doubly true as it picked up near the end of the plot. In the end, everything came together. We understood the characters for who they were, why they were doing what they did, and what could happen in the future.

For readers, I would characterize this story as more about relationships between family members than about the science fiction aspects itself. The story takes place in space, and the crew are scientists, but Goldilocks is about women's rights and motivations, and politics. Granted, the crew had things happen to the ship that they had to solve as a crew; most of these issues were caused by the men who put the space shuttle together, and that was interesting. But again, it was more about how each character approached the problem versus the science itself.

All in all, Goldilocks is an engaging story that tackles some tough questions about women's rights, all within the overarching story of climate change.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this digitally in exchange for my open and honest review.

I have seen this book described as The Martian meets The Handmaid's Tale. It certainly has elements of both - the science based survivalism in space of The Martian and the misogyny of The Handmaid's Tale. However, it lacks the threat and isolationism that gave the tension to The Martian and the backstory and build up that gives the misogyny its creeping sense of realism that makes The Handmaid's Tale so powerful. You end up with a stridently feminist tale of ‘Grand Theft Spaceship' which jars in its telling.

Ultimately this is a story of woman in space against the odds. It is a good story to tell - there is a definite power to promoting STEM skills and science. The motivations of the two main characters are interesting - the power crazed step mother and the science driven main character. The story of trying to prove themselves in mans world is undeniably sadly still very much true. This is amplified by a setting where women are being dis-empowered by the state.

Unfortunately, it almost feels a bit man-hating at times when the reasoning for the misogyny in the story is not given its room to grow. It kind of feels like: ‘someone who hates women was elected, now they can't do anything' - it really needed a bit of fleshing out on why the person was elected. It would have definitely given more power to the more positive message of empowerment that the story was trying to get at.

The science in the story is interesting - the botany survivalism needed for long term survival in space is an interesting one (and harks strongly towards the Martian). The sense of danger and risk is however not a strong and that tends to weaken the power of it - they are on a space ship, not trapped on a planet waiting for rescue.

All in all it was an interesting read - it takes elements of two very popular books and combines them in an interesting way. There are some interesting ideas there, but it felt like elements of the story were underdeveloped and further delving into them would have helped the story.