Goldilocks

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.