Goldilocks

A dark and haunting speculative science fiction set in the near future. This isn’t one for the faint of heart or who don’t enjoy a little doom and gloom in their science fiction. It starts off with a setting reminiscent of The Handmaids Tale. Earth is dying. Men are in charge and women are oppressed. Famine and sickness are a plague on the planet and time for humanity is running out. It’s up to group of women to save the human race. And they do that by stealing a spaceship. There is a planet that is suitable for human life and the women astronauts are on a life or death mission to colonize it. Naomi is making this trip with her adoptive mother Valerie, who is a wild character herself. The story isn’t as much an action story as it is a narrative on humanity and exploring family and interpersonal relationships. It jumps back into each character’s history and dives into their backstory and how they became the people they are. The story remains focused on the characters rather than the outside setting. Despite not having the riveting action that I expected it was a well written story with deep characters and good development and an interesting concept. I wish there had been more about the colonization of the new planet but most of the plot takes place during the trip there. This isn’t my usual style of sci-fi that I read but it was enjoyable. This one has it all, a dystopian future, a feminist core cast, an interstellar spaceship trip and a ecological, climate friendly tone that makes for a good mix for a science fiction. Three and a half stars.

Spoilers!I was looking forward to seeing the women building their world on Cavendish, but instead of a tale of adventure, it's a tale of obsession and twisted ambition. It was still enjoyable, very well written and fun at times, with a satisfying ending. I'd recommend it.

Lam’s book combines a number of science fiction sub-genres including : Ark; climate change dystopia; and, simply space travel. She skips back and forth in time in the narrative. This is not my favorite format, as it can be hard to follow. However, Lam writes very clearly, and each chapter is headed with an annotation re where it occurs in the timeline of the story, so I actually enjoyed the jumping around.The astronauts who leave Earth, and who are the main characters of the book are all women, including the egotistical leader of the adventure. This makes for a nice change! The perhaps main protagonist Naomi the botanist is the adopted daughter of the visionary but narrow leader Valerie, so that of course adds tension throughout.The story has many anchors in the present day. One humorous, example: Valerie forms and leads a space exploration and more company called Hawthorne (SpaceX?!). There is also a scary human-devised disease spreading around Earth; ugh.From what I know from working with astrophysicists and engineers, the science of space exploration and travel, using techniques like gravity assist, etc., are all well written. Lam is not a scientist herself, but did lots of research and consulting with scientists, as she discusses in the Afterword.This book definitely held my interest! I strongly recommend it.

I truly enjoyed this book. ( There may be spoilers so proceed with caution! ).It’s rare that I purchase fiction books. This book came from the library and I liked it so much I bought it. It’s a dystopian tale that you can actually see happening. I would never insult Margaret Atwood and her masterpieceThe Handmaidens Tale; however “Goldilocks” gives us a more realistic sense of how it’s so easy for misogyny to creep into our culture so slowly that one hardly notices, until you see even females turning against each other to scramble to the top, even if it’s run by men. It is horrifying in a slow, quiet way that you won’t even sense until it’s too late. And you won’t even notice you haven’t left your house in a week, to keep reading until it’s too late! You lost your job. Just a warning.

After rereading Andy Weir's The Martian, I have been looking to read books about space travel that do not involve evil alien races (why are the alien always so evil) hell-bent on destroying humanity. I mean come in, if these aliens are so advanced, they'd have already realized that we're doing a pretty good job of that all by ourselves. This book is about a lot of things - space travel, climate change, radical political rightests, and a glimmer of hope that paths can be walked down, but we can also turn round. All in all, a good sci-fi read.

A feminist space adventure, with a patriarchal society that is portrayed as evil and smothering. Given the true story of the female astronauts who were denied space travel in the Mercury program, I feel some of the author's ire is justified. The story is well-told with believable characters. I'm not that big into dystopian futures (the reality is depressing enough), but the author created an authentic future I hope we never see.

Goldilocks is a great story, with relatable characters, and a solid narrative.My only point of contention is the ending. It mostly fell flat, and the introduction of a new character feels forced upon the reader. Other than that, I, in equal parts, enjoyed and was unnerved by the possibility of a near future that’s already happening. This isn’t escapist sci-fi, it’s a call to action.

The US has elected a religious zealot who gets laws passed to limit women's freedom. Abortion is illegal, having more than one child is prohibitively taxed. Women have. Been driven out of most careers. And of course, climate change is affecti n the world dramatically. At the same time, earth is about to launch a ship to a likely planet for colonization. The ship was designed by a woman owned company but then the contract is stripped from her and given to her biggest rival. So she does the logical thing and steals the ship before it can take off without her. Excellent story, well paced, fantastic characters. Definite must read and tell others to read!

Goldilocks is at once a feminist parable, a future thriller, a mystery and a dystopian tale which is a huge undertaking for any author and yet Laura carries it off. The narrative spinning out into space making the possibilities of the story of these 5 women feel endless and limitless, whilst being confined by their biology and inherent claustrophobic quarters of their spaceship:all these relationships are played out across multiple timeframes.From the prologue which sets this as the only time Naomi, one of the 5 crew members of the Atalanta spaceship will tell what happened on that voyage, to the journey she takes, this neatly builds up suspense and tension in the mind of the reader as you constantly have that 'what happened? what went wrong?' in the back of your mind.Goldilocks, the fairy tale, is used as a cautionary one to warn girls not to take more than their share, what is given them is enough and they don't need to ask for more-to do so risks moral character and such disatisfaction, and theft, is a character defect. In worlds built for, and engineered by, men who represent the norm, and women as a lesser species, however, this tale shows that girls have to go for, and grab what they can, until they find what's best for them, what tastes right.Valerie Black, her daughter Naomi, same sex couple Hixon and Hart, as well as outsider Lebedevra steal the Atalanta. Funded and created from Valerie and other scientists extensive research and money, they find themselves on the outside of the mission to locate, and colonise a new Earth. The threat to humanity's future is a ticking clock to extinction-set in a not too far off future, there are mere decades left after Earth's resources have been plundered past resurrection point.Their only hope is to fly the Atalanta into a warp ring discovered off Mars and then to bounce off there to a planet called Cavendish. As soon as it is settled, an ark will begin transporting humans to the planet to begin again.But in the process, US President Cochran (such a great name!) is scaling back the roles and rights of women, so despite bank rolling the project, Valerie and her crew are not even considered good enough for the backups who were supposed to be out into a cryogeneic sleep in case the original 5 don't survive the time jump.Instead, Valerie steals the ship under the noses of NASA, accompanied by her botanist daughter who has always wanted to go into space but found each step thwarted due to her sex. As the journey prgresses, Valerie's plans become clear-she plans to hold Cavendish at ransom to give normal people, not the privilged elite, the first shot at being able to set up a new society without making the mistakes of the old one. A noble plan, to be sure, but will the crew go along with it? What happens when they reach there?Will they reach Mars, let alone Cavendish?Followed into space by Earth set missives giving you the reaction back on Earth-which turns from bargaining to threats, super quickly-the focus is on these 5 women and how they interact, hopw they cope and how they plan for the future. Using science and technology, their hope is to reach the Goldilocks zone and re-establish humanity.I don't want to compare it to any other dystopian thriller as this stands entirely on its own merits-it is engaging, beautiful , vividly imagined and equisitely wrought . The role that sex plays in opportunities given, and chances taken is so well rendered, you totally go along with the story and are willing the 5 to make it Cavendish, you want this utopia to be a reality. I don't want to say anymore about the plot for fear of spoilers, but I will say this is stupidly highly beyond the stars recommended by me, I loved it so much and cannot wait for my hardcover to arrive and then read it all over again!

Goldilocks - discovered in the universe, a zone that looks promising. Can planet Cavendish in its midst prove the ideal new home for refugees from ailing Earth? A crew of five is selected for an investigatory probe. But it comprises only men, women more highly qualified rejected as unworthy. Big mistake. Dr. Valerie Black and her female colleagues hi-jack the shuttle and blast off into space.... Back on Earth there is fury and the start of a vilification campaign - rumours and controversy continuing to rage even decades later.Now, after thirty years of silence, Dr. Naomi Lovelace, Valerie's protegee, is prepared to reveal all....This enjoyable read is far more than the tale of a journey into space. It delves deeply into the resentment held in a sexist society where women are so often denied the opportunity to fulfil their worth. It examines why Earth now seems on self-destruct, it for centuries plundered by big business concerns. What hope for a new way of life on Cavendish to ensure such mistakes are never repeated?An interesting read. Clearly there has been much research to convey realistic conditions to sustain the crew heading for a planet ten and a half light years away. Some, though, may occasionally feel overwhelmed by a surfeit of detail. Some too may feel certain revelations about motives and hidden agendas do not always convince.Despite such reservations, this novel serves well as a wake-up call. Action is needed if catastrophe avoided. What to expect here.... Will writer Laura Lam end with an outcome most grim or will she offer a ray of hope? Pages will eagerly be turned to find out.

There's a moment towards the end of "Goldilocks," advertised as the "boldest high oncept thriller of the year," when a character who has been in space for a long time subsisting on processed food says "I can't wait to eat crunchy, crumbly toast again." You might recognise that this isn't how people talk. You might also think "God, that character sounds horribly boring." Therein lie some of the bigger problems with the book. Our heroines, a group of female astronauts who have been grounded by an authoritarian and patriarchal U.S. government, steal a space shuttle destined for the next habitable planet they can find. How did the U.S. government become authoritarian and patriarchal? Don't know. It's largely glossed over and under-explored, but it worked for The Handmaid's Tale, so throw it in! How did they steal a space shuttle? Was it an exciting and well-thought-out setpiece? No. We have no idea. They just stole it, somehow, because that's the plot. Once on board the ship, the five women are mostly featureless. There's a Russian engineer who is tough, a black doctor, a redhead from the Deep South who serves as the pilot, and if you think I'm skipping over anything, I hate to tell you that I'm giving them as much depth as an entire novel. Our heroine, meanwhile, is the astro-botanist in charge of growing food in space, and also the adopted daughter of the mission's leader, a billionaire tech CEO. In an America where women are banned from all positions, how has this woman remained a billionaire CEO? We don't know. She just has because that's the plot. The book opens every chapter with a countdown to the moment when the women will take their stolen ship through an experimental warp ring and be transported to the other side of the galaxy to the planet they hope to colonise. Which would serve as some sort of ticking clock and add to the tension if we didn't keep breaking off to have flashbacks of our heroine in college and in other jobs, all of which serve as uninteresting diversions. We don't even care if there's danger in the book's present, as the introduction makes it clear that the heroine lives into old age in order to tell us all about this mission. Eventually, it transpires that the billionaire CEO can't be trusted and that billionaires who attempt space travel may have a God complex. So far, so true (why DOES Jeff Bezos sell the book on this website?!) but the point becomes confused when it collides with the hamfisted gender politics of the novel's background. If the woman billionaire is just as bad at the men, what point are we making, exactly? All billionaires are awful? That's true, but then why have a plot where Big Tech and its money provide humanity's only hope? There are some ideas worth exploring in Goldilocks, but much like its use of the title (the Goldilocks Zone is the area around a star's orbit in which planets aren't too hot, aren't too cold, and are therefore just right for life) the book seems to brush up against something deeper, then dust its hands off and walk away. It feels like it needed at least another draft, which may be related to how sloppy the editing is. Many glaring typos have got through, including one instance where a character is referred to by the wrong name. Overall, "Goldilocks" isn't awful. It's just not any good. It's bland and forgettable and under-cooked, which is all the more surprising given how much of it could have been interesting.

This is a gripping and exciting book well-suited to those who already enjoy sci-fi and those who are just beginning to explore the genre. Five women are off to another world to save the population of planet earth, but of course nothing is particularly straight forward. With twists upon twists, the reader is captivated by the journey the women are undertaking, with interesting flashbacks to their past lives to help understand the world that they are trying to escape. As the plot begins to unfold, we realise that the futuristic, apocolyptic world created by Laura Lam is now alarmingly similar to the world in which we're living in right now, with climate change, disease, and rampant nationalism all taking their toll on a weary society.What's interesting is the way the relationships between the women are developed as they continue their journey through space. Lam stays away from traditionally empowering 'girl power' and feminist solidarity themes, and instead explores the complexity of female friendship and relationships, taking the reader along on an emotional journey of commitment, loyalty, trust, and betrayal.I would liked there to have been more of a deep dive into the professional and personal restrictions on women which is touched upon throughout the book. There was perhaps a missed opportunity to develop that storyline more, but with Lam already alarmingly accurate in her ability to write the apocalyptic future, perhaps these are themes better left unexplored for now!

This was supposedly meant to be “The Handmaid’s Tale” meets space. Instead, this is one large, boring drivel about four one-dimensional women astronauts written in a prose of a giddy teenager.Beware- spoilers ahead. The earth is dying, the world is overpopulated, natural disasters, diseases and poverty are rife yet people still (surprise!) want their cake and it eat it - have kids, go through IVF, eat beef, travel in planes. Enter one scientist millionaire with the idea to populate a new world and leave this mess behind. As women have no legitimate political or legal rights left, she and 4 other women astronauts steal a spaceship. So far so good - the possibilities for a great story are endless. Enter the discovery that the scientist millionaire turned crew member is actually a (one-dimensional) evil villainess who has released a virus on earth to kill the whole population, only leaving children and 5% of adults alive. Her (evil) idea is to populate the new world with frozen embryos that she had sneaked on the ship and to start totally afresh, with none of the pre-existing biases that humans hold back on earth. You know, politics, carelessness, wars, racism, prejudice. Is the idea bad or is this idea is just under-scrutinised from all angles? Book says it’s just bad. The remainder of the crew (with no personalities, character or personal backstories) then goes on some reverse morality journey crying foul. The ship is turned around to save earth (like, if saving earth was that important, why was this not done from earth rather than going 1000 days into space?), one of the main protagonists is pregnant, last chapter is one massive motherly sob story about birth complications, small baby hands, baby cries, baby landing, baby cradles, baby in space, missing buttered toast etc. Not that the space mission was about starting afresh on a new planted giving humanity a chance to do it right this time, but it’s now about plonking back on the same dying earth with a kid in tow? Okay. All ends well as earth survives and the kids get to tell the tale even though before the earth had less than 30 years to live and the main protagonist didn’t even want kids. Amazing story. Not.And yes, half way through there are extensive chapters about the main protagonist’s relationship with her ex-husband, also an astronaut, who had had the habit of not taking his contraceptive pill. Did any of it add to the story? Nope, it didn’t.Please do not bother. Go read “The Power”, it actually has things to say and communicate.