Publisher – Wildfire

Published – Out Now

Price – £18.99 hardback £7.99 Kindle eBook

Despite increasing restrictions on the freedoms of women on Earth, Valerie Black is spearheading the first all-female mission to a planet in the Goldilocks Zone, where conditions are just right for human habitation.

It's humanity's last hope for survival, and Naomi, Valerie's surrogate daughter and the ship's botanist, has been waiting her whole life for an opportunity like this - to step out of Valerie's shadow and really make a difference.

But when things start going wrong on the ship, Naomi starts to suspect that someone on board is concealing a terrible secret - and realises time for life on Earth may be running out faster than they feared . . .

The dream of humanity living on other worlds has been an essential strand of science fiction – from Bradbury’s Martians to Bujold’s Vor we love to imagine variation of humanity changing and being changed by other worlds. More recently Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora challenged the dream of the generational starship and deliberately wanted readers to remember to focus more on the issues at home that currently make us feel escape is the better option. Laura Lam I think progresses this debate even further in their novel Goldilocks reminding us that however good the science foundations of the story are the really important question of these tales that we should be asking ourselves is – what are we taking with us – our better or worse natures?

The story starts dramatically in the near future with the theft of a space shuttle and then the earth’s first starship. Five women including wealthy billionaire industrialist Valerie Black and her acclaimed biologist ward Naomi Lovelace have made a decision partly on the grounds that the version of NASA in existence is part of a righting populist government that believes women have no role in industry or public life; but also partly to stop said government from creating a new world in the image of its horrific rulers. The far off recently discovered world of Cavendish offers a potential solution to an over-populated Earth that is increasingly seen as heading into full environmental collapse. The women want to send a message of hope – another way is possible. Braving the dangers of space, untried technology and a hostile government the team try to stick to a high-stake plan of escape across the solar system and beyond. Slowly however the team begin to realise many secrets are being hidden from each other and the team will start to have to make tough choices for themselves and the rest of the planet.

This was a fascinating and successful mix of various strands. Lam really focuses attention on the world of the near future; and it is an even more horrific and sadly extremely plausible version of our current times. Its done subtly as we see events prior to the space theft but we see a world where air filter masks are pretty much the norm; summer wildfires and floods are the norm and it is just that horrible image of the frog in the pan finally realising it is being boiled alive. Some latter scenes will really chime with the audience of 2020. All of which makes the newfound discovery of Cavendish so appealing to the populace – a world untouched by humanity – unpolluted so our Earth 2.0. It just needs someone to get there. However Lam has extrapolated (and the evidence of the last few years back it up) that such crisis will lead to yet more populism and in the US a leader focused on population control and the removal of women from a man’s world. Job opportunities are slowly removed, abortion rights removed and a more blatant sexual discrimination returns. Lam reminds us that this is not new and notes the tale of the Mercury 13 back at the dawn of the space race who were a group of very able women never allowed onto a rocket because of their gender. The whole worldbuilding is terrifyingly plausible and allows the rest of the story to flourish.

The scenes set on the starship the Atalanta and prior to that in Valerie and Naomi’s various workspaces all help to show the huge steps in advancement are possible. While we may have squandered the planet we still see the dawning of warp technology; huge advances in DNA for building plants that could survive on another world and the world of a starship with some form of gravity all feel plausible extensions of where we could get to in a few decades if we could get our act together. We still learn quickly however to appreciate that space travel is still high stakes and very soon life and death decisions have to be made. Small things such as how much food there is to survive so many days are critical to the team’s survival and its fascinating watching the crew have to make these calculations and work out ways around the challenges int heir way. Very swiftly the reader absorbs all of this as normal – if you enjoy your science and problem-solving as in The Martian this will call to you.

The final major plus of the novel for me – the crux of the relationships in the crew. A crew of five women astronauts comprising a gay couple, a hardened Russian veteran plus Naomi and Valerie. Easily as capable as their male counterparts yet all have faced discrimination in their careers and yet we see no reason these people should have been held back. Lam really captures the feeling that these women have had to work twice as hard than anyone else just to prove they should be given a chance and even despite their talent they get overlooked purely on gender. In particular the story concentrates on the ever-changing relationship between Valerie and Naomi. This quasi mother and daughter relationship is quite unusual yet compelling and a study in contrasts. Valerie is decisive, strategic, and determined and has been planning this expedition for some time while Naomi clearly driven to get to space herself is shown as someone who tends to put the needs of others first. In a series of flashbacks we see these two and their pressured relationships strengths and weaknesses change over time– while having someone as wealthy and powerful as Valerie behind her aids Naomi in difficult circumstances it does show also Naomi sometimes needs to break out for herself which when the two are confined to a small space like the Atalanta makes the next stage in their relationship more dramatic; especially as the book moves into the moral quandary of what can people done to aid humanity it poses some horrible questions for the crew and the reader to try and find a solution for.

This I feel is an extremely accomplished novel balancing debates on the future of humanity with issues of feminism, morality, and some truly fascinating science. A wonderful mixture of science and the dilemmas in space that future astronauts need to solve and a truly human dilemma about what our future should be. This was a story that is thought-provoking in many ways and really should be in all science fiction fan’s hands this year.