Goldilocks, by Laura Lam

[rachelmanija]

Five women steal a spaceship and set out to save the Earth. Sounds good, right?

The more detailed version of the premise is that Earth is so environmentally devastated, humanity is in danger of going extinct. But there is hope: a warp drive is invented, a habitable planet with only plant life is discovered, and NASA plans to move humanity to it. But a Trump-like president is elected in America, and women are banned from all or most jobs, including at NASA. Somehow this causes women to lose all rights worldwide. The women who were originally supposed to be part of the five-person crew to start up the colony on the planet are fired, and an all-male crew is readied. But the women steal the spaceship and go to start the colony themselves.

If that makes you think "Wait a second, that doesn't make sense... and that doesn't make sense... and..." it's even less sensible with more detail. Is there any other resistance to women losing the right to work? How did America get to a policy where women are forcibly implanted with IUDs after they have one child because abortion is banned and any subsequent children are met with a stiff fine? Who knows! (The way women lose the right to work is that they're given financial aid if they stop working when their child is born, then not re-hired when their child is older. So basically, the current state of much of the US, minus the financial aid.)

How do five astronauts and one Earth confederate steal a NASA spaceship which is the main vehicle of a currently active mission which is considered to be the only way to save the world? How does NASA plan to save Earth via colonization when there's exactly one warp drive spaceship in the entire world and it only carries five people? How are FIVE PEOPLE supposed to set up a colony that will support a big chunk of the entire population of the Earth? If more ships with more people will arrive later, why not wait and build a bigger ship carrying more people?

But that's not the only problem with the book. Chapters from the mission alternate with completely random flashbacks: five years previously, eight years previously, one year previously, four years previously, etc. This makes the past action extremely hard to follow. But it kind of doesn't matter, because the flashbacks are extremely boring and don't provide any actual information other than dull recaps of fundraisers (yes really) and the main character's boring relationship with her ex-husband who is also an astronaut. Also, despite women supposedly being oppressed more than they are now, the only oppression we actually see is the women astronauts being booted out of NASA.

The crew consists of the boring heroine and her boring mentor, and three crew members who have no personality whatsoever. Two are married to each other, and one is Russian. Not even stereotypically Russian. Just, all we know about her is that she's Russian.

Some potential drama occurs partway, but is ruthlessly crushed. Then my least favorite plot twist ensues, followed by a deeply obnoxious conclusion. Spoilers!

It is discovered that the alternate crew of five men is aboard, cryogenically frozen, including the heroine's ex-husband, and their capsules are malfunctioning and will soon stop working. This could lead to all sorts of interesting complications, but it turns out that the malfunction was probably already fatal and anyway they only have enough food for exactly five people, so they just space them and feel somewhat sad.

Then the heroine learns that she is pregnant oh noes! By her adoptive brother (why) who is their Earth confederate.

Then they find out that the mentor onboard secretly smuggled in a bazillion embryos and released a plague on Earth that will kill most adults but leave children alive, so the new planet can be settled by the orphans on Earth and be a utopia. (How are children going to survive when most adults are dead? How are children going to get to the planet by themselves? Who's building the spaceships? Who's going to have the time or inclination to build spaceships when there's like one adult for every hundred children and civilization has completely collapsed?)

Horrified, the other women turn the spaceship around before ever reaching the other planet and return to Earth so the mentor can be jailed and the plague can be stopped.

They whip up and distribute a vaccine right away (lolsob). The book then turns to the REALLY important stuff, which is the dishrag heroine's pregnancy/birth complications and relationship with her adopted brother/babydaddy.

Then there's an epilogue saying that once 15% of the world died in the plague, the survivors decided to stop emitting so much carbon and restore women's rights, and so Earth was saved and eventually the planet was colonized.

What.

Oh, and we don't see the planet till the very last page. I bought the entire books because I wanted to see five women starting a colony on a new planet, and that never happens.



I HATED this book. I hated it so much that, although I've hated other books more, a quote from "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" came immediately to mind:

HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.