Nicely suspenseful. Decently hard sf. Had some points to make, but they were believably embedded within the characters and events. ( )

4.5 stars

In a world where women are 'discouraged' from professional careers, where climate change is rapidly making the Earth uninhabitable, five women conspire to steal a spaceship.

This book is not without its flaws, sure. For one thing: character motivation. Valerie has a clear and believable motivation for her actions. The other four? I don't know. What were they hoping to achieve? Why go to all that trouble just to be the first to set foot on the newly discovered Cavendish if you know you're going to be caught and arrested and probably executed for your crime? How would it benefit you or humanity?

For another, Valerie's transformation from hero (not the hero, but a hero none the less)… to cold-blooded killer was a bit too sharp of a turn to be entirely believable.

And yet… For all that, this is a hell of a book. The world Lam has created is both entirely believable and utterly terrifying. The characters are (for the most part) deeply human – flawed yet brilliant, fascinating yet realistic. And the story itself is a gripping, compelling read. ( )

Goldilocks is a soap opera set in space about the future impact of climate change on our tenure on Earth and the quest to find another planet we might call home.

It's also about sexism and neocon politics leading to women being excluded from the workplace and the erosion of reproductive rights.

And it's a hokey old potboiler with a cartoon baddie and a heroine who, for me, doesn't quite hit the mark.

It was very readable and raises some interesting issues arising from our current trajectory as a species, but it wasn't the twisty thriller that it wanted to be. ( )

The first half of the book seemed uninteresting and a bit predictable. I was worried about some tropes that were showing up. But then there were some unexpected twists that I ended up enjoying. All in all a fun read, but not as compelling as I had hoped. ( )

The Goldilocks Zone: "Not too hot. Not too cold. The right temperature for water to be liquid on the surface given the right atmospheric pressure. For life to potentially grow."

Five women who have trained as astronauts are sidelined when a new authoritarian fundamentalist government pushes women out of the workforce. Humanity is facing extinction due to changes wrought by climate change, and there is a program in place to send a crew to a distant Earth-like planet as a possible world for humans to settle. The five women steal the spaceship that has been prepared for this probe, and head for the new planet. But along the way it becomes apparent that their commander Valerie may have ulterior motives that she has hidden from the other members of the crew.
The novel is told from the point of view of Naomi, a botanist, and Valerie's adopted daughter. Naomi is charged with growing food for the long voyage to the new planet, as well as genetically engineering new food plants that will grow on the new planet. She has been betrayed by Valerie in the past.
I am not a scientist, and I normally don't fret about whether or not the science in science fiction books is feasible or accurate. But I do like the characters in the books I read to act realistically and to be true to life with motivations that make sense. I didn't find that to always be the case with this book. It was good enough to keep me reading to find out what happened, but there were several things/characters that sometimes just did not ring true. So overall this is one I can't give an enthusiastic recommendation to.

2 stars

I liked this anecdote about John Glenn related in this book. When asked how he felt waiting to blast off as the first man to orbit Earth, he stated, "I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of two million parts--all build by the lowest bidder on a government contract." ( )