Goldilocks - Science Fiction, Not the Fairy Tale

As I think I've mentioned before, my Books & Beer Club has a schedule of genres for the year. It makes sure that we read from a wide variety of books. I always shudder when we're approaching science fiction or fantasy months. Those are always difficult for me to read. Back in April, I was reading some list of new recommended titles and Goldilocks by Laura Lam sounded like a book I might be able to recommend to the Club. I must have requested it from the library, although I'm not sure why I would have done that. But it arrived on my virtual bookshelf so after I finished Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari's expanse, I picked up Goldilocks. (I'm still not sure that the title of Goldilocks  was a good choice.)

The timing of the reading was a bit unsettling at the beginning. Sapiens left me with the feeling that Earth might be doomed. Or at least humans. Goldilocks picks up at that point. The Earth is in trouble. Human life on Earth might cease to exist within the next 30 years.

Dr. Valerie Black is determined to take a team of women scientists to Cavendish, in the Goldilocks Zone, to start a new colony. Conditions could be right for human habitation. They do make it into space and face setback after setback. Finally some secrets are unveiled and the crew is forced to make some very difficult decisions.

This is not one of my genres yet I found this absorbing. A real page turner. But there was backstory missing. Other than climate change ravishing the country, there were hints at political turbulence, about women being forced out of the workforce. I wish we'd had a little bit more of that story.

What was crazy, almost, was it's as though this novel was being written now. Written now. In July of 2020. Not published in early 2020 meaning it was written sometime earlier. I'm not sure that this is the best book to read in the midst of a pandemic, but I did enjoy it as much as I hoped I would.