Goldilocks by Laura LamMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Due in part to the real-world horrors that marred the real-world release cycle for this book, it took me a little over a year to finally get ahold of it and read it (though it's absolutely one of the highlights of me having moved to Oregon so far, having found it in Klindt's Books in The Dalles, where the bookseller raved about it as I expected.)
It absolutely owes a lot to the likes of Mary Robinette Kowal in particular, a blend of science fiction and social science fiction, using the framing device of women going out and exploring space in the hopes of escaping an increasingly dire life on Earth. Global warming has displaced tons of people and forced them to take refuge in other countries; California burns so much every year that masks are commonplace (and also seen as a symbol of privilege in some circles as most of the readily available ones aren't really all that effective); far-right political forces have gained power to oppress women more than ever, especially in America and in regards to reproductive rights (there's talk at one point about how rich people can afford to flout "child taxes" and therefore have bigger families, while the obviously-GOP party in power has attracted "disaffected libertarians" by encouraging free birth control while overturning Roe v. Wade and forcing abortions back into back alley clinics); and worst of all, as our team of lady astronauts (a highly diverse one too, ethnically and sexually, as is always the case in a Laura Lam book) makes their way out towards Mars and their eventual destination of the Goldilocks-zone world of Cavendish, they learn that Earth is in the grips of the absolute worst-case scenario of pandemics, a lethal hemorrhagic fever that spreads as easily as the flu or Covid or any respiratory virus.
But where Lam's genius shines the most in this one is the true villain of the piece - and it's not the far right assbutts we're already meant to despise for how awful they are. No, this time around the villain comes from left field in more ways than one, and that particular character is going to stick with me for quite some time, possibly even edging out the likes of Negan or the Commandant or Ben de Backer's parents or Supernatural's Lucifer on my list of most utterly detestable villains. Let's just say if you read Lam's own GR review of this book, you'll pick that villain out pretty quickly too - but still want to throw all the rotten nutriblocks at them every chance you get.
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