Goldilocks Online Events, Interviews & Blog Tour

It’s launch week. I can confidently say this will be the strangest book launch I’ll have had. It’s so weird to think that on Thursday, the UK book launch date, I’ll be at home, like I have been for the last 7 weeks, where I haven’t seen anyone except for my husband and my cats. Bookstores are closed, so I can’t go see it on bookshelves. The news is terrible, everything seems so uncertain. My book launch being interrupted is so little in the grand scheme of things, but I still mourn the fact that this will likely have an effect on sales and my future career. It’s hard, and I’m not going to pretend it’s not.

While all physical bookstore events are cancelled, there are a few online events that you can tune into anywhere in the world. I’ve also been so touched by everyone who has reached out to offer to help spread the word on various platforms. To those who have pre-ordered, reviewed, and been such a great support: thank you so, so much.

Purchase:  Forbidden Planet (signed bookplate edition) / Toppings Edinburgh (signed bookplate edition) / Portal Bookshop (signed bookplate edition) / Book Depository / Hive / Waterstones / Foyles / Blackwells / Amazon UK  / Amazon US / Bokus / Barnes and Noble / Apple / Kobo / Google / Booktopia /Bookshop

April 28th: Inverse Happy Hour on their Instagram. 5 pm EST / 10 PM GMT

This series brings creators and their fans together over a drink to hear readings and discuss science, science fiction, and socialising. Past guests so far have included Mike Carey, John Scalzi, Christopher Paolini, Chuck Palahniuk, Veronica Roth, Charlie Jane Anders, Victoria Schwab, and more. So like, actual famous people.

April 30th: Instagram live on my Instagram with P.M. Freestone. 6 pm GMT.

I helped mark the publication of P.M. Freestone’s Crown of Smoke last month, and we’re joining forces again to talk about Goldilocks and social policy of infectious diseases on Instagram Live. Ask questions, hang out with us! It’ll be informal and fun.

May 5th: Event with Ann Leckie via Orbit’s Crowdcast. 3 pm EST / 8 pm EST. 

On the US publication launch, I have an event with Ann Leckie (!) of Ancillary Justice, Provenance, and Raven Tower fame. We will discuss SF and it will be lovely!

May 6th: Second Life Book Club Panel with Anne Charnock, Antoine Wilson, and Yvonne Battle-Wilson, 10 am SLT / 6 pm GMT.

“Technologists often want to tell us that immersive virtual reality technology with its potential to experience different embodiments and experiment with gender, age and ethnicity is superior to following the news, watching documentary films or even having conversations with those affected by specific issues when it comes to feeling true and deep, even long-lasting empathy with individuals from different “walks of life”.

But isn’t reading stories a form of embodiment? When a gifted storyteller can conjure up characters that have very different experiences than our own and we feel connected to them, feel through them and leave the time we spend with the story/book/narrative feeling as if we have truly grown, what is this other than a transformation into a different body , akin to switching from one Second Life avatar to another one and interacting with the world, virtual or physical?”

Is reading fiction the ultimate empathy machine?

I’ll be doing my first event in Second Life, which is quite interesting because it feels a little more like an in-person event because you have avatars you can move around. I’ll be dressed as an astronaut, which is fun.

May 7th: #OrbitTavern with Creative Director Lauren Panepinto via Orbit’s Instagram, 5 pm EST. 

Each week, Lauren will be sitting down with a new Orbit author to talk about their latest book and suggest the perfect cocktail to accompany it.

May 8th: Cymera event through the BBC Big Book weekend with Temi Oh for Culture in Quarantine.  1 pm GMT. 

As so many in-person book festivals have been cancelled, Kit de Waal and Molly Flatt have curated events for the BBC that can go forward digitally. Cymera’s event is one with me and Temi Oh talking about all things space. Other guests at the festival include Neil Gaiman, Maggie O’Farrell, Bernardine Evaristo, Alexander McCall Smith, Marian Keyes, and more.

May 14th: Science Panel with Experts who Helped with Goldilocks, through Cymera Festival, via Zoom, 6 PM GMT. 

Free but ticketed!

I am interviewing three experts who helped me with Goldilocks: Dr. Heidi DeBlock, a doctor who looks after astronaut health for NASA, Dr. Sinead Collins, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh who runs a lab that looks at algae in the context of climate change, and Dr. Peta Freestone, also known as P.M. Freestone, who has a multidisciplinary PhD analysing biomedical research fields that focused on the sociopolitical aspects of vaccine development and global health. I’m really excited about this event, so check back or follow me on Twitter/Instagram (at LR_Lam) to keep on top of details!

 

Interviews & Blog Tour

Starting today, there’s a book blog tour organised by the UK publisher Wildfire books. I will end up linking to these when the tour has finished on Goldilocks’ book page. They will be regularly shared via social media as they go live, as well.

Interviews:

Forbidden Planet: Q&A with Laura Lam About Goldilocks. (A reminder you can buy a bookplate signed edition through FP).

I was a guest on the Page One Podcast. I was also on the Spectology podcast.

Liza DeBlock, my agent Juliet Mushens’s assistant (and yes, how I met Dr Heidi DeBlock), interviewed me about Goldilocks on the Mushens Entertainment blog.

Here is an interview on Nerd Daily. Other authors who have had interrupted book launches along with me answer some questions for The List.  Here’s a quickfire interview on Track of Words.

Other:

Waterstones listed it as one of their books to watch out for in April: “Dark and stirring, Goldilocks depicts the slow decay of trust in a race against time.”

So did Culturefly: “With the current state of the world, the idea of reading a dystopian novel might not be as appealing as it once was. Yet Laura Lam’s high-concept debut is a book you don’t want to miss [. . .] Goldilocks is a thought-provoking and relevant tale of morality and oppression.”

Book Riot said nice things: “If The Martian and The Handmaid’s Tale had a book baby, this feminist environmental sci-fi thriller would be the incredible result.”

Goldilocks has had four trade reviews: Kirkus and Library Journal gave it starred reviews, and Publishers Weekly and Booklist both gave positive reviews. Hooray!