Introduction
“The Ghosts of Goldilocks,” a novella by Kevin J. Anderson and Rick Wilber published in Asimov’s Science Fiction (March/April 2026), represents a collaboration between two established science fiction writers exploring the familiar yet enduringly relevant theme of human colonization and first contact. Anderson, known for his work in the Dune universe and his Saga of Seven Suns series, and Wilber, whose fiction frequently features characters with Down syndrome, bring complementary strengths to this narrative. The story examines the precarious existence of a struggling human colony on the planet Goldilocks and their discovery of an abandoned alien settlement, culminating in the arrival of the alien species that originally built it. This review argues that while “The Ghosts of Goldilocks” succeeds in creating a plausible post-colonial science fiction scenario with genuine emotional stakes and thoughtful disability representation, its narrative suffers from uneven pacing and conventional plot structures that limit its overall impact.
Summary
The story is set on Goldilocks, a marginally habitable planet settled by survivors from the generation ship Hind forty years prior. The colony at Xandi City struggles against environmental hostility: high cosmic radiation, volcanic activity, thin soil, and crop failures. The protagonist, Gando, runs a failing homestead with his wife Ella, facing critical equipment failures that threaten their survival. His sister Ayekiri serves as mayor of Xandi City, while another sister, Issa, is dying of cancer in the colony’s new medical center.
The narrative’s catalyst occurs when Lonnie Dothanson, a man with Down syndrome known as “the Old Man of the Hills,” brings Gando a mysterious artifact to help fix his irrigation pump. Lonnie leads Gando and Ella to an abandoned alien settlement hidden in a caldera, revealing that humans are not the first to attempt colonization of Goldilocks. Simultaneously, astronomers detect an unknown ship approaching the planet. As Ayekiri leads a research team to investigate the alien ruins, the ship descends, revealing itself to be the “Croatoans”—the aliens who built the settlement—returning to find their colony gone and humans in their place. The story concludes with Lonnie and Ayekiri boarding the alien vessel for negotiations, suggesting a tentative hope for cooperation between the two struggling civilizations.
Critical Analysis
Themes and Ideas
The novella’s central theme is the failure of the colonial project and the recognition of shared vulnerability across species. Anderson and Wilber construct a pointed critique of colonial optimism through the parallel failures of human and alien settlement. The repeated invocation of the historical Roanoke colony—including the mysterious word “Croatoan”—serves as a historical metaphor for abandoned settlements and dashed hopes. The authors use this parallel to question the sustainability of expansion-based human survival narratives.
The environmental critique is particularly salient. Goldilocks represents the gap between distant observation and lived reality: what appeared habitable from Earth proves barely survivable, with thin soil, cosmic radiation, volcanic instability, and atmospheric inadequacy. The planet’s resistance to terraforming efforts reflects contemporary anxieties about planetary habitability and climate change. As Gando reflects, “If another race came to Goldilocks, if they built a colony town and tried to make a living here with all their technology, but they still failed… Then what chance do we have?”
The representation of Lonnie Dothanson as a central, competent character constitutes one of the work’s most significant achievements. Wilber’s stated practice of featuring characters with Down syndrome is realized here with nuance and respect. Lonnie is neither romanticized nor patronized; he is capable, independent, observant, and ultimately chosen as humanity’s representative. His connection to the “fireflies” (later revealed as alien technology or life forms) positions him as uniquely qualified for first contact, suggesting that different forms of cognition may offer advantages in interspecies communication. The aliens’ specific request for “the Old Man of the Hills” validates Lonnie’s importance and challenges ableist assumptions about who should represent humanity.
Form and Style
The narrative employs a third-person limited perspective, alternating primarily among Gando, Ayekiri, and occasionally Lonnie. This structure allows the authors to maintain multiple plot threads—the homestead crisis, the alien discovery, Issa’s illness, and the approaching ship—while building suspense through withheld information. However, this approach also contributes to the story’s uneven pacing. The opening sections devoted to agricultural equipment failures, while establishing the colony’s precarity, feel protracted relative to their narrative importance.
The prose style is competent but largely utilitarian, favoring clear exposition over stylistic innovation. Descriptions of the alien ruins and the Croatoan ship demonstrate effective visual imagination:
“The ship fully emerged through the clouds, surrounded by a knotted ball of dark swirling mist. The lightning trails danced close, as if they were the heralds of this miraculous visitor. The core of the vessel was curves and planes, adorned with a cluster of small, intense lights, like the eyes of a mythical creature from the depths.”
Such passages create vivid imagery without lapsing into purple prose. However, the dialogue often feels expository, with characters stating information for the reader’s benefit rather than engaging in naturalistic conversation.
The story’s structure follows a conventional pattern of escalating crises leading to climactic revelation and tentative resolution. The various plot threads—equipment failure, alien discovery, dying sister, approaching ship—converge with mechanical precision. While this creates narrative momentum, it also produces a sense of contrivance, particularly in the timing of Issa’s death coinciding exactly with the ship’s arrival.
Characterization
Gando and Ella function as sympathetic everypeople, hardworking colonists facing impossible odds. Their relationship is sketched with warmth but lacks depth; Ella remains particularly underdeveloped, serving primarily as a supportive spouse. Ayekiri receives more complexity as a mayor balancing impossible demands, grieving her dying sister while managing potential first contact. Her internal conflict between personal and public obligations provides genuine emotional weight.
Lonnie emerges as the story’s most fully realized character. His cheerful optimism, competence in wilderness survival, and unique relationship with the environment distinguish him from stereotype. The authors resist the temptation to make Lonnie’s Down syndrome either irrelevant or the sole defining feature of his character. Instead, they present him as a complete person whose different cognitive processing may offer advantages in certain contexts. His selection as humanity’s representative feels earned rather than tokenistic.
The aliens remain largely undeveloped, appearing only in the final pages. This choice maintains suspense but limits the story’s exploration of intercultural contact. The Croatoan speaker’s formal, slightly archaic diction (“We trust we are speaking your language”) establishes otherness without providing much insight into alien psychology or culture.
Context and Critical Approaches
“The Ghosts of Goldilocks” participates in science fiction’s long engagement with colonization, from Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest to Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. Unlike triumphalist space opera, the story embraces what might be called “failure fiction”—narratives that question expansion-based human survival. The planet’s name, “Goldilocks,” ironically invokes the astronomical concept of a “Goldilocks zone” (the habitable region around a star) while revealing that such zones may be habitable in theory but inhospitable in practice.
From a postcolonial perspective, the story’s most interesting gesture is the humans’ recognition that they themselves are the colonizers. When Gando states, “Remember, we’re the aliens here! It’s easy to forget that, but it’s the truth. Humans are the ones who don’t belong on Goldy,” he acknowledges what colonial projects historically deny. The parallel failures of human and Croatoan settlements suggest that colonization itself, rather than insufficient technology or poor planning, may be fundamentally unsustainable.
The story also engages with disability studies through Lonnie’s characterization. Rather than treating disability as a deficit to be overcome, the narrative suggests that neurological difference may offer unique capabilities. Lonnie’s ability to perceive and communicate with the “fireflies” positions him as possessing a form of perception unavailable to neurotypical characters. This aligns with disability studies’ emphasis on disability as difference rather than deficiency.
Evaluation
“The Ghosts of Goldilocks” demonstrates considerable strengths, particularly in its disability representation, environmental critique, and thematic complexity. The decision to make Lonnie central to first contact is both narratively satisfying and ideologically significant. The parallel between human and alien colonial failure provides intellectual substance, and the story’s refusal to provide easy answers about the colony’s future reflects mature engagement with its themes.
However, the novella suffers from structural and stylistic limitations. The pacing is uneven, with excessive attention to agricultural equipment and insufficient development of the alien encounter. The prose, while clear, rarely rises above functional competence. The various plot threads converge with insufficient organic connection—Issa’s death, while emotionally affecting, feels disconnected from the central narrative about alien contact. The story’s conclusion, while open-ended, arrives abruptly after extensive setup, leaving the actual negotiation between species unexplored.
The work’s conventionality in form limits its impact. Despite its thematic sophistication, the narrative follows familiar patterns: struggling colonists, mysterious discovery, approaching threat, tentative resolution. Readers familiar with science fiction will recognize these beats, and the story offers few formal innovations to refresh them. The aliens’ sudden arrival and immediate communication in human language, while explained as learning from the “fireflies,” feels narratively convenient.
Comparatively, “The Ghosts of Goldilocks” occupies a middle position in contemporary science fiction. It lacks the stylistic ambition of authors like N.K. Jemisin or the philosophical depth of Ted Chiang, but it surpasses routine space opera through its thoughtful disability representation and environmental critique. The collaboration between Anderson and Wilber produces competent, thematically engaged science fiction that advances important representational goals without achieving artistic distinction.
Conclusion
“The Ghosts of Goldilocks” represents a worthwhile contribution to science fiction’s ongoing engagement with colonization, environmental limits, and disability representation. Anderson and Wilber’s decision to center a character with Down syndrome in a first contact narrative challenges ableist assumptions and enriches the story’s thematic complexity. The parallel failures of human and alien colonies provide a sobering counternarrative to expansionist optimism, suggesting that some environments may resist colonization regardless of technology or determination.
However, the novella’s conventional structure, uneven pacing, and functional prose limit its literary impact. The story succeeds in creating plausible characters facing genuine stakes, but it rarely surprises or innovates formally. The abrupt conclusion, while thematically appropriate in refusing easy resolution, feels narratively unsatisfying after extensive worldbuilding.
The work’s enduring value likely rests in its representation of disability and its environmental critique rather than its artistic achievement. As science fiction increasingly grapples with representation and sustainability, “The Ghosts of Goldilocks” offers a model for inclusive storytelling and ecological consciousness, even if it does not fully realize its potential. Future scholarship might productively examine the story alongside other disability-centered science fiction or within the broader corpus of “failure fiction” that questions expansion-based human survival narratives.
For readers and scholars interested in disability representation in genre fiction, environmental science fiction, or collaborative authorship, “The Ghosts of Goldilocks” merits attention as a competent, well-intentioned work that advances important representational and thematic goals within largely conventional narrative structures.