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Solution Three
In her post nuclear Holocaust world, overpopulation and feeding the people are the major problems. The third attempted Solution involves conditioned homosexual love for all, and the only babies born are clones of the best two individuals, Her and Him, born to favoured Clone Mums. Some'Professorial' scientists have refused to abandon marriage and heterosexual reproduction, and are an embarrassment. They have developed powerful new strains of cereals to feed the world, but ominous signs of failure and new diseases occur. Has this new world done enough to preserve gene pools in both humans and foodstuffs? Mitchison was one of the first to raise the potential problems of GM her novel remains urgent, thoughtful and relevant in today's world.
174 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
3 people are currently reading
217 people want to read
About the author
Naomi Mitchison
163 books140 followersNaomi Mitchison, author of over 70 books, died in 1999 at the age of 101. She was born in and lived in Scotland and traveled widely throughout the world. In the 1960s she was adopted as adviser and mother of the Bakgatla tribe in Botswana. Her books include historical fiction, science fiction, poetry, autobiography, and nonfiction, the most popular of which are The Corn King and the Spring Queen, The Conquered, and Memoirs of a Spacewoman.
Mitchison lived in Kintyre for many years and was an active small farmer. She served on Argyll County Council and was a member of the Highlands and Islands Advisory Panel from 1947 to 1965, and the Highlands and Islands Advisory Consultative Council from 1966 to 1974.
Praise for Naomi Mitchison:
"No one knows better how to spin a fairy tale than Naomi Mitchison."
-- The Observer
"Mitchison breathes life into such perennial themes as courage, forgiveness, the search for meaning, and self-sacrifice."
-- Publishers Weekly
"She writes enviably, with the kind of casual precision which ... comes by grace."
-- Times Literary Supplement
"One of the great subversive thinkers and peaceable transgressors of the twentieth century.... We are just catching up to this wise, complex, lucid mind that has for ninety-seven years been a generation or two ahead of her time."
-- Ursula K. Le Guin, author of Gifts
"Her descriptions of ritual and magic are superb; no less lovely are her accounts of simple, natural things -- water-crowfoot flowers, marigolds, and bright-spotted fish. To read her is like looking down into deep warm water, through which the smallest pebble and the most radiant weed shine and are seen most clearly; for her writing is very intimate, almost as a diary, or an autobiography is intimate, and yet it is free from all pose, all straining after effect; she is telling a story so that all may understand, yet it has the still profundity of a nursery rhyme.
-- Hugh Gordon Proteus, New Statesman and Nation
Mitchison lived in Kintyre for many years and was an active small farmer. She served on Argyll County Council and was a member of the Highlands and Islands Advisory Panel from 1947 to 1965, and the Highlands and Islands Advisory Consultative Council from 1966 to 1974.
Praise for Naomi Mitchison:
"No one knows better how to spin a fairy tale than Naomi Mitchison."
-- The Observer
"Mitchison breathes life into such perennial themes as courage, forgiveness, the search for meaning, and self-sacrifice."
-- Publishers Weekly
"She writes enviably, with the kind of casual precision which ... comes by grace."
-- Times Literary Supplement
"One of the great subversive thinkers and peaceable transgressors of the twentieth century.... We are just catching up to this wise, complex, lucid mind that has for ninety-seven years been a generation or two ahead of her time."
-- Ursula K. Le Guin, author of Gifts
"Her descriptions of ritual and magic are superb; no less lovely are her accounts of simple, natural things -- water-crowfoot flowers, marigolds, and bright-spotted fish. To read her is like looking down into deep warm water, through which the smallest pebble and the most radiant weed shine and are seen most clearly; for her writing is very intimate, almost as a diary, or an autobiography is intimate, and yet it is free from all pose, all straining after effect; she is telling a story so that all may understand, yet it has the still profundity of a nursery rhyme.
-- Hugh Gordon Proteus, New Statesman and Nation
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 22, 2012
This has sat on my "awaiting review" shelf for about a year, because I wasn't sure what to say about it the last time I read it. (I initially read it in 2001, for a school project.) It's still a little hard, but I think I have a better handle on it now. This book is such a weird blend of the eutopic and the dystopic: showing kindness and care is a cornerstone of the worldwide social ethos, the Code. Homosexual relationships are the encouraged and supported default, because of population pressure. Heterosexuality is thought to be deviant, though not actually against the code, and heterosexuals are generally not actually persecuted in the sense that they need to fear physical harm. But they are rather thought of as second class citizens, and passed over for the centrally allocated larger living spaces. (Which can be a difficulty when you have children.) Most of them choose to conceal their lifestyles and living arrangements from their colleagues. Heterosexual marriage is still possible, though there are various humiliating roadblocks put in one's way; the option to formalize same-sex relationships doesn't seem to exist.
The generally presented and accepted view of history, even by those on the council, the governing body, is that heterosexuality only existed because of social compulsion, and that same sex relationships were actually preferred, but hidden. Some examples that the book gave: Marx and Engels, Cleopatra and Charmian, Stalin and Beria(!). And in literature, one of the characters apparently seriously believes that Romeo was a girl. Somehow. Maybe she believes that all the actors were women, instead of men? Oh, I don't know. It's hard not to see this part as both sad and silly. Though not silly in the same way that the obligatory futurisms are, like the cooking ray that instantly bakes cookies, and the spray-on clothing. (Or the transformation of the slang "cat" — roughly equivalent to today's "guy" — into a serious term meaning "person." Or the smoking of marijuana as a ritual aid to calmness after the serious work of governing is done. This book was originally published in 1975 and it reflects the counterculture of the time, in much the same way that Star Trek reflects the mainstream culture of its time.)
For the past few decades, there has been little heterosexual reproduction. Instead, population replacement is by cloning of two individuals, one male and one female, who are seen as having saved the world, or at least averting it from the death-by-overpopulation-and-violence path it was on. They are simply referred to as She and He. She was a doctor from the Shetland Islands, and He was a black guy. That's pretty much all we're told about them. But they are seen as the most excellent humans possible, and so almost all babies born are their clones. In their youth or childhood (the book isn't clear) they are put through something called "strengthening" which is designed to make them psychologically like He and She, with their compassion and vision. This is probably something akin to psychological torture of some kind; the clones don't like to talk about it to non-clones, except to quickly say "It's over" when the topic is brought up. (Anticipating the psychogenesis that C.J. Cherryh posits in Cyteen, which is probably why this book reminded me of that one.)
The basic theme of this book is that, as Lois McMaster Bujold put it in Cetaganda, "Monocultures are dull and vulnerable." The genetically engineered superior wheat and fruits are being attacked by a plant disease that gives them yellow spots, and at the same time an expedition is dispatched to Mongolia to find non-engineered bodies of wheat, some members of the Council (the world governing body) are wondering if it wouldn't be good to have some kind of genetic variation among humans, in case other kinds of excellence should be needed. (The Mongolia section is slightly problematic. There's a subtext of "Oh look! These people are so primitive and nature-worshipping and dysfunctional!")
Some of the relationships are slightly disquieting, not because of the homosexuality but because of the dynamics. Council member Jussie prefers younger women — old enough to be considered adult, certainly, as both the women she is (sequentially) interested in have professional careers, and Ric (a male council member) spends a big chunk of the book being interested in Bobbi, one of the clone boys, who is probably in his late teens or early 20s, who doesn't return his affections and clearly sees Ric as too old for that, even if he is too polite to say so. It's kind of creepy, especially when Ric asks Bobbi to take off his shirt. There is one offscreen male-male relationship between equals, and one lesbian relationship which is more onscreen and between equals, and two on-screen heterosexual relationships between equals. By the end there's a suggestion that heterosexuality may be a little more tolerated, at least from the useful — Miryam the scientist, who was on the expedition to Mongolia, is given a larger living space for herself, her husband, and their two children, and if Jussie doesn't understand why she could possibly prefer men to women, at least she accepts that Miryam is happy that way. (Heterosexual deviancy, it's noted early on, is more common among "Professorials", which mainly seems to mean scientists. Mitchison, it should be noted, was the daughter of a scientist and the sister of scientist J.B.S. Haldane, as well as the friend of James D. Watson, so she probably had plenty of opportunity to observe scientists in their natural habitat.)
It reminded me a little of Brightness Falls From The Air. Probably just a coincidence that "The Code" is used in both novels to refer to two rather different things.
The generally presented and accepted view of history, even by those on the council, the governing body, is that heterosexuality only existed because of social compulsion, and that same sex relationships were actually preferred, but hidden. Some examples that the book gave: Marx and Engels, Cleopatra and Charmian, Stalin and Beria(!). And in literature, one of the characters apparently seriously believes that Romeo was a girl. Somehow. Maybe she believes that all the actors were women, instead of men? Oh, I don't know. It's hard not to see this part as both sad and silly. Though not silly in the same way that the obligatory futurisms are, like the cooking ray that instantly bakes cookies, and the spray-on clothing. (Or the transformation of the slang "cat" — roughly equivalent to today's "guy" — into a serious term meaning "person." Or the smoking of marijuana as a ritual aid to calmness after the serious work of governing is done. This book was originally published in 1975 and it reflects the counterculture of the time, in much the same way that Star Trek reflects the mainstream culture of its time.)
For the past few decades, there has been little heterosexual reproduction. Instead, population replacement is by cloning of two individuals, one male and one female, who are seen as having saved the world, or at least averting it from the death-by-overpopulation-and-violence path it was on. They are simply referred to as She and He. She was a doctor from the Shetland Islands, and He was a black guy. That's pretty much all we're told about them. But they are seen as the most excellent humans possible, and so almost all babies born are their clones. In their youth or childhood (the book isn't clear) they are put through something called "strengthening" which is designed to make them psychologically like He and She, with their compassion and vision. This is probably something akin to psychological torture of some kind; the clones don't like to talk about it to non-clones, except to quickly say "It's over" when the topic is brought up. (Anticipating the psychogenesis that C.J. Cherryh posits in Cyteen, which is probably why this book reminded me of that one.)
The basic theme of this book is that, as Lois McMaster Bujold put it in Cetaganda, "Monocultures are dull and vulnerable." The genetically engineered superior wheat and fruits are being attacked by a plant disease that gives them yellow spots, and at the same time an expedition is dispatched to Mongolia to find non-engineered bodies of wheat, some members of the Council (the world governing body) are wondering if it wouldn't be good to have some kind of genetic variation among humans, in case other kinds of excellence should be needed. (The Mongolia section is slightly problematic. There's a subtext of "Oh look! These people are so primitive and nature-worshipping and dysfunctional!")
Some of the relationships are slightly disquieting, not because of the homosexuality but because of the dynamics. Council member Jussie prefers younger women — old enough to be considered adult, certainly, as both the women she is (sequentially) interested in have professional careers, and Ric (a male council member) spends a big chunk of the book being interested in Bobbi, one of the clone boys, who is probably in his late teens or early 20s, who doesn't return his affections and clearly sees Ric as too old for that, even if he is too polite to say so. It's kind of creepy, especially when Ric asks Bobbi to take off his shirt. There is one offscreen male-male relationship between equals, and one lesbian relationship which is more onscreen and between equals, and two on-screen heterosexual relationships between equals. By the end there's a suggestion that heterosexuality may be a little more tolerated, at least from the useful — Miryam the scientist, who was on the expedition to Mongolia, is given a larger living space for herself, her husband, and their two children, and if Jussie doesn't understand why she could possibly prefer men to women, at least she accepts that Miryam is happy that way. (Heterosexual deviancy, it's noted early on, is more common among "Professorials", which mainly seems to mean scientists. Mitchison, it should be noted, was the daughter of a scientist and the sister of scientist J.B.S. Haldane, as well as the friend of James D. Watson, so she probably had plenty of opportunity to observe scientists in their natural habitat.)
It reminded me a little of Brightness Falls From The Air. Probably just a coincidence that "The Code" is used in both novels to refer to two rather different things.
February 11, 2018
Utopian novel that starts in bewilderment as world details come at you fast but then settles into a discernable shape. At some point in the near future a perfect man and perfect woman bring about a vision of a better, more egalitarian world. They and their followers succeed in achieving their ends and a new world state emerges even after the perfect man and woman pass on. Fortunately their followers managed to clone them, and now those new clones are reaching adulthood and trying to integrate into the world the followers made. Meanwhile on the fringes of the utopian state remnants of the old broken world rage on and must be brought into alignment by any means possible.
The best thing about this book is how much of the plot revolves everyday things. Will the research scientist couple manage to get a larger apartment for their family? Will the biologists be able to discover a cure to the disease affecting their crops? What decisions will the young clones make as they come of age? All this is great.
The bad bits are when Mitchison resorts to handwavium to get around any unpleasantness that would implicate her society. This comes mostly in how the clones are intentionally traumatized and subjected to stresses at an early age, because the society believes these stresses made the perfect man and woman the perfect people they were. (I wondered in a way if I was reading about some version of Omelas.) This stress test is left off screen, and the clones very much don’t want to talk about it, because they’re over it, so don’t dwell on it. Mitchison also claims the test is 100% successful, and that might be a bigger criticism of utopian fiction at large: it’s all so tidy, while the price that tidiness costs is kept offstage. Still, this is a minor point in a book I otherwise thought quite enjoyable.
The best thing about this book is how much of the plot revolves everyday things. Will the research scientist couple manage to get a larger apartment for their family? Will the biologists be able to discover a cure to the disease affecting their crops? What decisions will the young clones make as they come of age? All this is great.
The bad bits are when Mitchison resorts to handwavium to get around any unpleasantness that would implicate her society. This comes mostly in how the clones are intentionally traumatized and subjected to stresses at an early age, because the society believes these stresses made the perfect man and woman the perfect people they were. (I wondered in a way if I was reading about some version of Omelas.) This stress test is left off screen, and the clones very much don’t want to talk about it, because they’re over it, so don’t dwell on it. Mitchison also claims the test is 100% successful, and that might be a bigger criticism of utopian fiction at large: it’s all so tidy, while the price that tidiness costs is kept offstage. Still, this is a minor point in a book I otherwise thought quite enjoyable.
February 7, 2011
Two centuries in the future, humankind and its world are almost unrecognizable, a Utopia in progress. After an apocalyptic period in which most large cities and food-producing regions were ravaged, the essential dangers facing the race were identified as overpopulation and aggression. Soon, three Solutions were set in place, one after the other. These Solutions were (if I’ve got this right): the stigmatization of heterosexuality to combat overpopulation, the apportioning to everyone of rather small “reasonably equal living spaces” to eliminate envy and possessiveness, and finally the replacing of ordinary childbirth with homosexual mothers giving birth to “perfect” clone children who would then be taken from the mothers as toddlers, around the age of two, and raised by the State.
As Mitchison notes in the introduction, her emphasis here is with a biological science fiction and not with the sci-fi of physics. So this is hard sci-fi, but heavy on social situations . . . and none of that fun spectacle-oriented aliens-n-spacecraft stuff. Over the course of the novel, a parallel develops between crises in social engineering and agricultural engineering. Something unexpected and frightening is happening with the genetically tampered-with food supply, and something similar may be afflicting the clones.
In the end, the novel illuminates the growing and disturbing superstitious belief in scientific progress as something that will outpace its own horrendous destructive effects, as something that will--in the words of Wendell Berry--accomplish a “long end run that will carry us and the environment over the goal line of survival.” This belief is not merely hope; it is faith.
In terms of literary merit, there is some similarity here to Brave New World (Aldous Huxley was a childhood friend of Mitchison’s); however, I found Mitchison’s characters far more convincing and lifelike than Huxley’s. She also demonstrates a deft hand with fluid viewpoint technique and concise narrative structuring (this ambitious book runs to just 160 pages). If I have one complaint with the novel, it’s that we’re left wondering: did they really solve anything, and just how big of a mess are these people left with? A similar novel, which perhaps takes things a bit further (and with a fair amount of black humor) is Anthony Burgess’s The Wanting Seed, published 13 years earlier--another problematic-Utopia novel not to be missed.
Doing a little background search, I found that Naomi Mitchison led quite a life. She was an activist for women’s rights in Britain (indeed, my edition of Solution Three was published by the Feminist Press), married a Labour politician who became a Life Peer, wrote some 90 book . . . . Oh, and in the collected letters of JRR Tolkien we find a substantial correspondence between Mitchison and himself as well as notice that she was a proofreader for The Lord of the Rings.
A final note: the Feminist Press edition of the novel has a long afterword with some great information on Mitchision, but it also judges the engineered Utopia of the novel in too positive a light when, after all, the author herself labeled it a “horrid idea” in her dedication.
As Mitchison notes in the introduction, her emphasis here is with a biological science fiction and not with the sci-fi of physics. So this is hard sci-fi, but heavy on social situations . . . and none of that fun spectacle-oriented aliens-n-spacecraft stuff. Over the course of the novel, a parallel develops between crises in social engineering and agricultural engineering. Something unexpected and frightening is happening with the genetically tampered-with food supply, and something similar may be afflicting the clones.
In the end, the novel illuminates the growing and disturbing superstitious belief in scientific progress as something that will outpace its own horrendous destructive effects, as something that will--in the words of Wendell Berry--accomplish a “long end run that will carry us and the environment over the goal line of survival.” This belief is not merely hope; it is faith.
In terms of literary merit, there is some similarity here to Brave New World (Aldous Huxley was a childhood friend of Mitchison’s); however, I found Mitchison’s characters far more convincing and lifelike than Huxley’s. She also demonstrates a deft hand with fluid viewpoint technique and concise narrative structuring (this ambitious book runs to just 160 pages). If I have one complaint with the novel, it’s that we’re left wondering: did they really solve anything, and just how big of a mess are these people left with? A similar novel, which perhaps takes things a bit further (and with a fair amount of black humor) is Anthony Burgess’s The Wanting Seed, published 13 years earlier--another problematic-Utopia novel not to be missed.
Doing a little background search, I found that Naomi Mitchison led quite a life. She was an activist for women’s rights in Britain (indeed, my edition of Solution Three was published by the Feminist Press), married a Labour politician who became a Life Peer, wrote some 90 book . . . . Oh, and in the collected letters of JRR Tolkien we find a substantial correspondence between Mitchison and himself as well as notice that she was a proofreader for The Lord of the Rings.
A final note: the Feminist Press edition of the novel has a long afterword with some great information on Mitchision, but it also judges the engineered Utopia of the novel in too positive a light when, after all, the author herself labeled it a “horrid idea” in her dedication.
May 2, 2024
In this sometime future, humankind has suffered many emergencies - among them a population crisis. Eventually, due to contributions from two people now known only as Him and Her, it settled on what is called Solution Three. To filter out aggression, heterosexual reproduction has been replaced - at least in the mega-cities - by clones of Him and Her. Clone Mums look after these children until they are old enough for strengthening, a process intended to replicate the stresses and strains of the lives of Him and Her and meant to lead the children to wisdom but about which they afterwards do not speak.
In this society, overseen by The Council, heterosexual sex is regarded as an obscenity except for within a group known as the Professorials and for those living in remote communities.
As one character explains, before Solution Three "Inter-sexual love, resulting in the birth of children, had been necessary. When it not only ceased to be necessary, but was seen as a menace, then the logic of history made itself felt. That age-old sexual aggression changed to non-aggressive love of man for man and woman for woman, overt aggression dropped” in the same curve as population did.
Further science-fictional gloss is provided by references to spray-on clothes but for trips outwith the mega-cities fabric ones are to be preferred.
What plot there is centres around a problem with cereal crops in Asia. Use of particular strains to the exclusion of others means that the food production system may not be robust. This leads to some of the characters beginning to question whether relying on the clones for the future of humanity may not be altogether wise.
As in Mitchison’s only other foray into SF which I have read, Memoirs of a Spacewoman, (and in contrast to her historical and Scottish fiction) there is again too much telling and not enough showing. Another of her SF works, Not by Bread Alone, is on my tbr pile. Will it suffer similarly?
In this society, overseen by The Council, heterosexual sex is regarded as an obscenity except for within a group known as the Professorials and for those living in remote communities.
As one character explains, before Solution Three "Inter-sexual love, resulting in the birth of children, had been necessary. When it not only ceased to be necessary, but was seen as a menace, then the logic of history made itself felt. That age-old sexual aggression changed to non-aggressive love of man for man and woman for woman, overt aggression dropped” in the same curve as population did.
Further science-fictional gloss is provided by references to spray-on clothes but for trips outwith the mega-cities fabric ones are to be preferred.
What plot there is centres around a problem with cereal crops in Asia. Use of particular strains to the exclusion of others means that the food production system may not be robust. This leads to some of the characters beginning to question whether relying on the clones for the future of humanity may not be altogether wise.
As in Mitchison’s only other foray into SF which I have read, Memoirs of a Spacewoman, (and in contrast to her historical and Scottish fiction) there is again too much telling and not enough showing. Another of her SF works, Not by Bread Alone, is on my tbr pile. Will it suffer similarly?
September 25, 2023
Imagine being dropped into the future and then being forced to understand all of the extreme changes that were the reality of this time. Without much or any exposition, Naomi Mitchison does this to us with her novel Solution Three. I still am not sure what a "spray on" entails or what "The strengthening" involves but as you read they become common place in disucussions between characters. I had trouble keeping up with this novel. Mitchison at times doesn't bother explaining plot which can be frustrating. This book is comprehensible though. With multiple rereads and study, this book would unlock an extremely deep world built from her incredible imagination. At times it reminded me of Brave New World but Solution Three's society is not malevolent in any way. The world Council strives to keep the peace. This is a highly feminist novel. In this world reproduction is controlled in such a way that any negative manipulation of child bearing people cannot occur. It is strictly forbidden. Natural conception between a man and a woman is frowned upon. The creation of clones is how we propagate humanity. I enjoyed this novel. I think Naomi's expression of her philosophical angle is where its brilliance exists. As a story though, it can be a bit convoluted and incomprehensible.
November 9, 2023
I'm amazed that someone wrote a book with mandatory homosexuality and pulled it off. The relationships, homo and hetero, come across as plausible. Carlo and Miryam fearing reprisal and being outcast their heterosexual relationship is so disturbing it comes across as horror, and I loved it. Ric, totally shaken over whether his clone boyfriend Bobbi really loves him and his music poem. Lilac tickling her co-"Clone mum" Gisela and fantasizing about love-ripping her to shred, then getting separated from her and kissed by Jussie—whose other girlfriend Elissa was murdered on a work trip.
Other elements of horror: Non-clones who consider themselves unworthy compared to the "perfect" clones; women eager to do as they're told with their clone child and be separated forever from them.
There's a lot of story to like here just for the story. I can't speak much to the scholarly feminism, but I thoroughly enjoyed the story produced by it.
I was less turned on by the wheat plot, but I got through it and appreciated its correlation to the problem of losing the human gene pool.
Other elements of horror: Non-clones who consider themselves unworthy compared to the "perfect" clones; women eager to do as they're told with their clone child and be separated forever from them.
There's a lot of story to like here just for the story. I can't speak much to the scholarly feminism, but I thoroughly enjoyed the story produced by it.
I was less turned on by the wheat plot, but I got through it and appreciated its correlation to the problem of losing the human gene pool.
August 8, 2018
¿Cómo sería un futuro en el que la sociedad fuera en su mayoría homosexual, vegana, sin religiones, sin explotación laboral, sin agresividad y sin problemas de sobrepoblación? ¿Cómo sería un mundo en el que los pocos heterosexuales aún tienen hijos, pero en su mayoría los nuevos humanos son clones de los dos mejores individuos? Naomi Mitchison da una excelente respuesta a esa pregunta en esta novela y le da un giro a la novela distópica: no hay nada realmente maligno ni una figura de poder antagónica en este futuro. En su lugar tenemos personas que están haciendo lo mejor que pueden para que el mundo funcione y están dispuestas a cambiar los defectos de esta nueva realidad.
September 22, 2014
I just read this book for the second time. When I read it the first time I was 18 and it blew my mind, felt completely novel. Now, I'm 34, and it feels less new and more prescient and clever. Parts of it have come true, as if Mitchison could really see the future when she set these words down. Ideas that felt revolutionary to even see put down in words back when I was a teenager today feel almost quotidien, they've become such a part of popular culture. Others still feel revolutionary, but more plausible than ever.
Solution Three is a thoughtful cautionary tale, but it's also fun to read, with an ultimately hopeful message that can be lacking in utopia and dystopia narratives. We're introduced to a broad cast of characters who live in work in a future world very different from our own. Most people are gay and heterosexuality is considered aberrant or uncivilized, gardens and flowers have become a luxury, humans have split into caste-like groupings, all new children are clones of two activists, and so on: Lots of interesting, well-crafted, rich sci fi details for anyone who likes thinking about the future.
What I like most about Solution Three is its openness. It shows us a world with wonderful aspects and with severe problems. It gently points the way toward a more compassionate, less "final" model of social and environmental change than can be offered by anything that calls itself a "solution." No problem can ever really be *solved*, Mitchison seems to suggest, but any problem can be worked at, and over time, that work is what gives life its meaning and what can move us toward greater heights (or lower lows).
Solution Three is a thoughtful cautionary tale, but it's also fun to read, with an ultimately hopeful message that can be lacking in utopia and dystopia narratives. We're introduced to a broad cast of characters who live in work in a future world very different from our own. Most people are gay and heterosexuality is considered aberrant or uncivilized, gardens and flowers have become a luxury, humans have split into caste-like groupings, all new children are clones of two activists, and so on: Lots of interesting, well-crafted, rich sci fi details for anyone who likes thinking about the future.
What I like most about Solution Three is its openness. It shows us a world with wonderful aspects and with severe problems. It gently points the way toward a more compassionate, less "final" model of social and environmental change than can be offered by anything that calls itself a "solution." No problem can ever really be *solved*, Mitchison seems to suggest, but any problem can be worked at, and over time, that work is what gives life its meaning and what can move us toward greater heights (or lower lows).
August 3, 2022
An interesting premise. In the future, a world government has formed. To sustain and renew the environment, the government determined that reducing population was the only sensible long-term strategy and that the best way to accomplish this was to make the entire population accept homosexuality as the social norm, with heterosexuality the deviant behavior. Society seems to have achieved near social perfection, with racism, sexism, and most other forms of prejudice eliminated. However, as with all such plans, things start to go wrong, and mainly this has to do with nature stepping in to challenge social perfection. Viruses in crops and other natural problems threaten both agriculture and nature. Meanwhile, some people are struggling against the homosexual norm and genetically controlled birth. It comes down to the problems of monoculture, both in agriculture and in society. While the premise is interesting enough, the novel has little in the way of plot and the characters are rather flat.
February 26, 2015
Joining Huxley's Brave New World and Wyndham's Consider Her Ways in the pool of science fiction novels that posit a radical restructuring of humanity's reproductive future, Mitchison's novel is predicated more on the better good rather than improved efficiency. Humanity struggles to create a more equitable society, something which seems to ever be at odds with our intrinsic nature. Her solution here is another step along that evolutionary path, with a surprise in store for the those who believe that any solution is the ultimate one.
May 29, 2011
This was OK, I guess. It felt very sf-of-its-time. I feel it would have been more interesting if she'd actually gone on to write about Clones having babies and how that went, and if she'd told us more about the He and She they all worship.
You can tell it is science fiction because I don't clearly recall any characters having any particular personality (apart from Mutumba, I guess), and in about a week I'll have forgotten everyone's names.
You can tell it is science fiction because I don't clearly recall any characters having any particular personality (apart from Mutumba, I guess), and in about a week I'll have forgotten everyone's names.
September 22, 2012
Such a good book, and does in short compass more than many bloated trilogies.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews