The Methuselah Solution

by William O. Harris III

As the prison population grows exponentially in the U.S. today, writer Bill Harris has captured the politics of the prison system and found a revolutionary answer in his futuristic novel The Methuselah Solution. One of the storys two protagonists, Dr. Cynthia Turner, is a rising star at the Institute where she supervises the administration of a new form of alternative sentencing - an aging serum developed to replace multiple years of costly confinement with the injection of a drug that rapidly ages convicted felons to their prescribed sentence. The serum is a favorite with politicians, but the bane of powerful companies long profiting from the spiraling expansion of prison construction. The serum is in its sixth year of use when the problems start. A time when prisons have become a place where aged felons can readjust to life with weaker bones, slower pulses and mottled minds. Except for the antagonist, Joshua Howard.A career criminal, Joshua is clever, attractive, self righteous and has been sentenced to be aged twenty years for embezzlement. Dr. Turner watches with a mixture of awe and horror as Joshua is over-aged thirty years, leaving his body far weaker than his spared mind. Dr. Turner and her boss, Dr. Kenneth Lambert, attempt to deal with Joshua and another prisoner, Patricia Bennett - a former Olympic Gymnast, who killed her husband while responding to the encouragement of her dead father. The Institute is now faced with the epic task of confronting Patricias Olympic strength and the determination of Joshuas contempt and rage.What happens inside the underground prison throughout the story would remain as silent and deadly to the population of Texas as the Ebola virus was to Reston, Virginia, except for the disorganized attempts of the second protagonist, Alexis Troutman. Alex is a local reporter who has begun to oppose the use of the aging serum and attempts to enlist Dr. Turners help to rectify the prisons problems. The Institute is racing to develop an antidote to counteract over-aging reactions; the only problem is that Joshua gets to the antidote first. The apocalyptic conclusion explodes when Alex enters the Institute as Joshua and Patricia embark on a reign of terror and vengeance after securing the antidote.

424 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 6, 2000

Reviews

[Tara Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was intrigued by this book's premise, as it was one I'd not heard before. I liked the beginning of the book, though there was too much backstory about the main protagonist, the scientist Cindy, and how her father had molested her for pages on end. I understand it traumatized her and also molded her adult personality, but those sections could have been condensed into one or two pages. The repeated flashbacks into what had happened in detail took away from the plot and action.

The middle of the book was awesome, particularly the insight into the background of the thief Joshua who is being punished with this aging sentence, and also backstory of a battered wife who kills her husband. I racecd right thought this part turning pages as fast as possible, as I was dying to see what happened. But the ending was thoroughly unsatisfying. At that point I was rooting for Joshua, not Cindy. This book was also rife with typos and formatting errors after the first two chapters.