The Ceres Solution - Bob Shaw

What I love about Bob Shaw's fiction is that you never know where he is going to take you. Some SF authors have certain themes that preoccupy them, but Bob Shaw seems to be more open to the richness that can come with imagining advances in technology, new worlds, other dimensions. You can go really anywhere. The Ceres Solution might seem to involve two disaffected young people, outsiders who aren't accepted among their peers - a common theme in science-fiction and fantasy - but Bob Shaw obviously has a different spin on it.

One of those outsiders is Gretana ty Iltha on the planet Mollan. Warden Vekrynn has selected her for an observation mission to Earth. She has no intention of going to such a place of death, illness and violence, where the people have life spans so much shorter than the 50 centuries that the inhabitants of Mollan enjoy. Vekrynn however suggests that it is precisely an intense experience that would make her life truly interesting. Mocked for her appearance as being far from the Lucent Ideal that is prized in her culture, 'ugly' some might say, the enticement of being surgically altered to be an observer on Earth (where people are far more hideous) is the reconstruction that can give her true beauty when she returns to Mollan.

In 2024AD meanwhile, (which Shaw quite accurately and presciently describes from 1981 as being defined by “energy crises, the third world war which seemed both inevitable and imminent, attritive strikes, terrorism, failing resources, social decay, famine, and adverstising campaigns for children's knife-proof undergarments“) Denny Hargrove struggles with a degenerative disease, polyneuritis, that leaves him immobile and will shorten his life span even further than what the Mollan's already consider brief by human standards anywhere else in the universe. His illness has hardened him and made him bitter about his difficult childhood, that sees him now “locked in a daily battle with the rest of the human race” that he handles with sarcasm and self deprecating humour. There is however one memory that he holds dear; that of a beautiful young woman who mysteriously was present in his special place in the woods, who was able to make herself suddenly disappear by waving a pattern in front of her.

As is usual with Shaw, The Ceres Solution can't be tied down to any single theme, but by the same token you get the impression that he isn't quite clear what he wants it to be. There is some sense of these two outsiders finding their place in the world (worlds), such as when Denny is given a new opportunity working in zero-gravity on the space habitat Aristotle, just completed in 2021 where he will be able to be as active as an able-bodied person. That kind of human element is always there, whether considering the impact of time travel on humans, long life approaching immortality, or experiencing life in other extraplanetary or extreme conditions hazardous to life. Having established this context, then perhaps all Shaw really wants to do is have fun with it.

Other science-fiction writers might go down the path of considering human nature and the brief existence of our lives when viewed from the outside perspective of an alien culture, but Shaw places entertainment before academic or speculative interest. Admittedly, this means that there is a lot that is left unexplored in The Ceres Solution, the Mollanian culture in particular being barely more than sketched in. As the likely original source of humanity, with superior powers, knowledge, ability and lifespans, you might like to know more about their society, but we don't really get a sense of anything other than their perfectionism being rather dull.

Shaw puts such matters aside and The Ceres Solution develops more into a conspiracy thriller in the second half of the slim novel. While Vekrynn's stated goal of sending Miollanian observers to Earth is to examine and gather sociological data on how other human civilisations live, there is of course an ulterior motive. These questions arise when Gretana becomes aware of the existence of a group called 2H, who intend to disrupt whatever plans Vekrynn might really have for humans, and it involves the dwarf planet Ceres. He might not have any serious matters to delve into, but from there Shaw, as he often does, takes humanity (the reader) on a entertaining journey with Denny to far-off stars.

Reading notes: I read a second-hand paperback copy of The Ceres Solution by Bob Shaw, published in 1981 by Granada.