As a fast-paced novel about a future shaped by feminist
ideals of sexual and racial equality, "solution three" at first seems
to be a peaceful answer to the world's problems. Homosexuality as an
international norm and reproduction by cloning have minimized aggression and
overpopulation. The sexes have equal rights and status, racial tension has been
eliminated through genetic intermixing, and scientists work closely with the
governing body, the Council, to keep an eye on the food supply and to heal the
earth of prior environmental terrorism.
Except in a few outlying areas, things seem to be going
smoothly. But even in the privileged center, two women are quietly rebelling.
Miryam, a geneticist, is secretly married and rearing her own children. Lilac,
a surrogate mother chosen to carry a clone baby, tries to evade releasing him,
as customary, for social conditioning.
When a mysterious virus appears in distant wheat crops, when
deviant sects kill a Council member and a Clone, when even the Clones exhibit
unexpected sexual behaviour, Mutumba, the strong and wise leader of the
Council, ponders whether the principle of diversity, essential to the food
supply, might also hold for people. What is the cost to women of this new model
for reproducing life? With Mutumba, and others, one wonders: is it time for a
new solution - a solution four?
Originally published in 1975, Mitchison's visionary science
fiction presents a world created by both women and men that is far ahead of our
own. "Like Herland, Solution Three imagines a society in which women have
used reproductive control to shape a more equitable life for all, eradicating
aggression and providing social support for motherhood... Solution Three
presents a new, more positive vision of science as a realm in which women could
indeed make a difference, and shape the course of knowledge." - From the
Afterword by Susan M. Squier.
