Minotaur
Peter Cawdron
309 pages, versions available on Amazon
When the topic of a novel is First Contact, as the past thirty-odd Cawdron novels have been, they almost by default have to address the notion of alien intelligence. In his previous novel, “Love, Sex and the Alien Apocalypse,” Cawdron’s alien was utterly flabbergasted by the notion that intelligence could exist in billions of tiny, bite-sized units, rather than as a vast distributed hive mind. I noted at the time that we were similarly coming to grips with the notion that octopuses were intelligent, and our reaction paralleled that of the invaders in LSAA. (Last week I saw a video of an octopus calmly snagging bypassing food from the safest spot in the ocean—on the back of a great white shark).
As he often does, Cawdron has used a science fiction classic as his stepping off point for a novel. In the case of “Minotaur,” it is Stanislaw Lem’s “Solaris.” So it’s not much of a spoiler to say that we are dealing with a sentient and possibly self-aware MOON.
When Lem wrote the book, it was truly original thinking; a self-aware world based, not on religious fancy, but on scientific possibility. Millions of people believe in Gaia, the Earth Mother or similar variants, and about a third of the population subscribes to animism, the notion that spirits imbrue objects. What, Lem challenged us, would it be like if we could truly perceive and measure such a consciousness? It was ground-breaking, perhaps not the most fortunate phrase to use on an intelligent planet.
Cawdron, as is his wont, expands and updates Lem’s notion. He notes in his always-worth-reading afterword that molecules are nothing but coalitions of atoms, and are not alive in any sense of the word. Nonetheless, all living things, including ravens, octopuses and us, consist entirely of, and nothing but molecules. Life is a result of the nonliving, and the only thing separating us from rocks is the ability to use energy to grow and reproduce. And if we can do it, then why not rocks?
And with that, Lem’s brilliant notion seems much more plausible, doesn’t it?
Some people consider “Solaris” to be a horror story, and of course science fiction and horror are hardly strangers to one another. After all, Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is considered by many to be the first SF novel, but it’s also clearly a horror story.
Cawdron veers around the horror-related supernatural aspects and stays close to his forté, scientific-based mystery and suspense. Wisely, he doesn’t dwell on the ability of the moon to replicate/mimic life, but uses it to imbrue the story with an element of John W. Campbell’s “Who Goes There?” And yes, there is a Minotaur. He represents the moon’s attitude toward its human visitors; mildly defensive, but curious.
As always, “Minotaur” showcases Cawdron’s knack for fully-realized three-dimensional characters and meticulous scientific research, which make it a solid SF read.
Comments
I agree completely. Minotaur was a great read and one of Peter Cawdron’s best novels to date.
Author
I remember being fascinated by your description of what amounted to the human colonisation of Kelvoo’s planet. There’s a large number of SF “great white hope” themed stories that detail uncritically human subsumation of other cultures on other planets. I would love to see Cawdron do a take on that!
Until Minotaur, all of Peter’s stories (that I’ve read) have been based around extraterrestrials arriving on, or in the vicinity of, Earth. Now that he’s written about humans visiting an alien home world, your idea seems like a logical next step. :o)
Author
“Cold Eyes” (which was loosely based on The Mote In God’s Eye, I think) has a human caught on a world with two warring species. First thing of his I read, impressed the hell out of me.
Ah! I missed that one. I’ll make a note to check it out sometime.