This issue of New Ceres also includes a number of anonymous, fictional 'non-fiction' pieces that provide a socio-economic context for the fiction:
'Touring the Galaxy - A Guide - Vol 34, New Ceres' (an extract on the centrality of coffee shouses to New Ceres social life)
'Biology of New Ceres' (an extract from the Encyclopedia Galactica, covering toxic vegetation, disease, hydrocarbons, native flora and native fauna)
'Lady C's Proper Composure in Society' (a newspaper etiquette column)
'Postcards from Georgiana' (a New Ceres travel column)
'Planetary System' (another extract from the Encyclopedia Galactica, covering New Ceres's solar system).
A famous (if scandalous) female detective and her secretary (a woman disguised as a young man) solve a case involving murder and the black-market sale of illegal scientifiction during New Ceres's twelve-day Feast of Saturn (based on Earth Christmas).
A clerk from the Rural Lands and Terraforming Board is sent to investigate rumours of native New Ceres lifeforms in an area supposed to have been rigorously terraformed prior to colonisation.
A drunken, lecherous poet--who is not quite what he seems--counteracts the attempts of a foreign power to seed New Ceres with agents provocateurs.
Brief piece chronicling the fate of a New Ceres family whose strange gifts prompt the 'powers that be' to destroy the entire family.
