Hothouse by Brian W. Aldiss

[Werthead]

Hothouse is a 'fixup' novel originally published in 1962, comprising five novelettes originally published in 1961 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The combined novelettes were jointly awarded the 1962 Hugo Award for Best Short Fiction (and not Best Novel as sometimes claimed: that went to Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land that year). In those pre-modern telecommunications days, the first the author knew of the achievement was when the award turned up on his doorstep.

Hothouse, for a long time published under the title The Long Afternoon of the Earth, is set in an vastly distant future when the Sun has begun to swell to its nova stage. The Earth has become tidal-locked, with one face always pointing towards the Sun, and the Moon has drifted out of orbit around the Earth into a co-orbiting position around the Sun, where it has become tethered to the Earth in vast cobwebs spun by mile-long spider-like entities. As the eons have passed, most forms of animal life on Earth have perished, allowing the plants to become dominant. A vast banyan tree now covers most of the Indian subcontinent, with a few surviving tribes of humans (now shrunk to a small size by evolutionary needs) running around its city-sized branches in constant fear of the mythical 'ground'.

The book follows the fortunes of one such tribe when the adults decide the time has come to ascend via the strands to the Moon, leaving the children to fend for themselves. The actions of the wilful man-child Gren sees the group splintered, and Gren's encounter with an intelligent but parasitic entity known as the morel leads him and his mate on a long, curious journey through the landscape of the dying world.

Hothouse fits firmly into the 'Dying Earth' subgenre of SF&F, preceded by Vance's Dying Earth books and followed by Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Hothouse is deliberately not a hard SF novel - orbital dynamics would prevent the Earth and Moon being permanently tethered together - but a sort of picturesque travelogue through a bizarre and often grotesque land of fat 'tummy-belly' men, giant stalkers, sentient mosses and flying predators. In terms of atmosphere it is stunning and Aldiss' inventiveness does not let up, with every other page seemingly bringing new creatures, new races and new ideas to the reader.

As Neil Gaiman's introduction says, it is not a conventional or modern novel. Characterisation is not the focus of the book and although Gren is an interestingly-drawn protagonist, the actions and thought-processes of the post-human characters are so far removed from our own that they are not always easy to relate to. But Aldiss' lesson in this book, as much as there is one, is that life, even in some distant, alien and unfathomable way, will still find a means to survive and propagate.

Hothouse (****½) is a demented, dark fairy tale of survival at the end of time, and is weird, baffling but sometimes brilliant work of the imagination. It is available now in the Penguin Modern Classics range in the UK and in the IDW New Classics of the Fantastic range in the USA.

[Anthony G Williams]

I remember reading that one in the 1960s and still have my paperback copy from then. Your description didn't jog my memory much (except for the morel, which I recalled) but I do remember the powerful atmosphere. Well worth a re-read sometime.

[AE35Unit]

They have this in Waterstones at the moment as part of their 2 for 3 deal. Must look into that!

[Patrick Mahon]

Thanks for the review, Werthead - I'll have to get hold of this.

[j. d. worthington]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this (it's been a while for me, too), but Hothouse and The Long Afternoon of Earth aren't quite the same; the latter was revised and is rather shorter, whereas Hothouse is much closer to the original material and is consequently longer (something like what happened with Michael Moorcock's Stormbringer, where the later paperback edition, restoring material edited out in earlier printings, has nearly a fourth more text....). So, for those attempting to get as close as possible to the series which actually won the Hugo (or just to the original series to see what Aldiss was doing at that time), Hothouse, not Afternoon, would be the way to go....

EDIT: Ah... just looked up the information; in British editions, the two are likely the same; only the US seems to have had the abridged version... typical.....

[Lobolover]

Aye, but abridged be beter then "nothing" J.D.

[Connavar]

Its a Dying Earth type story and if i knew it earlier i would have gotten it from the library long time ago. I have seen a collection/book with the same name by Aldiss.


" Gren is an interestingly-drawn protagonist, the actions and thought-processes of the post-human characters are so far removed from our own that they are not always easy to relate to. "

For me its the opposite,its refereshing,interesting to read about humans so far from us in many ways. Post-human stories like this has been a favorite type for me from Vance's Dying Earth to hard sf post-human stories.

[AE35Unit]

This has been reissued and I got a paperback copy from waterstones yesterday.

[AE35Unit]

Here's some info I got from the BrianAldiss site:

Hi Utod

The Long Afternoon of Earth is a version of Hothouse abridged by about 8000 words to meet the publishing constraints of the American market in the early 1960s, so you don't really need both unless you're keen to work out where the cuts were made. If you've got the recent Penguin Modern Classics edition you've got the full text with, I think, a few minor text revisions by Brian. Hope this helps.

There's more about the book here: The Official Brian W. Aldiss Website - Hothouse

(Utod is me BTW )

[dask]

Read THE LONG AFTERNOON OF EARTH not knowing it was an altered version of HOTHOUSE and really enjoyed it. Great sf. (HOTHOUSE noticeably better, anyone?)

[AE35Unit]

And anyone care to join me on that Aldiss forum? Its incredibly quiet on there!

[dask]

Originally Posted by AE35Unit

And anyone care to join me on that Aldiss forum? Its incredibly quiet on there!

Sure, I'll join you. How do you get there? The only "A's" in the author section I can find are Asher and Asimov.

[AE35Unit]

Originally Posted by dask

Sure, I'll join you. How do you get there? The only "A's" in the author section I can find are Asher and Asimov.

Click here
The Official Brian W. Aldiss Website - Home

[dask]

Originally Posted by AE35Unit

Click here
The Official Brian W. Aldiss Website - Home

Saved it on my favorites. Will register later when I have more time. I've already spent too much of my Sunday morning here and my wife is prodding me to hurry up.

[AE35Unit]

Originally Posted by dask

Saved it on my favorites. Will register later when I have more time. I've already spent too much of my Sunday morning here and my wife is prodding me to hurry up.

Thats cool. I'm Utod on there.