Product Description

In this science fiction classic, we are transported millions of years from now, to the boughs of a colossal banyan tree that covers one face of the globe. The last remnants of humanity are fighting for survival, terrorised by the carnivorous plants and the grotesque insect life.
Winner of the Hugo Award for the best Science Fiction Novel of the Year 1962.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1288073 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 269 pages

About the Author
Brian Wilson Aldiss was born in Norfolk, in 1925. He wrote his first novel, The Brightfount Diaries (1955), while working as a bookseller in Oxford. But he is perhaps better known as one of the most noteworthy voices in science fiction writing. His first work of science fiction, Non-Stop, appeared in 1958. Since then, he has written over 40 novels and 300 short stories, as well as poetry and critical works, and received all of the major science fiction awards. He has reviewed for the Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian and the Washington Post, and he has edited Science Fiction Horizons, as well as several anthologies. Brian Aldiss recently celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday and is presently working on several new books.

Customer Reviews

Predatory Vegetables
This book is similar in some ways to J G Ballard`s book `The Drowned World` which was published the same year (1963). Both novels are set in a future in which life on our earth is returning to a Triassic past, where plantlife and vegetation has taken over as the dominant form of life. Both novels also clearly show an interest in the ideas of the psychologist Carl Jung, and in particular his belief that within the unconcious mind of every human being there lies a collective subconcious memory which stretches way back through our entire human history.
But whereas Ballard`s novel is set in the very near future, Hothouse is set millions of years in the future, and the ecological change and increased climate is a natural process caused by the inevitable expansion of our sun as it reaches its final stages before extinction. Also, Aldiss`s world is a far more more threatening place than Ballard`s. It`s a hostile and impossibly crowded world where lifeforms are in brutal competition for survival and most animals and humans are virtualy extinct. The increased heat and radiation from the sun has resulted in the domination of plant and vegetable life over all other forms of life. The few remaining humans live mainly in the middle branches of the great Banyan tree which thickly covers the entire contenent, because to set foot on the decaying forest floor would usually entail being digested by some predatory and carnivoures plantlife. And in fact the term `falling to the green` has become a common term for death.
Aldiss has filled this terrifying but fascinating world with many strange and fantastic creatures, such as mutated plants and trees which have mimetisised into the forms of annimals which have become extinct such as birds and the octopuss. The main bulk of the story follows the adventures of young Greg - a curiously minded individual, who has been outcast from his tribe, and who sets out with the aid of an intelligent fungus to explore and understand his world.
Some people have critisised this book for its scientific unfeasibility, and some have called it `fantasy desguised as sci-fi`. Personally I regard these as pointless observations, as much of the story is symbolic. In short - this is an excellent read, brilliantly realised and beautifully told.

A classic picture of a future Earth...
Of all the science-fiction novels dealing with Earth's future, this is one of the most beautifully written. Although he pays little attention to what is scientifically feasible, Aldiss paints a compelling picture of an overheated world covered with dense, steaming jungle. It will strike many chords with younger readers, who have grown up with television and newspaper reports relating the threat of global warming.

At the core of the book, however, is the story of a boy, part of a tribe of future human beings (now reduced to superstitious hunter-gatherers and tree-dwellers). His break away from the tribe and his willingness to risk his life and venture out on his own to discover the truth about his world is a common theme in many of Aldiss' works. Try reading novels such as Greybeard and Non-Stop (both highly recommended), that share this plot structure to a limited degree. You may come to the conclusion that Aldiss believes we are all too happy to accept the status quo, and much good would come of us taking a more active interest in the world around us and not accepting everything at face value. But even without reading any deeper meaning into Hothouse, it is a book that deserves a place in any collection of classic science-fiction.

Death to the Tummybellymen!
Brian W Aldiss is a living legend. Unfairly pigeon-holed as "just a sci-fi novelist", he invites favourable comparison with that other "just a sci-fi novelist" Arthur C Clarke and other dystopian masters like the late, great Ballard. This was an early punt, a novel that grew out of a fascination with the great Banyan tree of Indian, and wound up being a brilliant piece of grim prediction for humankind, albeit somewhat far-fetched. Not tht this stops it from being an excellent read; far from it, as it's slight build belies a powerful intellect, and a master story-teller at work.
One small gripe - I could see why his original publishers might have wished premature extinction of the Tummybellymen; they are rather irritating, but, I guess, they were integral to Aldiss' vision of the future, so his stubbornness won out.
In conclusion, if, like me you're fed up with being served Communist-fed American paranoia, post-Vietnam soldier sci-fi andthe like, then now is the time to rediscover the great British sci-fi authors, and there is none better than Aldiss.