Hothouse by Brian Aldiss Review: This Book Made Me Cry

    Millions of years in the future, when the sun is dying, the Earth has become tidally locked and attached to the moon with cob-like webs make by giant spider looking plants. Half of the planet is always in the daytime and half is always night. Most life lives in the perpetual afternoon. Plants dominate, they hunt, they fly, they hop, they graze, they even fight battles with one another. Humans survived but they look little like the humans of today. They are smaller and have green skin. They live in matriarchal tribes hopping through the branches of a giant Banyan tree trying to survive the last years of life on Earth. This is the setting of Hothouse by Brian Aldiss a story that begins as one of survival in the afternoon on Earth but ends up being a deep musing on intelligence and humanity. 

    Hothouse was originally published as a group of short stories that won the Hugo Award for Short Fiction in 1962. We follow a tribe of future humans as they travel from the afternoon of Earth to the tops of the tree line, to space, to the area where land and ocean meet, to the dusk of the Earth, and to the night of the Earth in an amazing adventure in this mind-blowing world that feels like a hallucination at times. It is not based on the best science, but the rules of the universe are consistent, making it feel real. The setting and the rules of the carnivorous plants are the only interesting elements of the story. The characters and different future animals also make the world fun and adventurous. In the far future, humans aren't the only intelligent species. The sapient fungus known as The Morel, The Flymen, The Tummy Belly Men, the baboons from the Nightside, termite castles and the great Sodal. Each are fascinating and well developed. The morel made me cry at one point. 

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

    One of the humans ends up in a symbiotic relationship with The Morel receiving higher intelligence than the other humans or human-like beings and leads them on an adventure. This brings to question things like human intelligence and following religious figures. What if the prophets and the great leaders of old insight never came from a spiritual source but was entirely biological? The story makes you think about civilization in this sort new telling of Adam and Eve at the end rather than the beginning of the world. Is the Earth really for humans or is our place as the dominant species merely a hallucination given to us by a fungus? Is there any hope for humanity as the sun dies out? 

    Hothouse was also a story about life. Life ends. We say goodbye to our older generations as they go to Heaven. We go out into the world to discover our own selves and our lives.  We survive different battles as we go along on our journey and learn a little more wisdom. We fall in love. We get married. We have children. We form new families. We remember our elders. If we see their spirits in our dreams, we know them by their eyes. We raise the next generation, hoping for the best. We never give up on life even if life on Earth seems bleak. The story moves along in the various parts of the tidally locked Earth as we go through our characters' lives. We go to Nomansland, we move slowly away from the sun into the night and return to the light again. We learn as we age that intelligence is nothing without wisdom. 

SPOILERS ENDED!!!

    I was in tears by the end of the book that began so silly. I thought I was reading a warped Wizard of Oz on acid, but the themes were more for adults. The story grew up and matured like a nice pot of stew. 

    I loved this book. The setting is creative, the characters are well developed, the ideas come to a great conclusion, and by the end, there is a nice little nod to a Golden Age science fiction ending. 

    I don't know if this book is for everyone. I read reviews from people who thought it was sexist forgetting that one of the characters' arcs was not complete. Not all women are born girlbosses, and some men are not born gentlemen. Death and danger threaten all, including small children that might be difficult for some to read. Also, the wacky science might put others off. 

    I am so happy that I was able to read this book. It placed my mind in a fascinating world and gave me beautiful ideas to think about. 

10/10 Superior book