Customer Reviews

Greener Than You Think

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"--Little did Mrs. Dinkman know that when a somewhat less than scrupulous salesman sprayed her dying suburban Los Angeles lawn with a dose of the Metamorphizer she was witnessing the beginning of the end of the world. That salesman was Albert Weener, a two-bit huckster looking for instant riches, who had cajoled the remarkable new plant nutrient away from its recalcitrant inventor, botanist Josephine Spencer Francis. The only problem was, Miss Francis did not yet know how to neutralize her magic chemical--"

"Written in 1947, a science fiction novel about the grass we tread upon. When an unscrupulous salesman sprays a dying suburban Los Angeles lawn with an untested chemical spray, it is the beginning of the end of the world. The grass begins to grow uncontrollably and riotously, ten feet height, thick, tough, impenetrable, gradually engulfing Los Angeles, then California...After reading this novel, you will never view your lawn in the same way."

"The story is told with a satirical lilt, with a defini te bias for farce characterizations and situations; brightening what would otherwise be a harrowing tale."

I encountered this book by chance at a used book store in 1980.
I read it then and wrote on the inside cover "Undoubtedly my favorite book of all!" All these years later, now being 2003,
I thought to myself "I wonder if it's still in print?"
Well, I see I can get it used and I want to buy one and send it along to director Tim Burton and tell him to make this into a movie!
I laugh aloud at the events in the story. Moore's subtle use of language brings new meaning to the word stealth. His characters come to life effortlessly and satisfyingly. Our hapless everyman protagonist, Albert Weener, hasn't a clue as to how the world around him perceives him and moves forward to the beat of his own drummer. All the while, the world's very existence is threatened by a product of his own doing. As I reread this book twenty years later I still want to say it's my favorite.
Read it....it's a real gem!

Written soon after World War II, this book encapsulates many of that decade's turmoil and at the same time manages to project into the future to address some interesting contemporary ideas into a compact and delightful science fiction satire. Ward Moore's style of writing is clever and comical without veering from the main character's oddball mindset and vernacular. The mutant grass is a metaphor for good against evil, mankind against nature or nature against mankind, World War III, and precedes the writings of the environmental historians and of environmental ethics in philosophy. The book also touches on such issues as environmental determinism, evolution, and survival of the fittest, and too, looks at various biblical themes, among them, Adam and Eve (Eve being Miss Francis) and Noah's Ark. When you read it you will probably find your own list of cleverly placed themes and analogies.

I am thrilled that this Science Fiction classic has been re-issued in a fine new editon. More than 60 years old, it still holds a fascination that wont erode. In 2002, I posted an essay "Civilization's Decay and An Unusual Biosphere Limit State" at UK astronomer Dr. David Darling's website: www.daviddarling.info/Cathcart.html . Ward Moore carried a Greenish vision to its ultimate extreme termination and did so in the most attractive English prose. No reader can go wrong reading this book. I reccommend it very strongly! Moore brings the other side of Science Fiction warnings for humanity ("Keep Watching the Sky!")by instructing people everywhere to "Keep Watching the Ground!".

I'm familiar with Ward Moore from his classic short story "Lot" in which a man who flees Los Angeles with his family in advance of a nuclear war chooses to leave his wife behind at a gas station. The short story has an odd tone because the "hero" is egocentric and unlikable, like most all the characters in "Greener Than You Think," an unengaging satire about one possible end to the world as we know it. This book is a sort of opposite number to John Christopher's very fine novel "The Death of Grass," in which all grasses and grains are killed off by a virus. Here, the problem is a particularly fertile strain of Bermuda grass which spreads unchecked.

As end of the world stories go, there's something unserious about the destructive qualities of Bermuda grass, so satire is appropriate. The problem is that in his mostly failed efforts to be comic, the author places a barrier between the reader and the action, so we have no reason to care about what happens. The protagonist Albert Weener begins as an impoverished salesman, and through a series of unlikely and ridiculous events becomes the richest man on the planet. The grass itelf isn't interesting - all it does is spread and resist attempts at destruction. None of the characters talk or act like anyone you've ever heard or seen. The scenes of governments' dithering and society gradually breaking down feel remote, probably because by that time, Albert Weener is the richest and most insulated man in the world. I think the point of the satire is to lampoon the inability of governments and large corporations to cope with the real problems in the world, but I wouldn't swear to it. Jonathan Swift, he ain't.

There are some occasional good scenes. The tension builds during the last twenty pages or so and the ending has a real kick. But there's just not enough material here to sustain a novel, satirical or otherwise.

Ward Moore is best-remembered for his alternate history novel, "Bring the Jubilee" (1953), set in a world in which the South won the Civil War, but this earlier novel (1947) is also worthwhile. It is an early example of the environmental doom subgenre of science fiction; an eccentric scientist seeks to end world hunger by developing a chemical that will increase the yield of cereal grains, but a feckless salesman sells it as a lawn-builder, and the result is a mutant grass that spreads throughout Los Angeles, destroying the city, and then keeps on spreading.

The story could have been frightening, but Moore tells it with deadpan humor, satirizing scientists, journalists, politicians and anyone else who wanders into his novel. Humorous science fiction doesn't often age well, but most of this is still pretty funny. That the story is told in first person by a narrator who is much stupider than he thinks he is adds a nice touch. I found the novel to be a bit overlong, but otherwise quite readable.

...well worth reading. Because it was written so long ago (1947!), some of the dialogue is stilted, and is written in the way that people spoke then. It's a bit plodding in places, but a novel concept, and well written.

Also available under:

Greener than you Think (Classics of Modern Science Fiction, No 10) on Amazon, with several used copies avaiable

"--Little did Mrs. Dinkman know that when a somewhat less than scrupulous salesman sprayed her dying suburban Los Angeles lawn with a dose of the Metamorphizer she was witnessing the beginning of the end of the world. That salesman was Albert Weener, a two-bit huckster looking for instant riches, who had cajoled the remarkable new plant nutrient away from its recalcitrant inventor, botanist Josephine Spencer Francis. The only problem was, Miss Francis did not yet know how to neutralize her magic chemical--"

"Written in 1947, a science fiction novel about the grass we tread upon. When an unscrupulous salesman sprays a dying suburban Los Angeles lawn with an untested chemical spray, it is the beginning of the end of the world. The grass begins to grow uncontrollably and riotously, ten feet height, thick, tough, impenetrable, gradually engulfing Los Angeles, then California...After reading this novel, you will never view your lawn in the same way."

"The story is told with a satirical lilt, with a defini te bias for farce characterizations and situations; brightening what would otherwise be a harrowing tale."