Customer Reviews

Hothouse

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The novel Hothouse first came to my attention in the picture book/review "Alien Landscapes" by Robert Holdstock and Malcolm Edwards. The art and description contained therein inspired me to read Hothouse, as well as a few other classic sci-fi novels (e.g. Rendezvous with Rama by A.C. Clarke and Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement, both of which I highly recommend). I was not disappointed.

Hothouse is difficult to squarely categorize as sci-fi, as Aldiss does not project human achievement and technological evolution into a plausible future. Instead, he does so with biological evolution, moving mankind into the passive role of bystander. Plants have come to dominate the natural world, assuming the characteristics and ecological functions of the animal kingdom. But it is far from a utopian garden. The main characters are assailed with hostility every step of the way.

The book is an odyssey of sorts, with the main character, Gren, tossed violently about this very green world on a voyage of discovery, both internal and external. Aldiss seems to like this theme. The various plant forms which Gren encounters along the way will stir the imagination with their bizarre nature, although I disagree with another reviewer's comment that their introduction appears to be the only purpose for the book.

Aldiss leaves quite a bit unexplained in the book, which I suppose is my only criticism. But even then, it lends the text a sense of mystery which, when approached with the right perspective, is charming.

I thoroughly enjoyed the read.

Of all the "New Wave" SF writers that emerged in the sixties and seventies, Brian Aldiss is probably the least flashiest and most consistent. His books have this sort of quiet confidence, as if he already knows they're unique and doesn't need to go about proclaiming it. Most of the time the trick is in the presentation. In this novel we have an Earth millions of years in the future, a planet that has stopped rotating and is thus half light and half dark, a planet where most of the animals have died out and plants have taken over, evolving into all sorts of weird lifeforms, all of which you have to read to believe. Humans are still around but most traces of civilization are gone, they live fairly nomadic and primitive existences. The biggest problem with this book is that the setup is just about all you get, while there is a plot of sorts, it's for the most part episodic and at best ramshackle, lurching from situation to situation. But it's Aldiss' vision of the future Earth, orbiting a sun soon to go nova, and a planet covered in all kinds of fantastic forms of life, that sustains the book. Every time you turn the page something new and bizarre greets you and I'm just amazed the man was able to think of all these things. Granted most of the plot is devoted to showing off these things but when then they're this consistently entertaining I'm not going to argue too much. Honestly there probably is some kind of allegorical aspect to the plot that I'm just missing because I'm too dense but hey, whatever. Fans of pure science probably won't be too thrilled because Aldiss' extrapolations of the far future seem to have little to do with actual science, but as I always say, don't let science get in the way of a good story. This is an absolutely fascinating story that ranks with his better works and while it's not his absolute masterpiece, it certainly deserves to be read.

Here is a fine example of the most adept application of a most adept imagination. In this novel Aldiss not only challenges many ecological issues, but blends them into a wonderful story of evolution, both of life as a whole, and of society. This is a must for any sci-fi/fantasy fan.

This is a story about the end of the world and the many races of man. It is a story about the Sun nearing its final moments and the plants taking over the world. It is a story about the final days of the planet Earth.
The story revolves around Gren and the last of his kind, small people who live in the trees. They live in the middle, not too close to the ground and not to high up, near the tips. It is an adventure story, a story of exploration, as we follow Gren and his tribe as they try to survive.
This is not hard science fiction and, in fact, I would not call this normal science fiction. Maybe science fantasy? Or just plain fantasy? The Moon is linked to the Earth by giant webs and one side of the planet is locked towards the Sun, so I guess it is fantasy. I enjoyed the book but I just want to warn you, this is a weird novel about the end of life as we know it and don't know it.

It's the evening of humankind. The Earth is moaning as the Sun has expanded, and is nearly ready to go nova. Increased radiation has flourished the flora and fauna to take control and extinct all but few isolated human groups. The women are the hunters who lead and the men are untouchable, until breeding. A group of kids and adults face horrors of plantae and lose some of their kids. Their souls, wooden dummies, need to be lifted to the sky, up in the foliage of the trees and beyond: to the heaven.

All the adults in this initial group die. The few left, young kinds and few teenagers, are left to survive at their best. Only to find out that they are trapped in a "bird" flying to the outer edge of earth where sea creatures and sand fiercely meet. The story succulently describes the mutated trees and willows that have developed octopus tentacles. A mold drips to one of the boys head. It's a thinking entity who promises to enhance the survival skills. But it is more interested in its own world domination. Through the dialogue of the fungus and the boy, Gren, the reader gets a chance to see brief history of mankind and its future: when they were still apes, when they conquered the technology and how did they fall. The rest of the book describes the adventures of Gren in this varied Earth.

Three (3) stars. Published separately in a SF magazine, the book won Hugo Award for Best Short Fiction 1962. The story is relatively thin as the reader follows groups of boys and girls from one adventure to another. In that sense, the target group is typical teenager: tales about encountered monsters. What makes the novel tickle adult reader is the side plot, only a few pages, where kilometer long worm ascends to the moon by using web where the remnants of the last survivals have taken the form of human bats. The ending returns to this side plot and gives sparkles of hope how to conquer stars. Truly unique novel.

This whole world feels much more like Alice in Wonderland than Science Fiction. In fact, most of the science in this book is so implausible that I think this would have been a much better book without it. Although the story seems to be driven by the science, which weakens it, the setting more than makes up for it. So fantastic, beautiful and deadly, I kept yearning for a less epic story without getting disturbed by implausible explanations. But the setting was so powerful that nothing could take it away, so in the end I have to give it four stars.

How did this win a Hugo? Was there no other competition? The prose in this book was rambling and the direction of the story was....Well, there was no direction to the story. It introduced some weird possible animals but for all intents and purposes, this book was a flop!

I spent the weekend reading the Kindle. I had a long wait in a Dr's surgery on Saturday and the Kindle meant I didn't have to rely on the supply of plague-ridden National Geographics that they leave festering on tables for patients to read. (isn't there a hygiene issue with sick people touching, coughing and sneezing onto these magazines that sit there for decades at a stretch????)

I did find one (funny) problem with a title purchased from Amazon. The ebook uses lots of _____ to separate chapters and headings at the start of the book. If you use the text to speach the Kindle reads out something along the lines of:

Hothouse underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore
A Novel by Brian Aldiss underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore
Chapter 1 underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore

I hope the people behind this audio enhanced title have figured out how things work by now and will fix this issue with future releases.

...I don't really know, that's why i rated it with 3, i'm not sure i liked it, but i'm not sure I disliked it. Different? yes, very different, very creative and original. The book starts ou very well, but half way thru it started to feel heavy and the more I read the more i wanted drop it but at the same, finish it. I guess it was too much in the same plate so i felt like at the end didnt make any sense or didnt come to a resolution, it was just sort of like a period of time on pages, i still wanteed to read some ending. It started out with one character that you get to know and then he died and another character is now starring. It was like Aldiss started writing and just adding more and more ideas without a trace of facts in the same story. But yes, even so, you want to read, it was a weird experience reading this book, i can't relly recomend it, but it's there. If you like this kind of books, go ahead read it, but dont expect too much.

I'll give Aldiss credit for creativity -- this story of far future Earth is full of very imaginative landscapes, flora, and fauna. But there's not much else to recommend it. The speculations on the evolutionary history of Earth are a little too implausible to overlook. And the story line seems little more than a mechanism for introducing more outlandish creatures.

I expect it would be more enjoyable for younger readers, or those who don't demand that the science in their fiction be at least plausible.

As a last note, I should mention that I came across this book as one of Easton Press' "Masterpieces of Science Fiction" series. Given that it is apparently a classic, my viewpoint is perhaps in the minority.