Flowers of Evil by Robert Charles was a Horror paperback published in 1981. It is the second title in my Summer of Horror Novels. After the chilly Christmas vibes of Blizzard, I wanted something more in keeping with the current allergy season. (When most plant monster books and comics are published.)
Not the French Guy
At first I wondered about the name of the author. I thought it was a play on Charles Baudelaire, the French poet and his Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) (1857). But the truth is much simpler. The author’s real name is Robert Charles Smith, an Englishman born in 1938. This was his second novel of three horror novels though his bio says he has written forty books translated into eight languages. The fact that Smith is an English author makes sense because the majority of the story will take place on one of the Shetland Islands in the North Sea.
Russian Beginnings
The novel doesn’t begin there. It begins in Russia, where Galina Savenkova has a job as secretary to the scientist Leonid Shumilov. The group of scientists are investigating the effects of radioactivity on the environment around Khyshtym. Galina finds small plants with blue flowers and unwisely sneaks them home. She gives one to her brother Aleksandr, a sailor on a large fishing boat.
The Gordons
While Galina is slowly discovering that the remaining plant ate her canary then her kitten, the Gordon family is about to take a vacation on Lairg Island in the North Sea. Barry Gordon has received an advance for a book on bird migration. His wife, Valerie, is secretly having an affair behind his back and dreads going away. They take their two children, Julia, fifteen, and Jonathan, ten. A stopover at Lerwick introduces Julia to Alistair McKenna, a teenage sailor who offers to take her sailing.
Experiments and Politics
Back in Moscow, Galina and her fiance, Ilya Kachenko, burn the plant but its spores escape and grow outside her apartment building. A scene breaks out that ends with the police about to arrest Galina and Ilya but Shumilev comes to their rescue. The scientist is angry but seems more interested in pumping the couple of information on the new mutation. He has a theory he wants to prove. He believes the seeds are from space.
Bye-Bye, Brother
Meanwhile at sea, Aleksandr Savenkova is putting in long shifts to keep the fishing vessel going in a hurricane. He collapses in bed, only to be devoured by his sister’s plant. When other sailors come to fetch him, they discover a giant plant that distracts them during the storm. The ship is sunk, taking all the sailors down with it. Seeds from the vessel float and land at Lairg Island.
An Island of Birds
The Gordons get to Lairg and meet the only others who live there, a shepherd Ross Mathieson, and his very pregnant wife, Janet. Barry spends time photographing birds while the children explore. (Charles is adept at describing the rich bird life without bogging down the story.) Valerie is frustrated and unhappy. Eventually she and Barry have a confrontation over the affair. Barry knew all the time and thought the trip away would cool things down.
The Plants Attack!
After that things are chilly in the Gordon cottage. While mom and dad don’t talk to each other, Jonathan discovers what he calls “Cat Whisker Plants” after the green tendrils. Later one of the deathseed plants try to crush him. (We get to see how the plants operate, crushing their victims then absorbing the blood with their leaves.) Thankfully his sister, Julia, rescues him. The adults need convincing but once they are, a program to dig up all the plants begins, with Ross, Barry and Valerie battling both big and small ones. The couple grow closer together, the affair now forgotten.
Russian Interlude
Back in Russia at Babushskaya, near the Forbidden Zone, deathseed flowers grow in secret, devouring a pack of wolves. Ivan Kitkev, an old wolf-hunter, is hired to see what the howling was about in the night. He finds the giant plants and three dead wolves. He wants the carcasses for their bounty and ends up plant chow. Eventually Shumilov ends up at Babushskaya. He takes control of the plants but when a little girl is eaten by them the villagers complain to the authorities. Shumilov doesn’t have enough political clout to stop the plants from being burned and any seeds found and destroyed. Shumilov still thinks he has enough specimens in his lab to fund an expedition to Tugunska to prove the deathseeds are of alien origin. (This is the last we will hear of these characters. It’s the Gordon family’s book now.)
No Boat No Chance
The boat is due to arrive to take Janet to the hospital and the Gordons back to civilization. The weather is terrible and the boat is delayed. The great migration of birds that Barry is supposed to write his book happens, giving the deathseed plants plenty of food. The storm and birds make it impossible to defeat the plant invasion. The humans lock themselves away and wait. During the storm, Ross goes looking for a lost sheep and ends up falling down a cliff. When Janet, very pregnant and afraid, finds him thanks to their dog, Robbie, he is dead. Janet heads for the Gordons’ cottage but gets caught by two plants that try to rip her in half.
Surrounded
Jonathan Gordon sees Robbie then Janet. Barry and Valerie rescue the terrified widow. Janet goes into labor. The blood from the birthing process drives the plants wild. Barry and Jonathan figure out that the plants can walk very slowly, pulling up one root then throwing it forward. Creeping along, the tree-size monsters have surrounded the cottage. Soon they have broken in the widows and Barry has a desperate job of keeping them off until Janet and the baby, a boy, can be taken upstairs.
Fire and Flight
Trapped upstairs, Barry sets in motion a dangerous gamble to get to the shore. He lights the bottom floor of the cottage on fire while they slip out Jonathan’s bedroom window. A sharp ax used well and the party makes it away from the burning cottage. Once at the beach they have little choice than to wait for the boat. The weather looks like it isn’t going to stay nice. Things look bad.
Young Alistair to the Rescue
Back in Lerwick, Alistair McKenna get a day off when the ferry boat that is supposed to go to Lairg is in drydock. He decides to go sailing in his father’s boat, The Brave Viking. He remembers Julia Gordon and heads for Lairg island. He lands and goes to Ross’s cottage, where he sees dead sheep wrapped up in the plants. Too late, as he leaves, a tendril grabs his foot. Desperately he reaches for his fishing knife and cuts himself free. Running back to his boat, he sails away but returns when the guilt kicks in.
The Brave Viking
After circling the island he finds the family and Mrs. Mathieson. He can’t land so Barry has to carry each person through the freezing surf. He even goes back for Robbie the dog. The Brave Viking begins to sail away but the plants from the sunken Russian fishing ship have been busy, learning how to grow underwater. A tendril grabs the boat. Alistair has to wrestle with the ship as it turns into the surf. It is up to Valerie to attack the plant with Alistair’s knife. A rough wave sends Valerie into the sea. Barry, despite his exhaustion, grabs the knife Val dropped and goes after her. He swims down into the darkness, finds her and cuts the tendril. They swim back to the boat then head for home.
Happy Ending (Or Is it?)
A happy ending for the Gordon family. Valerie’s affair is forgiven and forgotten. Being a Horror novel, susceptible to sequelitis, seeds survive in the village of Barbushskaya as well as new ones show up on the shore in Nova Scotia, Canada. The seeds will be back!
Plant Monster History
That spits poison and kills…”
The idea of man-eating plants dates back to discoveries of flesh-eating plants in South America on October 27, 1874. Writers like Frank Aubrey, H. G. Wells and Fred M. White promoted the idea in novels and short stories. So Charles is working in some pretty old territory here. But it is obviously the 1951 masterpiece by John Wyndham that is his biggest inspiration. The Day of the Triffids was made into a film in 1962 with Howard Keel and Janette Scott. Scott’s story-line has Karen Goodwin and her husband, Tom, trapped in a lighthouse on a remote island. It isn’t a stretch to change this to Lairg Island. Tom blasts the Triffids with sea water, discovering it kills them. Charles changes this in the other direction, having salty water make the plants grow because it is like blood.
Hamiltonian Predecessor
I was immediately struck by the similarities to Edmond Hamilton’s SF Pulp story “The Plant Revolt” (Weird Tales, April 1930) . In Hamilton’s version, the plants become detached from the ground and roam the countryside in mass tangles of killer plants. This is caused by a mad scientist who releases a chemical into the air. To stop it, the heroes only have to find the lunatic and destroy his machine.
A Modern View
In Flowers of Evil, things are no longer so easy. After fifty years of industrial waste and nuclear bomb tests, readers are more inclined to blame large government projects and industrial disasters than a single bad person. This book was published only two years after the disaster at Three Mile Island and five years before Chernobyl.
Conclusion
I have to admit that Robert Charles is a good writer. Something I didn’t really expect in a cheesy Horror novel. Much of the story felt like Daphne Du Maurier’s classic, “The Birds”, so different from the Hitchcock film. Du Maurier has a family trapped in a cottage as well but the ending is far less nice. As killer plant novels go (and there are at least six from this time period — more later!), this one is very readable and not a waste of time. I look forward to finding and reading more Robert Charles.
