If you missed the last one…
The 1960s opens with what might be one of the last, great Pulp adventure tales for plants. After Harrison’s Deathworld the map is littered with literary plant monsters. When your sources are The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Damon Knight’s Orbit and works by J. G. Ballard, you know you’ve crossed over into The Twilight Zone. You’d expect characters (written by Richard Matheson, of course,) to discuss Edgar Rice Burroughs in the same sentence as Shakespeare. The trashiest of SF tropes has become literary gold!
“Deathworld” (Astounding Science Fiction, January February March 1960) by Harry Harrison has a planet of hyper danger:
Plants and animals on Pyrrus are tough. They fight the world and they fight each other. Hundreds of thousands of years of genetic weeding-out have produced things that would give even an electronic brain nightmares. Armorplated, poisonous, claw-tipped and fanged-mouthed. That describes everything that walks, flaps or just sits and grows. Ever see a plant with teeth—that bite? I don’t think you want to.
Harry wrote two sequels but it is the first book that features the most killer plants.
“Hothouse” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1961) by Brian W. Aldiss is the first in a series of stories to appear at F&SF. Later these were combined to make the novel of the same name. The world is covered by a gigantic singular plant (ala Clark Ashton Smith) that forms the trees and branches the plant people live on. The Moon has come closer to Earth and can be reached by plant. The whole thing is a wonderful and fantastic vision of how the plants will inherit the Earth.
“Nomansland” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1961) by Brian W. Aldiss
“Undergrowth” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1961) by Brian W. Aldiss
“Timberline” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 1961) by Brian W. Aldiss
“Evergreen” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1961) by Brian W.Aldiss
Hothouse by Brian W. Aldiss (1962)
“No Harm Done” (Fantastic, July 1961) by Jack Sharkey is an odd tale about what it must be like to be reincarnated as a carrot.
“The Talkative Tree” (IF, January 1962) by H. B. Fyfe is a throwback to the old days with an exploration team checking out a planet. They hear voice that proves to be Mr. Ashlew, an astronaut who has been changed into a tree. He tells of Life, the power that governs the planet. And of its new ambitions to spread further into the galaxy…
“The Garden of Time” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1962) by J. G. Ballard has an approaching horde coming for a couple who allow the plants of the garden to turn them into statues. A very poetic tale rather than a good description of plants eating the invaders. (Now, I would have loved THAT story!)
“Come Into My Cellar” (Galaxy, October 1962) by Ray Bradbury is a classic creepy-crawler about a boy with a basement filled with mushrooms. Bradbury works in UFOs too, reliving the some of the excitement of the 1950s.
“Dr. Adams’ Garden of Evil” (Fantastic, February 1963) by Fritz Leiber has a rich man who enjoys turning women into flowers. When the tables get turned, it is the bees that will take the final revenge. This one seems descended from John Collier’s “Green Thoughts”, not so much Roger Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors (1960).
“Hunter, Come Home” (Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1963) by Richard McKenna has Earthmen versus the immortal trees of an alien world. What appears to be war might just be the answer to old age and infirmity.
All Flesh Is Grass by Clifford D. Simak (1965) is one of Simak’s pastoral novels in which a quiet Wisconsin town is surrounded by alien plants. Brad Carter becomes the spokesperson for the humans inside the town when he meets with the aliens. Much better than Under the Dome.
The Genocides by Thomas M. Disch (1965) follows Simak’s lead with an alien race populating the planet with giant aggressive plants. The plants decimate the environment. The human survivors find a way to go on, living off the new plants. When the aliens harvest these, what is left? Disch seems to be satirizing agricultural practice and human disregard for other species.
“Make Mine Trees” (Fantastic, January 1965) by David R. Bunch has a cross between humans and plants and the moment they will be unleashed to save the planet. Bunch’s distinctive style is maybe a little more important than the idea.
“The Tree” (The Magazine of Horror, August 1965) by Gerald W. Page is a good old fashioned Horror piece. The evil life exists in a tree, taking victims until it is burned. But the evil essence discovers it doesn’t need the tree and heads for town…
“The Saliva Tree” (Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1965) by Brian W. Aldiss was written for the centenary of H. G. Wells’s birth. This story tied the Nebula Award for 1965. The story uses themes from Wells but in a Lovecraftian manner. A meteorite lands, causing plants to grow in strange ways. To make things even more fun there is an invisible monster… Review here.
“Trees Like Torches” (Worlds of Tomorrow, May 1966) by C. C. MacApp is part of a series about the human war against the invading Gree. In this installment, the Gree are led into a living forest that kills with spikes. For more on the Gree stories, go here.
“Berserker’s Prey” (aka “Pressure”) (IF, June 1967) by Fred Saberhagen has a man defeat the metallic Berserkers by using plants. This one harkens back to Frank Belknap Long’s John Carstairs stories. For more on the Berserkers, go here.
“Spare That Tree” (Galaxy, June 1967) by C. C. MacApp has a plant refuge guarded by some pretty wicked robots. Kruger is assigned to steal a talking tree but discovers it is royalty.
“The Vine” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, November 1967) by Kit Reed is another classic, with a family doomed to protect a giant vine. When Baskin decides to destroy the tree, he finds the vine can protect itself.
“The Guerilla Trees” (IF, June 1968) by H. H. Hollis has Planet BB4(3) inhabited by dendroids, sentient plants. There are two kinds: Yips and Yaps. The Yips are less dangerous and act like slaves. The Yaps are larger and bear sharp thorns. Hollis is really discussing war, perhaps the one in Vietnam(?)
“The Fangs of Trees” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 1968) by Robert Silverberg is an environmental statement by a fine storyteller. Silverberg makes his animate trees nasty killers too, but the story isn’t some old bug-eyed monster tale. (Though he did write that kinda thing earlier in his career.) For more on this story, go here.
The Pollinators of Earth by John Boyd (1969) has a planet of flowers where Paul is stationed. His fiancee Freda gets samples from the place, falling in love with the results, even going so far as to bear seeds for orchids. Review here.
“Look, You Think You’ve Got Troubles” (Orbit 5, September 1969) by Carol Carr tells the story of a young Jewish woman who gets unexpectedly pregnant with an alien from space, who happens to be a plant.
Conclusion
This is the last post on this theme. Not really Pulps anymore, are they? The Science Fiction magazines, like the SF of the 1960s, have moved away from the actual plant monster story to something far more metaphorical. The plants have stopped being nasty things with thorns and the appetites of lions. Instead, they represent the Environment, or war victims, or unwanted pregnancy, or any other issue the writer really wants to talk about.
Which begs the question: what were all those old stories really about? When Flash Gordon got to the alien planet and was attacked by killer plants? Like the plants in Harry Harrison’s Deathworld, they were signs of the hostile environment that the explorers must face. It’s really an old homesteader’s idea, the land which has to be tamed. By the 1960s, the land stops being the enemy and is seen as something that need protection. Times change and so do monsters…
