Susan Collins’ cover for the 1984 edition
4.5/5 (Very Good)
Brian W. Aldiss’ Hugo-winning Hothouse (1962) imagines an oppressive, violent, and alien Earth transformed by “the long age of the vegetable” (187). The surviving humans live–“more by instinct than intelligence” (54)– in a continent-encompassing banyan tree in constant fear of killer flora and fauna. Aldiss succeeds in constructing a profoundly unsettling worldscape encyclopedic in its details with unusual rituals of survival. There’s the existential sense throughout that the humans, detached from any memory of their past, who attempt to survive are but frantic movements of an apocalyptic paroxysm. Inventive, relentless, hallucinogenic.
Preliminary note about publication history and the Hugo win: Hothouse is a fix-up novel from five short stories originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The 1962 UK edition contained slight differences from the original magazine form. The 1962 US variant The Long Afternoon of Earth abridged the UK edition further. Only US editions published after 1976 are complete. I read the complete 1984 US edition shown above.
Adding to the confusion, the abridged US fix-up version of the five short stories–The Long Afternoon of Earth–won the 1962 Hugo Award for Best Short Fiction rather than Best Novel (which went to Stranger in a Strange Land that year). The Hugo Award became increasingly precise in its categories over the years.
Of Wooden Souls and Lunar Voyage
Lily-yo and her matriarchal small tribe—with its prized and “tabu” men in tow (28)—attempt to survive the perilous canopy of the vast banyan tree. Death is a constant companion. Children plunge from the branches. An incredible array of plant life mutated over the millennia taking over the niches left by non-human animals, trap, maim, and kill humans. After the death of another child, Lily-yo comes to realize that she “had gone on too many hunts, borne too many children, fought too many fights […] By instinct she knew her youth was over” (25). After taking the wooden soul of the child–“for in the forest when one fell to the green there was scarcely ever a bone surviving to be buried” (27)–into the Tips for a journey into the unknown attached to a mysterious traverser, she decides its time for the older members of the tribe to follow the wooden souls of the dead into the atmosphere.
In a deliberate visual metaphor of Earth’s utter transformation, Aldiss depicts the planet as locked in rotation with the Sun and connected to the Moon by vines. The traversers and their massive oxygen and gas bladders connect to the vines taking their accidental cargoes to the Lunar surface. Here the banyan doesn’t rule. Instead, “monstrous celeries and parsleys grew” in the accumulated soil of sloughed off detritus (50). Lily-yo and her surviving companions emerge transformed. They discover that they are now flymen with a “mass of leather flesh” that “stretched out almost like wings” (50). And the flymen believe that the mutations are a natural cycle of a man, their earthly bodies are but pupae. In the radiated state post-journey, those on the True World cannot reproduce and instead travel to Earth to steal children. Lily-yo believes the new pattern of humanity’s evolution in the heavens. And joins in on the flymen plan to invade Earth.
Back in Earth’s vegetal hell, the child Toy attempts to assert herself as the leader of the tribe’s youth. The male child Gren refuses to fall in line. Soon he is banished with his partner Poyly. His independence is short-lived as he falls afoul of a sentient and parasitic morel fungus which implants itself within Gren and Poyly’s body: “I am brain. I collect thoughts” (113). The morel desires to spread its kind and take over an entire human tribe. Gren will be its instrument. Driven by the morel, they encounter a new group of humans that herd rabbit-like plants and live in fear of the Black Mouth’s song. Gren, initially fascinated by the morel’s often violent drive and sense of purpose, increasingly attempts to resist. Soon he finds find himself heading into the cold-side of the world, and a new array of challenges… At some point he will need to make a choice and escape the morel’s corrosive effects.
Encyclopedism in the Long Age of the Vegetable
Hothouse derives its relentless compulsion from the almost encyclopedic integration of endless categories and short descriptions of fauna and flora. Aldiss positions the Earth as a world transformed. Not only have humans shrunk to a fifth of their previous size but the relentless sun has transformed the Earth’s biomass into something profoundly alien. For example, Lily-yo and her followers cement their “great homemaker nuts” with a sap “distilled from the acetoyle plant” (22) and flit through the branches on a “dumbler” plant that responds to a whistle (23). The oddly humanoid flymen steal children (42). The fuzzypuzzle fungus must be differentiated from the dangerous nettlemoss (41). The vegetal suckerbird dangles an immensely long tongue to extract nourishment from the “obscure depths of the forest” (72). Oak trees trap the unaware in cages of wood so that “in decomposing they would still feed the tree” (99). And parasitic and telepathic morels entangle their structures within the human body (113). This dense world substrate, with the continuous inundation of pseudo-knowledge, is profoundly unnerving and immersive. Every hollow, every leaf, and every step holds a new danger.
Aldiss litters his world with the fragments of the distant past that no one can understand. Lily-yo ritualizes the pseudo-Christian phrases at her child’s departing soul–“May you Go Up and reach heaven” (35)–without comprehending its meaning. While the parasitic morel might ascertain some racial collective memory of humanity, the survivors live their lives with vague compulsions or outright obliviousness towards time: “for them there was not past and no future; they were like figures woven into a tapestry, without depth” (119). The morel reaches into humanity’s past–“the first creature in a billion years to be able to look down the long avenues of time” (120)–but the knowledge has not purpose and provides no guidance to Gren. Humans are detached from history in the “long age of the vegetable” that has “rooted and proliferated without thought” (187). Gren’s final attempts to provide order are but empty movements in the dark.
I recommend Paul Kincaid’s wonderful recent monograph Brian W. Aldiss (2022) in the Modern Masters of Science Fiction series which reinspired me to track down more of Aldiss’ work. Kincaid lays out his analysis of the novel and the context of Aldiss’ composition on pages 29-35. Kincaid argues that Hothouse “of all his science fiction” most “directly recapitulated” Aldiss’ WWII wartime experiences in Burma, including “the jungle, the dangers hidden all around, the constant presence of death, and the sense of the necessary insignificance of mankind” (31).
Highly recommended for fans of strange pre-New Wave 60s SF visions. Hothouse ranks with Non-Stop (1958) as my favorite Aldiss novels I’ve read so far.
Eddie Jones’ cover for the 1971 edition
Oscar Mellor’s cover for the 1st edition
Uncredited cover for the 1969 edition
Atelier Heinrichs’ cover for the 1964 German edition
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Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations 
“Adding to the confusion, the abridged US fix-up version of the five short stories–The Long Afternoon of Earth–won the 1962 Hugo Award for Best Short Fiction rather than Best Novel (which went to Stranger in a Strange Land that year).”
This raises questions as to how much a fix-up counts as a novel. I think it’s a case-by-case basis. I’m not sure how many people actually think of The Martian Chronicles as a novel, but I sure as hell don’t. But at the same time the Hothouse stories were clearly written as a series, which is probably why it won the Short Fiction Hugo: voters saw it more as a series of short stories than as a proper novel. But IS it a proper novel….?
Have you read this one? It feels cohesive. None of it was published years and years earlier. It feels (operative word) conceived as a unit. A Canticle for Leibowitz is considered a novel (and won the Hugo for Best Novel) yet even Miller didn’t think of it as one until he had published two of the three chunks separately.
McIntyre’s Dreamsnake (1978) won the Hugo for Best Novel and it contained a chunk published years earlier! “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand” appeared in 1973 and was nominated for the Hugo for Best Short Novelette and won the Nebula.
Either way, Hothouse certainly doesn’t qualify for the short fiction section if the entire unit won the award vs. one of the stories.
Yeah, there’s a reason why they never did that again. I chock it up to publishing quirks of the time. Also, I’ve read the first story, titular one, but I need to reread it at some point, this time following up with the other stories. You could argue that Hothouse is a serial in all but name, would not be the first or last time that happened (Poul Anderson’s The Star Fox comes to mind). But I like Aldiss, or rather I’ve been warming up to him lately. “Who Can Replace a Man?” and “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” were quite good.
I agree with the view that this is more serialization than separate stories welded (or used as a central expanded idea, chapter, or prologue) into a novel. They received separate titles yet really feel like installments of a novel.
I’m a big fan of Aldiss’ central themes which Kincaid’s monograph that I link does a great job laying out. I reviewed “Who Can Replace a Man?” years ago but haven’t read “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” yet.
I also recommend his short story “Appearance of Life” (1976): https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2019/08/11/book-review-the-1977-annual-worlds-best-sf-ed-arthur-w-saha-and-donald-a-wollheim-1977/
‘Man In His Time’ (1965) and ‘The Moment of Eclipse’ (1969) are very good.
What are your thoughts on Hothouse?
I have not read either of those yet.
To the pantheon of early Aidiss stories, add “The New Father Christmas” (1958), “The Failed Men” (1956), ‘Shards” (1962), “A Kind of Artistry” (1962), and I’ll stop while I can.
“Appearance of Life” is one of my all-time favorite SF stories. It didn’t start out that way with my first reading, but with every rereading it’s gotten better until it’s exquisite.
It’s a favorite of mine as well — as you know!
John: I’ve reviewed all of those on my site! I’d add “Judas Danced” (1958) as well — although it’s on the oblique side of things.
I don’t have fond memories of this one. I hated the tummy belly men.
Aldiss weaves a landscape of strange flailing/misguided masculinity. Men who want to return to their mother-like trees (the tummy-men) and their endless supply of drugs. Men who attempt to resurrect some old form of patriarchy (Gren) by setting off on his own. But even that action is naïve and meaningless as he is immediately enslaved by a morel… Yattmur is the one who ends up having to guide him through his trials.
I’d suggest that of all of the Aldiss works I’ve read so far, there’s the most focus in Hothouse on women and their often effective leadership (Lily-yo tries her hardest to keep her tribe together). As does the child Toy who runs up against Gren.
His work definitely tends to channel the homosocial world of the military that he experienced and the shock he felt reintegrating into drab English society when he returned home from Burma.
Huh. Here’s a bit of synchronicity —
https://locusmag.com/2022/11/alvaro-zinos-amaro-reviews-brian-w-aldiss-by-paul-kincaid/
Yup, I mentioned the monograph in my review as you probably saw. I read it a good two months ago (?) ago right when it came out. Definitely the reason I decided to take the plunge and finally read Hothouse!
Although I read it, I really didn’t like this one. As I remember, I found it to be long and tedious. If it appeals to you, it’s alright though. “Greybeard” was much better, and even “Non-Stop”.
I am interested in SF that presents hypermasculine action as empty movement — as Aldiss does here. Part of why it might be considered tedious is its relentless detail and attempts to exercise displacement of the reader (plunged into an alien earth) and the subject (humans displaced from their pasts and unable to comprehend their world other than in the broad forces of survival). All the underlying concepts hit the right buttons for me.
Okay, I’ve only read six novels by Brian Aldiss, and they don’t all get absorbed by my literary sensitive layers. As I said, I wasn’t so keen on “The Eighty Minuet Hour”, and even less on “Cryptozoic”.
I’ve read six at this point and I’d place Earthworks, Bow Down to Null, and The Dark Light-Years in that camp. That said, Earthworks and The Dark Light-Years have fascinating ideas. Something that Kincaid points out in his effuse giddiness that crops up even in his most depressing works. And I feel that it often decreases their impact.
I haven’t read any of those, and think I can avoid them, although I’d like to read more by Aldiss.
they were like figures woven into a tapestry, without depth
How lovely…Aldiss so often makes those kinds of lines serve as props for entire edifices of meaning, using a tapestry to explain the 2D quality of appearances in a world where the idea of such a thing as a tapestry is deader than dead.
Jeroen’s point about the prolixity of the read isn’t wrong, but I felt the need for it because this is a society without a history or a future. There are no books, there is no writing, the banyan is the entire biome that humanity lives in and there’s nothing too wild and wooly to need memorialization (pace the morels).
Enjoyable reminder of a good read indeed.
Aldiss has his moments of poignant prose. Yeah, the work explores issues of displacement that are downright offputting — narrative inertia or rather a traditional adventure narrative that doesn’t fight a villain or achieve much of anything, the inability as you say for humanity to place itself in time, the deluge of data that covers flora and fauna often never encountered again in the story…
I enjoyed it. As you can tell! And I have an even better and thematically-similar novel lined up.
Oh boy oh joy! Anothr fun review!
It’s a Disch novel. Maybe you can guess which… another huge plant… haha.
THE GENOCIDES
Indeed!
*Another
That an interesting factoid about the influence Aldiss’ war service had on Hothouse. Though I wouldn’t reduce this work to that—not that either you or the author of the monograph are arguing that.
What I find both most interesting and most repulsive about Aldiss’ book is his dim view of human nature. Though again, it’s not just that. He shares this with H. G. Wells, and more proximally with Ballard. The idea that at heart humans are “red in tooth and claw”. Certainly, the animalness of the human is a refreshing trope to find amongst the often religious like techno-optimism of a lot of SF that was contemporary with Aldiss. However, Aldiss, I feel, tends to err on the animal side over the emergent, “human” side. Which, again, is not to argue that we aren’t animals, just that we are a peculiar animal. Though Aldiss doesn’t reach the grim, misanthropic depths of Ballard (for instance).
Don’t get me wrong, I like Hothouse a lot. But it doesn’t have the grim elegiac quality of the last section of Wells’ The Time Machine, nor Stapeldon’s tragically beautiful evocation of the end of “man” (sic) in Last and First Men.
I think the war angle does reveal some interesting themes — displacement in a strange/brutal place, the everyday terrors, and the shock at returning home. Also the hypermasculine posturing of the soldiers, and the animalism you address, etc.
I agree that it doesn’t have the grim elegiac quality but rather a strange ebullient pessimism that crops up more substantially in some of his other works like Earthworks which are equally grim.
I’m currently reviewing Disch’s The Genocides and he does succeed in making a much more concise and intense exploration of similar themes.
I’d like to get around to The Genocides one of these days. The next Disch I read will almost certainly be ‘334’.
Genocides is absolutely great. I hope to have a review up next weekend.
Read this one decades ago and have fond, if dim, memories of it. Alas, I made no notes for a review. Now I’m curious if I read an abridged US version.
Aldiss’ SF was frequently abridged, modified, etc. for the US market. I accidentally bought the abridged US edition first… which prevented me from reading it for years.