Review of Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

It was a brisk autumn afternoon in the grungy backstreets of Johannesburg.  Moving in fits and starts, a draft manuscript of Charles Stross’ latest Laundry Files novel danced along the pavement, buffeted by the wind.  The margins full of notes, he was undecided how heavy to lay on the tech and magic. Should I go all out, from www brain implants to wizards, or keep things relaxed, just a little social media and a touch of voodoo?  At the same time and place, Philip Pullman, pique on his tongue and time to kill, was looking for a place to relax into a pint or two.  But just as he spied a promising pub, the draft manuscript whipped up and slapped him in the face.  Peeling the papers away and holding them at arm’s length, he entered and sat down, ordered a glass of bitter, and took a look at what fate had sent his way.  Immediately intrigued, he didn’t notice when the beer arrived.  So absorbed, in fact, he began scribbling his own notes—character needs animal familiar,a strong, toothy one—but which? Crocodile? Alligator?... And this one? Mongoose?  Sloth?  Pullman so deep in concentration, it took the man sitting at a nearby table several tries to get his attention.  “Hi, my name is Bill Gibson.  Looks like you’ve got some run ons, hanging clauses, and more than a few over-indulgent metaphors there.  Let me see if I can’t help you tighten up that story a little—give it an edge you can cut with, you know?” The rest, as they say, is Lauren Beukes’ 2010 Zoo City.

The above introduction would seem to render Zoo City imitative rather than original. That was only half the intention.  By setting her story in a fully realized, near-future version of Johannesburg, giving her main characters singular voices, and having her own thematic aims, Beukes transforms the tropes and styles of Stross, Pullman, and Gibson into a combination of her own making.  The influences are readily apparent, but the creation is of its own design—at least mostly. 

Review of The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett

Lightning-cracked time portals.  Secret tombs. Slave ship mutiny. Snake men.  Buried alive.  Parlays with kings.  These are just some of the adventurous elements of Leigh Brackett’s The Sword of Rhiannon.  (Though initially published as Sea Kings of Mars, it quickly changed names, and in reprintings since has consistently been known as The Sword of Rhiannon.)  Written in 1953, it was one of the last threads of the pulp era yet benefits from increased expectations regarding prose and characterization.  It never, however, fails as an adventure.

Matt Carse, Earthman and grave looter on Mars, meets with the opportunity of lifetime one evening walking the streets of Jekkara.  Shown the mystical sword of the mighty and long dead sorceror Rhiannon, its gleaming jewel only set his mind moving in other directions: where there is such a beautiful sword, there must also be treasure of greater magnitude.  Taken to the tomb, its there his greed gets the better of him.  Examining a particularly strange artifact, the rug is pulled from under his feet and, like Alice, through the rabbit hole Carse goes.  With only Rhiannon’s sword in hand, he arrives at a Mars millions of years in the past and into the middle of one of the biggest plots the planet has ever known. Carse’s problem is, his actions are what unleash the plot and send the world of the Sea Kings into turmoil.

Review of Twenty Trillion Leagues under the Sea by Adam Roberts

I imagine it’s something of a minor surprise to readers of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea to finish the book without ever having dipped a mile or two beneath the surface.  At least it was to me.  (It’s worth noting, however, the adventures of Captain Nemo and Aronmax onboard the mighty Nautilus are more than enough to make the reader lose sight of the fact ‘across’ is the more suitable adjective.) Apparently more inspired than surprised, in 2014 Adam Roberts dipped into the lexical impasse by penning a waterverse adventure in honor of Verne that holds true to its verbiage.  Oh, and he added a few zeroes to the depth meter—Twenty Trillion Leagues under the Sea (2014 Gollancz UK, 2015 St. Martin’s Press US) where the needle ultimately rests.

But in what spirit these leagues are traversed is what gives Twenty Trillion Leagues under the Sea its character.   Largely eschewing the hard sf mode of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and utilizing the underworld adventure mode of Journey to the Center of the Earth, the combination results in an underwater fantasy that pays homage to both Verne novels while telling its own vintage-esque tale of imaginative fancy.  Thus, hard sf purists will undoubtedly call out Roberts for his less than rigorous application of scientific knowledge when Verne went so far to make his Leagues as realistic as possible.  But they would be missing the point.  Twenty Trillion Leagues is as much homage to the original novel as it is Verne’s oeuvre and the era’s overall storytelling.

Review of The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs genre milestone A Princess of Mars ended with the hero appropriately back on Earth where he’d begun his tale.  One plot line was left unresolved, but had the book not sold as well as it did, the reader could have walked away satisfied the circle was completed.  But with Dejah Thoris trapped in the First Born’s Temple of the Sun, a Martian year to go before she is to see the light of day again, the ending of The Gods of Mars is anything but complete.  With the red carpet laid out for a third installment, The Warlord of Mars follows upon The Gods of Mars, but, brings the tale of John Carter to a close, no loose ends.

And indeed, with Dejah Thoris trapped, it is up to her beloved John Carter to rescue her (for the millionth time) from the jaws of death.  Trailing a Thern and First Born into an underground cavern in the opening chapter, he learns of a secret entrance into the Temple of the Sun.  But worse yet, he learns the pair plot to kill Dejah Thoris before her allotted year is up.  Spurned to action with the ever-faithful Woola at his side, John Carter embarks on yet another rescue attempt (rolls eyes).  An extended chase that takes Carter to the North Pole, every color of man on Barsoom—red, black, white, yellow, and green—is eventually drawn into the plight.  Battles on ice, secret entrances, double-bluffs, new alliances, enemies turned friends—all of Barsoom intersects for the massive conclusion of the John Carter epic.

Review of The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

A Princess of Mars (1912) by Edgar Rice Burroughs is one of the most over-the-top novels ever written.  Inspired by pulp and in turn inspiring pulp to this day, its heroic absurdity—ahem, sentimentality possesses a verve for storytelling that plumbs the depths of exaggerated and imaginative fiction like few other period works of such length. And once the train starts rolling, it’s tough to stop it.  The Gods of Mars (1914), sequel to A Princess of Mars, sets the dial to twelve for John Carter’s wild return to Barsoom.

Transported back to Earth amidst an oxygen crisis at the end of A Princess of Mars, John Carter never learned whether the woman he loved, Dejah Thoris, or the son they were waiting to hatch (hatch!!!) suffocated or not.  Praying to the sky above his New York home one night that he might return to know their fate, at the outset of The Gods of Mars John Carter once again finds his corporeal-self transported away from Earth.  Arriving in an unfamiliar land, he’s unsure whether he’s on Barsoom or not. Strange plant men assaulting him in an exotic landscape that is nothing like his memories of the red planet, it isn’t until he meets up with his old friend Tars Tarkas that the truth slowly unfolds: he has arrived in Dor, the land of the dead.  All manner of exotic adventure unraveling, Carter must fight through peril and danger to escape a land no Barsoomiam has ever escaped from to learn what has befallen his beloved Dejah Thoris and son in the ten years since he last set foot on Mars.

Review of Plague Ship by Andre Norton

Much of Golden Age science fiction is bound up in the pseudo-scientific, quasi fantastic renderings of heroic frontier stories set in space.  The market demanding a large quantity of such stories, sub-genres split off—planetary romance/adventure, lost in space, alien attack, among them.  Another branch which sprouted was in the world of merchants and traders of extra-terrestrial goods.  It is in this minor vein that Andre Norton published her Solar Queen series.  Planetary adventure mixed with the legalities, economies, and rivalries of interstellar trade, the second of these books Plague Ship (1956) is the subject of this review.

Plague Ship is the story of the freighter Solar Queen and the trouble she gets into on the planet Sargol.  Part of the Free Traders union, the crew establish initial contact with the clan-like Salariki, and thus claim the right to be the only group allowed to trade for their precious Koros stones and valuable timber.  But when a rival merchant illegally butts in, tempers flare.  A Salariki family drama playing out simultaneously, dragging the Free Traders and their rivals into a fray, Dane Thorson, Ollie, Rick, and other crew of the Solar Queen are lucky to get off planet with the hold full of the valuable wood.  But as crew members start to come down with symptoms of illness and drop into incapacity, it seems their troubles are only beginning.

Review of A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

I am agog.  Edgar Rice Burroughs' 1912 A Princess of Mars is a book I’d never read, that is, until turning the last page today—and I am agog.  Like a genre rosetta stone, I now understand the root of America’s pulp science fiction and fantasy tradition.  Purple prose, heroes of a larger-than-life variety, a plot that continually expands its extent of incredulity, science fiction cum fantasy cum science fantasy—all the pulpy pieces are in place in one big, mythically maudlin male fantasy of the finest, squishiest cheese.  And the blazing sexism, disguised racism, undoubted ethnocentrism—everything WASP-ish, I’m just agog…

A Princess of Mars is the story of John Carter, a man who comes to be the greatest hero Mars has even known.  An officer in the Confederacy, after the Civil War he goes west seeking a fortune in gold in Arizona.  Finding a rich vein, he and a colleague head to civilization to get the equipment and laborers they will need to mine it.  But a tragedy occurs, and Carter is forced to defend himself.  Finding a cave to hide out, strange forces take over, and before he knows it, he lies naked in the middle of the Martian wilderness.

Review of The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge

For those unaware, The Snow Queen is a fairy tale originally written by Hans Christian Anderson in 1845.  Possessing all the elements that make tales fairy—innocence, love, severance, magic, and the blackest of evil, his story was ripe for a modern revisioning a la Roger Zelazny, Donna Jo Napoli, Jeff Vandermeer, Neil Gaiman, and a host of other writers who have used the seeds of the past to grow stories of their own.  Not letting the opportunity slip away, Joan D. Vinge wrote The Snow Queen in 1980.  Anderson’s story fully transposed into a science fiction setting, Vinge succeeds on a number of fronts, but falls short in others.  

The basic plot structure of The Snow Queen remains true to the original: a pair in love are separated and must escape the wiles of the Snow Queen to find their way back together again.  Triamat, however, is a far different setting than Anderson’s.  A water planet, two groups (called the Summers and Winters) inhabit what little land exists and every 150 years exchange power.  At the start of the novel, the transition from Winter to Summer is drawing nigh and the Snow Queen is preparing to sacrifice herself in the traditional ceremony which marks the handover.  Secretly, however, she has scattered clones of herself around the planet, hoping to keep her position after the transition.  

Review of Maske: Thaery by Jack Vance

I was going to post different review, but hearing of Jack Vance's passing this past week, I've decided to pay a small tribute to the master of the imaginative fantastic by posting a review of one of his novels, instead. Thanks for the stories, Jack.

By the mid ‘70s, Jack Vance had established himself as an important name in science fiction and fantasy.  Having gotten initial forays into pulp out of the way, he’d reached a strong mid-point in his career.  With the unique Blue World, well-developed Emphyrio, and, if anything else, highly imaginative and entertaining Tchai series under his belt, Vance’s books had found a singularity of voice that would later be taken to even greater heights in the Cugel saga, Lyonesse, and Cadwal Chronicles.  Perhaps the most mature of this transition period, the author’s 1976 Maske:Thaery deserves more attention than it receives.

Maske: Thaery is the story of Jubal Droad.  A second son, Jubal is left to seek gainful employment outside the home upon the death of his father and the ascendancy of his older brother to the Droad house seat.  The isolated peninsula where they live, Thaery, dominated by a traditional social structure, House Droad is viewed by the other Houses as haughty, forthright, and all too lacking in restraint—character traits Jubal unwittingly exhibits to a T.  A slight to his House’s honor occurring while Jubal is in the wilds one day, the remainder of the book is Jubal’s quest to effect reprisal, but the form it comes in is not what he inititally hopes.  

Review of Creatures of Light and Darkness by Roger Zelazny

In the early part of his career, and in an indirect sense throughout it, Roger Zelazny combed Earth’s cultures, religions, and legends for story material.  His brilliant Lord of Light and This Immortal riffing off Hindu/Buddhist and Greek mythology respectively, he established himself as writer who combined the classic themes of myth and legend with more modern, imaginative tropes of science fiction and fantasy.  His 1969 Creatures of Light and Darkness is no exception.

Egyptian myth and cosmology the source material, Creatures… is an epic tale of warring gods where space and time have little meaning—or all the meaning if the story as a whole is viewed.  Stakeholders in universal power, Osiris, Set, Anubis, Isis, and a variety of other deities from Egyptian myth come alive in the narrative.  But the story is also grounded in semi-reality.  Regardless whether a far future vision or simply an extra-terrestrial fantasy setting, six versions of human life inhabit six worlds in the Middle Realm of the gods’ domain.  Some worlds more advanced than others with the gods being able to control and apply technology at will, there is a distinct sci-fi edge to what is otherwise a full-on fantasy story.

Review of "Big Planet" by Jack Vance

Big Planet (1957) is Jack Vance’s third published novel.  Barely longer than a novella, the book nevertheless features many of the ideas and imaginative storytelling that would come to make the writer so well known in fantasy circles.  Big Planet itself home to a seeming unlimited variety of wild cultures, species, and fantastical creatures, the storytelling is full-on planetary adventure.  Though the idea would later be revised and expanded in The Tchai (Planet of Adventure) series, this is the roots of fantasy travelogue. 

 

Big Planet is the cross-planetary adventures of Claude Glystra and his crew after they crash land in strange circumstances on the titular planet.  Landing at a point far distant from the only civilized locale on the massive world, Glystra and the others, with a limited amount of supplies, set off on the 40,000 mile journey with little hope of surviving the wilds.  Making matters worse, they know a traitor exists in their midst.  Bajarnum de Beaujolais, a self-made ruler who hopes to build a power base on Big Planet, has an agent planted among them.  The other schemes the delusional Bajarnum has cooked up are for Glystra and the reader to stumble into.

Review of "Galactic Effectuator" by Jack Vance

Though certainly more well-known for his science fiction and fantasy, Jack Vance was also an avid mystery writer.  The crime genre influencing much of his more famous works, all five of The Demon Princes books, Araminta Station, Son of the Tree, The Houses of Iszm, Maske: Thaery, the Magnus Ridolph stories, and several others feature men solving riddles in private eye fashion.  But, Galactic Effectuator is Vance’s most overt example of mixing space adventure and mystery.  Actually a compendium of two novellas: The Dogtown Tourist Agency and Frietzke’s Turn, the book features Miro Hetzel doing what he does best: effectuate investigations into the puzzling and mysterious. 

The Dogtown Tourist Agency opens with Hetzel signing off on a contract for which he’d been employed tracking a playboy.  Moving quickly on to the next case, one Palladian Micronics which produces robots, Hetzel interviews the CEO who informs him a competitor is able to sell a similar product at a much, much lower price.  An obvious threat to the industry, the CEO wants to know why, and gives Hetzel a retainer.  He also provides some clues, all of which point to the backwater Maz.  Arriving on the strangely populated planet, what follows is an investigation that becomes only more mysterious by the day and requires all of Hetzel’s wits and bravery if he’s to get to the bottom of the case.

Review of "The Cadwal Chronicles" by Jack vance

The 1980s found Jack Vance moving into his sixth decade of life.  Imagination still sharp, he produced such works as the Lyonesse trilogy, the second half of the Cugel saga, as well as began the Cadwal Chronicles, Araminta Station published in 1989.  The novel on par with the best of Vance’s oeuvre, the second novel in the series, Ecce and Old Earth, sees only a slight decline in quality, the story furthered in fine fashion.  The third and concluding volume, however, is like a different writer took hold of the script.  The story delivered is dry and bland, and does not come close to the bar set by the first two.  Throy fortunately not bad enough to destroy the integrity of the series, the Cadwal Chronicles contain all of the tropes that make Vance, Vance, and likewise make the series well worth a read for any fan of the author.  

The Cadwal Chronicles is the story of Glawen Clattuc and his fight to protect the planet Cadwal from being overrun by greedy developers and political dissidents.  The planet set aside as a nature preserve and population limited many centuries prior by a group on Earth called the Naturalists, in the time that has passed since many things have changed for the worse on the planet.  Aside from the deterioration of the Naturalists, a listless, unintelligent group called the Yips have slowly settled in the beautiful but dangerous forests of Cadwal and caused social problems of all variety.  Making matters worse, the eight families designated to oversee the planet and ensure it’s pristine quality have begun to collapse internally, Glawen’s own family even suffering from in-fighting and civil turmoil.  Through this mire of family feuds and social ills, not to mention political plays for power and motives of overblown revenge, Glawen needs every bit of wisdom and luck at his disposal to protect the planet he’s bound by duty to oversee.

Review of "The Miracle Workers" by Jack Vance

The Dragon Masters and The Last Castle are Jack Vance’s most famous novellas.  Falling short by just a hair, The Miracle Workers is also a well thought out piece of short fiction from the grandmaster of sci-fi, fantasy, and everything between.  So similar in quality in fact, the editors of the Vance Integral Edition (VIE) thought fit to group this story with Vance’s two award winning novellas in a single edition—a shout in support of its quality.

The Miracle Workers is the story of Keep Faide, its wars, its attacks to establish position, and sometimes its need to just plain survive on the strange planet they inhabit.  The other Keeps attacking in overt fashion, Keep Faide also faces inroads from the devious First Fols, a group native to the planet who seek to obstruct all of mankind’s efforts at domination.  Beyond their foam billowing, wasp spitting ways, the Fols erect forests filled with traps and snares where none exited before, and if not careful, may just be plotting to take back over the world they once called their own.  Lord Faide and the men under his control must go to wits’ end defending what they believe is their own.  Lord Faide’s problem is, his wits have a short road.

Review of "The Epiphanist" by William Rosencrans

Breaking into the sci-fi/fantasy market is relatively easy these days for authors uninterested in making readers think.  Experiencing a hey-day of sorts, the shelves are saturated with titles trying to fill every interstice between its successes.  With so much just trying to cash in on waves of entertainment, locating the truly original and worthwhile efforts amongst the pretenders and hack artists is increasingly difficult.  In other words, publishers simply cannot be trusted as filters for quality literature.  I am thankful, therefore, that I was introduced to William Rosencrans’ originally imagined and thought-provoking debut The Epiphanist.  Otherwise, it may have been lost in the deluge.

On the surface, The Epiphanist is the coming-of-age story of Vladimir, a genetically modified outcast living in the wastelands of the Holy City.  Every day a fight to survive in the war torn jungles of Abbadon, the rebels around Vlad wage what fight they can against the forces from the City, making the simple things in life, like education and food, anything but easy.  Rendering life more complicated is the surreal spin of nanotechnology.  Devices and monitors watching in the strangest of forms (satyrs to house flies, gentlemen in top hats to dragons), the morality of all is recorded by the Holy City to help decide whether or not the genetic misfits of Abaddon are allowed to pass through the City’s impenetrable nanowall into its idyllic halls.  Ethical advice coming in the strangest shapes and sizes, not to mention from all angles, Vlad is left with nothing but his wits to get him through the war and a chance at the Holy City.  But is it worth it?

Beneath the surface, the major themes at play in The Epiphanist are religion and societal revolution.  From recognizable beliefs like Christianity and Greek mythology to futuristic versions of old religions and cults, the “right thing to do” changes by location, and analyzing and balancing all of the conflicting principles initially proves bewildering for Vlad.  Nicely balancing theory, however, is the practical side of these beliefs, i.e. the behavior of the people purporting the various religious views and the subsequent mass effect on society.  At times entirely contradictory and at others wholly fundamentalist, there is a believably human aspect to the manner in which the peoples and sub-societies Vlad encounters practice their beliefs, rendering the book excellent commentary on mankind.  (For anyone worried the novel is just propaganda for a specific religion, rest assured the author’s aims are broader in scope.)  

Regarding style of storytelling, Rosencrans deadpans the text, giving few hints as to the actuality behind appearances.  Lacking authorial hand-holding (i.e. explaining the reason behind things—as I’m doing now), the resulting story is rich with detail, and as often as not, unpredictable.  Heightening this effect is the quality usage of sci-fi effects.  Though similar to the “technical” manner in which Neal Stephenson employs nanotech in The Diamond Age, Rosencrans uses the futuristic science along more symbolic, almost fantastical, lines.   Much of the imagery and many of the personalities Vlad encounters blur the lines of reality.  The result is a narrative not unlike Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun. What is only a result of the drugs Vlad is taking?  What is not?  Which character has ulterior motives, and, which is speaking from their heart?  What can be believed as “truth” and what not?  The answers to these questions slowly become obvious, but readers must be prepared to cogitate upon what they are presented.  It goes without saying The Epiphanist’s re-read value is high.

Though it is his first novel, Rosencrans’ writing style is consistent throughout.  Not literary in a baroque sense, sentence and syntax are no-nonsense; they relay scenes, imagery, and internal monologue in direct fashion.  Plotting dynamic toward the beginning, the narrative slowly gathers focus, building to a climax rich with imagination.  Story and theme complementing each other analogously, the denouement is in fact brilliant.  Vlad’s life becomes both a real and symbolic example of the personal themes Rosencrans is driving at.  Thus, despite the potential for reader confusion encountering the myriad of strangeness and ethical worldviews at the novel’s outset, the story builds to a conclusion that draws it all together perfectly, the journey worth the while.

And it is a journey.  Vladimir’s personal development key to the story, The Epiphanist interestingly shares the same story structure as Herman Hesse’s bildungsroman Siddharta.  Though written in science fiction terms, Vlad’s life shifts through the same three phases: in, out, and beyond.  To define these phases more clearly would ruin the story.  Suffice to say, the concept of transcendence permeating the novel’s conclusion is something readers of Eastern philosophy and Ken Wilber’s Integral Psychology will understand easily, and perhaps enjoy.  

In the end, The Epiphanist is a brilliant debut.  Filled to the brim with fantastical imagination, a simple but effective setting, a flawed main character, and theme strongly linked to story, the book is an organized milieu of beliefs and ideas that will have readers ruminating long after they’ve finished.  The sci-fi aspects and style of storytelling bearing much in common with Gene Wolfe’s Sun series, the message at the novel’s heart nevertheless holds greater similarity to the transcendence of Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, Silverberg’s Nightwings, or Hesse’s Siddharta.  Fans of any of these works will not be wasting their time checking out The Epiphanist.

(A side note: this is the first self-published book I have read.  Based on the quality, it will not be the last.  Given the focus on action and entertainment—the quick buck—that publishers these days are signing contracts for, i.e. ignoring manuscripts with higher standards in favor of hack efforts featuring gore, sex, and creepy aliens, I now stand in full support of this method.  It may be the only way quality literature is propagated in the future.  I do not know Mr. Rosencrans personally, but I suggest you support worthwhile sci-fi by purchasing The Epiphanist if this review has interested you.)

Review of "Hothouse" by Brian Aldiss

It would be interesting to begin this review with the number of what-ifs Brian Aldiss based his novel Hothouse on, hyper-greenhouse effects, locked planetary rotations, sentient flora, etc.  But by doing so, all of the hardcore science-fiction junkies would go running the other way.  “That’s not possible.”, “It could never happen that way.”, “That’s not sci-fi.”, etc. And all of these comments would be true; Hothouse is fantasy through and through, and approached from any other direction will only lead to complaints and disappointment.

Aldiss obviously relaxed and wanting to have a little fun, Hothouse is a simplistic yet strangely beautiful tale of a group of humans living in the super-flora that has covered the side of the Earth facing the sun.  The far-future planet no longer rotating, the half exposed to the dying sun’s radiation has evolved significantly.  Vegetation and insect life have taken on innumerable fantastic and sentient forms in the greenhouse jungle, and humans, now smaller and greener, have been reduced to a middling role in the food chain.  The jungle canopy and Ground too dangerous, small human tribes eke out an existence amongst the branches.  Life as predator and prey not always easy, tigerflies, trappersnappers, vegbirds, and the plethora of other fantastic creatures fill the tale. 

The setting the real main character, Aldiss allows the reader little personal knowledge of the characters involved.  Tone half-myth/half-fairy tale, focus is on the movement of a particular tribe, including Gren, Lily-yo, and Yattmur.  Tinted in the most simplistic yet human of colors, many die easily encountering the exigencies of the hyper-jungle.  As such, readers looking for empathetic characters would do best to steer away from Hothouse.  Though an adventuresome tale with a climax is told, Aldiss never loses focus on humanity’s position in the larger scope of life.

Like Helliconia, Hothouse is redolent with Gaian themes.  Humanity continually subject to the elements, Aldiss never paints a pretty picture of survival in his jungled Earth.  Every step presents a new danger as the winds of fate push and pull the small tribe’s fragile existence beyond its control.  Choices never easy, the conclusion of the novel wraps up things in surprisingly affecting fashion given the light tone that permeates the story.  Real insight into the relativity of human nature, the final page makes the book worth the while.  

A certain playfulness flitting through the story, at times Aldiss relaxes a little too much, allowing the story to move beyond the scope laid out at the book’s outset.  The last third in particular sees the unnecessary introduction of characters and scenes that could have been done without and the story’s message still rung true, not to mention been better structured regarding the overall timeline.  Those looking for a dearth of the fantastic will not be disappointed by the imaginative digression, however.  

In the end, Hothouse is an exotic adventure that, if approached any other way, cannot be enjoyed.  Any examination of the hard-science backing the story will fall quickly apart.  Somewhere between myth and fairy tale, the story is set in a fantastical jungle that imagines the Earth taken over by vegetation, the sun’s radiation mutating and evolving plant life into a wide variety of forms, placid to carnivorous.  Aldiss’s imaginative scope—the land, the style of life, and the sentient flora—will stick in the reader’s mind after the book is finished, and is in fact the main reason to read the book.  A cross between the anthropological side of Ursula Le Guin’s fantasy and the outright imagination of Jack Vance’s, fans of either author should enjoy Aldiss’s light but highly creative story.