Skip to main content

story identification - Ecological tale of a world covered by a forest that is all one organism


Interstellar explorers have discovered what looks like a very suitable planet for human colonization. The climate is good, there are no pathogens, and a beautiful forest grows abundantly. A charming aspect of the flora is that leaves can detach themselves and fly off like flocks of multicolored butterflies. When they land on humans, the fliers take a tiny genetic sample as a sort of hello. Some of the biologists at the research station are disturbed that this idyllic scene will soon be plowed under.



To make the planet ready for settlers, an island has been cleared of native vegetation and inroads are being made on the mainland as well. But the forest that covers the mainland resists mightily, creating solid rings of wood around cleared areas that are planted with terrestrial vegetation. And it's hard to keep an area cleared when the trees can distributed themselves as flying leaves. The woody rings can be blasted open to allow terrestrial plants a foothold, but more rings form, and from the air the scars are very evident.


The forest is really all one organism. Eventually a pair of characters finds it possible to communicate chemically with this world-straddling forest. In the process, they become symbiotic with it.


I probably read (and reread) this story in an English-language anthology during the 70s, a time when ecologic concepts were becoming widespread in science fiction.



Answer



Hunter, Come Home by Richard McKenna. From the anthology Casey Agonistes.


The leaves that fly are the Phytos. Annoyingly I have mislaid my copy of the book so I can't give my usual quotes. However the story is about the attempt to kill the indigenous life using some form of bioweapon called Thanasis. The rings are structures formed by Thanasis as it battles the indigenous life.


This is a fantastic anthology and is the only SF that Richard McKenna wrote. Copies are hard to find these days, but if you can find one I thoroughly recommend it. Richard McKenna is better known for his historical novel The Sand Pebbles, but his sole SF book is excellent if sadly underappreciated.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more