Hothouse (novel)
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First edition
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| Author | Brian Aldiss |
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| Cover artist | Oscar Mellor |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Faber and Faber |
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Publication date
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1962 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 253 |
Hothouse is a 1962 science fantasy novel by Brian Aldiss, composed of five novelettes that were originally serialised in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1961. In the US, an abridged version was published as The Long Afternoon of Earth; the full version was not published there until 1976.
In 2009, IDW Publishing repackaged the novel with a new introduction by Clifford Meth.
In the novel, Earth now has one side constantly facing the sun (which is larger and hotter than it is at present) so it has become a veritable hothouse, where plants have filled almost all ecological niches. According to Aldiss' account, the US publisher insisted on the name change so the book would not be placed in the horticulture section in bookshops.
Set in a far future, the earth has locked rotation with the Sun, and is attached to the now-more-distant Moon, which resides at a Trojan point, with cobwebs spun by enormous spider-like plants. The Sun has swollen to fill half the sky and, with the increased light and heat, the plants are engaged in a constant frenzy of growth and decay, like a tropical forest enhanced a thousandfold. The plants – many now omnivores – have filled all the ecological niches on the land and in the air, many evolving primitive nervous systems and, in some cases, eyes; of the animals in the forest only the descendants of four species of social insects remain - tigerflies (evolved from wasps), tree-bees, plant-ants and termights (from termites) - along with small groups of humans (a fifth of the size they are now); all other land and air animals have been driven to extinction by the vegetable kingdom, apart from a few shore dwellers. The humans live on the edge of extinction, within the canopy layer of a giant banyan tree that covers the continent on the day side of the earth.
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Wikipedia