Book 4 for my 2026 goal of 36 books for the year! Could only find this book available on Amazon this time.

Been digging through my collection of unread books looking for something different to read and recently the book Hothouse (1962) by English science fiction author Brian Aldiss caught my eye!

I picked this up some time ago after reading Aldiss’ most famous book Non-Stop, a tale of humans who live on a malfunctioning generation ship that have reverted to a primitive society and think that the ship they are on is their entire world! Non-Stop was an imaginative and unique story and I had high hopes that Hothouse would be similarly innovative.

My hopes were proven true! Hothouse is one of the wildest science fiction rides I’ve been on in quite a while.

The story is set on Earth in a far, far future. The Earth’s rotation has slowed to where it is tidal locked to the sun, keeping one face in perpetual day and the other in perpetual night. The sun itself has started to near the end of its life cycle, throwing off more heat and radiation. The illuminated side of the planet has become a jungle where plant life is dominant, and this includes not only trees but flying and crawling — and predatory — vegetation that has filled the niches that the mostly extinct animals once held. The moon is also tidal locked to the Earth, and spider-like plants over a mile in length have stretched cobwebs to it, making slow deliberate journeys between the two celestial bodies.

Human civilization is long gone, but humans persist, eking out an existence near the tops of the massive jungle trees while residing near the very bottom of the food chain. The jungle floor is filled with predators and near certain death, and death is common among the humans. They live in small tribes and their only allies in nature are the giant insects known as Termights.

After another death of a child in a tribe, the elders realize that it is time for them to move on from this life and pass the leadership on to the young people. A young girl named Toy is chosen to head the tribe, but the reckless manchild Gren wants to lead it himself, and the struggle for power will divide the group and lead them all into danger and a quest to create a new future for humanity.

Hothouse is a book that is difficult to describe without giving significant spoilers! It takes many unexpected twists and turns throughout its telling and I was constantly surprised by new revelations sudden changes of direction. It was never boring, as the humans are constantly discovering new ways that the wildlife of the planet can try to kill them.

I might describe this book in broad terms as “science fantasy.” It is grounded in, and almost a love letter to, the wonders of adaptation and evolution in nature. But, as the description of giant cobwebs stretching to the moon suggests, many of the ideas are only superficially plausible and will make a science-minded reader frown upon deeper contemplation. But realism was clearly not Aldiss’ objective: he wanted to make a world that felt alien and awe-inspiring and terrifying all at once, and in that he succeeded.

Aldiss was inspired by his own encounters with a foreign land. In the afterword that appears in the Penguin edition that I read, Aldiss describes how he spent time in India and felt a profound disappointment when he returned to the “squalor and poverty” of his English homeland. (He notes that he had acclimated to the squalor and poverty of the East during his stay.) With warm memories of his stay in India haunting him, he decided that an “exorcism” was required, and Hothouse was the result.

Hothouse is really a book unlike anything else I can remember. It is bustling with ideas, awe, wonder, and horror, and I was hooked throughout.