Evolutionary by Chris Hertz

Tell us what you thought of the December issue!
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Lester Curtis
Long Fiction Editor
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Joined: January 11, 2010, 12:03:56 AM
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Post by Lester Curtis »

Sorry, but this one stretched my credulity too far, in too many ways.

Where is all that radium coming from? Clandestine refinery? If so, aren't all the truckloads of ore going to become obvious to someone? Theft? Not in those quantities, I can guarantee. Purchased? Government oversight . . . "What are you going to do with all this?"

And trees with eyes and mouths? Aw, come on . . . and, how are trees going to take over the world when a simple fence could restrict their movements (see "The Day of the Triffids")? Aren't ANY humans trying to fight back?

Maybe the core premise of the story is salvageable (plants becoming sentient and mobile), and it's a great topic for speculation, actually, but this treatment of it didn't work for me. Bad B-movie material, maybe. Too much unbelievable stuff going on.

In a preface to his Seven Famous Novels, H. G. Wells gave instructions on how to write science-fiction: take an ordinary setting with ordinary people, and inject ONE impossibility -- ONLY one (IIRC, he used flying pigs as an example) -- and then watch how people react to it.

If I were to approach this premise, I'd go at it as a genetic manipulation scenario. Only requires one Mad Scientist (with evil cohorts and/or enthusiastic followers optional) and a rather simple lab, and would give a much more believable result. The plants would have to be very sneaky and maybe use poison or drugs to overcome humans, but even then, it's a stretch . . . and I would definitely avoid having them become anthropomorphic.

<rant>
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