Plants in Science Fiction

• This is the first volume of its kind • Plants in Science Fiction shows how considerations of plant-life in SF can transform our understanding of institutions and boundaries, erecting – and dismantling – new visions of utopian and dystopian futures. • Its original essays argue that plant-life in SF is transforming our attitudes toward morality, politics, economics, and cultural life.

Plants in Science Fiction, the first-ever volume on plants (and fungi) in science fiction, allows us to speculate further on what – or who – plant life may be while exploring how we understand ourselves in relation to the complex world of floraPlants have played key roles in science fiction novels, graphic novels and film. John Wyndham’s triffids, Algernon Blackwood’s willows and Han Kang’s sprouting woman are just a few examples. Plants surround us, sustain us, pique our imaginations and inhabit our metaphors – but in many ways they remain opaque. The scope of their alienation is as broad as their biodiversity. And yet, literary reflections of plant-life are driven, as are many threads of science fictional inquiry, by the concerns of today. Plants in Science Fiction is the first-ever collected volume on plants in science fiction, and its original essays argue that plant-life in SF is transforming our attitudes toward morality, politics, economics and cultural life at large – questioning and shifting our understandings of institutions, nations, borders and boundaries; erecting and dismantling new visions of utopian and dystopian futures.