Hey, Ed, what're you doing up at 2:23 AM? Which of course raises the question
of why I'm up at 2:33 AM.
Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: Edward Frank
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 2:23 AM
Subject: [ENTS] Re: Need Tree Fiction Recommendations
Jennifer,
I have an extensive fantasy and science fiction book collection. I could
likely write a forty page essay on the place of trees and forests in the
fantasy and science fiction genres. I will restrain myself here to a handful
of recommendations. Certainly among fantasy novels, J. R. R. Tolkien's trilogy
The Lord of the Rings is the epitome of a story featuring forests and trees.
Prior to this time the forests were simply a vague, ill defined background into
which the other elements of the story were set, or would pass through. With
LOTR the forests and trees are fleshed out and developed until they become a
character in their own right. The introduction of the animated trees - the
Ents -mealy adds to this element of the novels. Beyond the LOTR three are
fragments and continuations of stories featuring these elements in the
Simalrillion and in the Unfinished Tales. These are another source I would
recommend.
Another fantasy novel worth reading is the second book of Terry Brooks'
Shannara seriesentitled "The Elfstones of Shannara." A blirb about the book
reads as follows: "Ancient, ultimate evil threatened the Elves and the Races
of Man. For the Ellcrys, the tree of long-lost Elven magic, was dying, loosing
the spell of Forbidding that locked the hordes of Demons away from Earth.
Already the fearsome Reaper was free. Only one source had the power to stop it:
the Elfstones of Shannara. And the valiant companions must ride again in an
impossible quest to find them."
On the science fiction front two books come to mind to recommend. the first
is "The Word For World is Forest" by Ursula K. LeGuin. A reader review
states he following: The basic scenario is isolated earth colonists destroying
a native planet whose inhabitants learn to fight back. It is very well executed
and is quite deep and philosophical if you really engage with it, yet it also
has a great story and great drama.
The other I would recommend in "The Integral Trees" by Larry Haven. A review
of the book reads: Surrounding a decaying neutron star is a torus of
breathable air, the Smoke Ring, wherein - in near-weightless conditions - float
some unusual flora and fauna: gigantic trees shaped like mathematical
integration signs; cubic-mile globules of water ("ponds"); globular jungles;
creatures large and small; and. . . some tree-dwelling people, attenuated
descendants of a space survey team who fled into the Smoke Ring half a
millennium ago to escape ill-defined but apparently totalitarian Earth
government.
Both the LeGuin book (actually a novella, but available as a short book) and
the Niven novel won the Hugo Award and Nebula Award for best science fiction
novella and novel when they were published. LeGuin is perhaps best known for
her Earthsea Trilogy which was somewhat mutilated as a mini-series on the SciFi
channel a couple years ago. Niven is a multiple award winner known for his
hard science fiction stories.His best known work is the novel "Ringworld."
There are several more I would recommend, but these are a good start.
Ed Frank
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and all science." - Albert Einstein
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