Plant Worlds
Plant communities create and enable most of Earth’s living worlds by shaping ecological water and airflows, producing energy and matter through photosynthesis, and linking into vast, interconnected mycorrhizal fungal networks of communication to form interactive, multispecies, and distributive intel...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The White Horse Press
2024-10-01
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| Series: | Plant Perspectives |
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| Online Access: | https://www.whp-journals.co.uk/PP/article/view/1216 |
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| _version_ | 1850064767782223872 |
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| author | Heather I. Sullivan |
| author_facet | Heather I. Sullivan |
| author_sort | Heather I. Sullivan |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Plant communities create and enable most of Earth’s living worlds by shaping ecological water and airflows, producing energy and matter through photosynthesis, and linking into vast, interconnected mycorrhizal fungal networks of communication to form interactive, multispecies, and distributive intelligences. We all live in various plant-formed worlds, an under-acknowledged fact in many extractivist cultures today. This essay briefly compares three works of science fiction featuring alien forest worlds that focus specifically on world-shaping vegetal power in which human or humanoid beings exist: Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1972 The Word for World is Forest, Alan Dean Foster’s 1975 Midworld and Marcus Hammerschitt’s 1998 German novel, Target. These three texts immerse the reader in alien forest worlds dominated by plants that human beings try to exploit with various forms of failure. From these explicit failures in otherworldly realms, we find narrative options for reimagining our relationships and resonances with our own powerful vegetal beings back on Earth. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-bf63b3790dc148359ea4fbd80b94390f |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2753-3603 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-10-01 |
| publisher | The White Horse Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Plant Perspectives |
| spelling | doaj-art-bf63b3790dc148359ea4fbd80b94390f2025-08-20T02:49:12ZengThe White Horse PressPlant Perspectives2753-36032024-10-011237238910.3197/whppp.638454949097391168Plant WorldsHeather I. SullivanPlant communities create and enable most of Earth’s living worlds by shaping ecological water and airflows, producing energy and matter through photosynthesis, and linking into vast, interconnected mycorrhizal fungal networks of communication to form interactive, multispecies, and distributive intelligences. We all live in various plant-formed worlds, an under-acknowledged fact in many extractivist cultures today. This essay briefly compares three works of science fiction featuring alien forest worlds that focus specifically on world-shaping vegetal power in which human or humanoid beings exist: Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1972 The Word for World is Forest, Alan Dean Foster’s 1975 Midworld and Marcus Hammerschitt’s 1998 German novel, Target. These three texts immerse the reader in alien forest worlds dominated by plants that human beings try to exploit with various forms of failure. From these explicit failures in otherworldly realms, we find narrative options for reimagining our relationships and resonances with our own powerful vegetal beings back on Earth.https://www.whp-journals.co.uk/PP/article/view/1216forest worldsursula k. le guinalan dean fostermultispecies communities |
| spellingShingle | Heather I. Sullivan Plant Worlds Plant Perspectives forest worlds ursula k. le guin alan dean foster multispecies communities |
| title | Plant Worlds |
| title_full | Plant Worlds |
| title_fullStr | Plant Worlds |
| title_full_unstemmed | Plant Worlds |
| title_short | Plant Worlds |
| title_sort | plant worlds |
| topic | forest worlds ursula k. le guin alan dean foster multispecies communities |
| url | https://www.whp-journals.co.uk/PP/article/view/1216 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT heatherisullivan plantworlds |