The Last Green Tree

Irion/Hormling

by Jim Grimsley

Jim Grimsley's previous science fiction novel, The Ordinary, was named one of the Top Ten science fiction books of the year by Booklist and won the Lambda Literary Award. His novels and short stories have been favorably compared to those of Ursula K. Le Guin, Jack Vance, and Samuel R. Delany. Now Grimsley returns to the richly complex milieu of The Ordinary with a gripping tale of magic, science, and an epic clash between godlike forces.

Three hundred years have passed since the Conquest, and the Great Mage rules over all of humanity, even as cybernetic links connect the varied worlds of the empire. Vast Gates allow travel from one planet to another, across unimaginable distances. Choirs of chanting priests maintain order, their songs subtly shaping reality, while the armies of the empire have known nothing but total victory for centuries.

But on the planet Aramen, where sentient trees keep human symbionts as slaves, a power has arisen that may rival that of the Great Mage himself. Hordes of unnatural creatures rampage across the planet, leaving death and destruction in their wake. An inhuman intelligence, cruel and implacable, meets the priests' sung magic with a strange new music of its own. The Anilyn Gate is shut down, cutting off Aramen from the rest of humanity. The long era of peace is over.

Now a handful of traumatized survivors must venture deep into a hostile wilderness on a desperate mission to uncover the source of the enemy's powers. And the future of the universe may depend on the untested abilities of one damaged child. . . .

The Last Green Tree is a worthy successor to The Ordinary and a compelling saga in its own right.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, LGBT, Speculative Fiction

400 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2006

About the author

Jim Grimsley published a new novel in May of 2022, The Dove in the Belly, out from Levine Querido. The book is a look at the past when queer people lived more hidden lives than now. Grimsley was born in rural eastern North Carolina. He has published short stories and essays in various quarterlies, including DoubleTake, New Orleans Review, Carolina Quarterly, New Virginia Review, the LA Times, and the New York Times Book Review. Jim’s first novel Winter Birds, was published in the United States by Algonquin Books in the fall of 1994. Winter Birds won the Sue Kaufman Prize for best first novel from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. He has published other novels, including Dream Boy, Kirith Kirin, and My Drowning. His books are available in Hebrew, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese. He has also published a collection of plays and most recently a memoir, How I Shed My Skin. His body of work as a prose writer and playwright was awarded the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2005. For twenty years he taught writing at Emory University in Atlanta.

Reviews

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theological Engineering exam: Elder Gods rule the Universe, but now the stars are going out. What will They do now?

Jim Grimsley ably takes on this Zelaznian line of inquiry in his third F/SF book, set in the same universe as Kirith Kirin (2000) and The Ordinary (2004), both also recommended. Grimsley is becoming something of an American Iain Banks: his literary novels have also been well-received. The Last Green Tree may be his best book yet: an unusually successful blend of high fantasy, careful SF worldbuilding, stargates, high-tech warfare, and mysterious godlike beings pulling the strings. The appropriately enigmatic ending suggests More to Come. I hope so.

[LordOfDorkness · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neat book. Had me from page one, never really let me go. Actually, having finished it, I'm not really sure what the title means. Though that's probably not important. Mr. Grimsley's writing is clear, ceaselessly interesting, unique and imaginative. The creativity of histories, creatures and 'magic' here remind me of the Hannu Rajaniemi's Quantum Thief. The Quantum Thief is wilder, more high wire stuff, but in this book it's just about as entertaining. This book is an unconventional, well written and enjoyable. Not a rollercoaster book, but never a dull moment. Good stuff. I recommend it.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was ... weird. Sort of a sequel? In the same universe as Kirith Kirin, but ... weird. I didn't really like it very much - frankly most of the story didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, and the characters I remembered from the earlier books were either nowhere to be found or in storylines that didn't seem to really work with the main plot line. It was an odd book, I felt the whole time like I'd missed some critical step (and I know The Ordinary is in between - I read that, too, and it was better than this, but it didn't really help make sense of this one). I guess if you're a completist, read this, but all it really made me want to do is go back and re-read Kirith Kirin.

[Courtney · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you have any love for Kirith Kirin DO NOT read this.

[Daniel Keogh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nasty little book about horrible, self-important people and I enjoyed it.

[Kennie · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dark fantasy story without clear main characters or story arc. Things just happend. No happy ending for anyone.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

*SPOILERS*


I'm not hiding the review because this is about so much more than the plot.





Like some other reviews have said, the world of "The Last Green Tree" can be quite creepy.
Imagining a forest god eat someone's face can be a little nauseating for some but then again I've read worse.

And by worse I mean the pedophilia in this very book.

In one of Grimsley's previous books "Kirith Kirin" a 15-year-old boy named Jessex was in a relationship with 1000-year-old man. Yes you heard that right, 1000 years old.

Now you may be thinking, "There's no way that could possibly happen in real life" but let's bring the old man's age down a bit shall we?
Say, 55. Get the picture? Gross!

One of the main characters in this book, Fineas Figg, claims that when he was younger (he's about 300 years old at the time of the story) he once "borrowed" a child from the what is basically the slums.
I'm not talking about a 15-year-old boy, I'm talking about a mere child around 11 years old!
And in case you thinking I'm misquoting you're wrong, he was thinking about the trauma a boy named Keeley went through when he was younger. Some of this trauma included being rented out to adults.


Someone on Amazon wrote a rather similar review to mine regarding "Kirith Kirin" and was accused of being a homophobe.
Sorry but I thought the age of consent was 18, at least here in America. Either the person accusing the reviewer of homophobia did not understand that or seriously thinks that such relationships between a man and a child are perfectly fine.

Now from what I understand the author is gay or at least writes about gay stuff. (Great, you're gay, now I'll get on with my life)
Now if the relationship was between two adult guys I really could care less, but it's not; it between a man and a child. Is the author using homosexuality as a guise for his deep down pedophilia? If so, he's not doing any favors for his community.

Before you start accusing me of being a homophobe, that's not what this is about, it's about pedophilia and in my opinion that's far worse than having your face eating by an alien plant.

Thank goodness I bought this book used and for only one dollar, because of I had known this book contained such crap it would have never gotten through the front door.

You fans can whine all you want, nothing changes the fact that he wrote about pedophilia and showed it in a good light.

[Edward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still searching for more about the sentient trees from Into Greenwood, Jim Grimsley's 2001 short story. While set on the same world, the trees again get short shrift. Enjoyed the story as it was excellent overall, but still waiting...

Into Greenwood: "The water-surrounded forest of Greenwood is populated by sentient trees who have developed bizzare mutually symbiotic relationships with individual humans who genmod themselves to become almost as one with an individual tree."

[Brendan · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I enjoyed the storyline of the book, I felt that the ending was too rushed. It reminded me of Hamlet, save there was no great discovery, no fatal flaw, everyone just died. Also at times I found the writing style to be disjointed and hard to understand. While I recognize that this was to represent the confusion of the characters, I felt that it distracted from the overall storyline.

[Clarice · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story had a lot of interesting ideas, but I did not feel that it quite came together. Set 3 centuries after The Ordinary, and mostly on a different planet, I'm not sure that the story really pulled together. In some ways it did, but in a lot of ways it felt like yet another pre-story to a much larger tale.

I enjoyed it but wanted more out of it.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

picking up 300 years after the cliffhanger ending of The Ordinary, this book follows a new set of characters as their technological society faces off against a dark god of biological force. this book answers many of the unresolved questions from it's predecessor, but has the same kind of "that's all?" cliffhanger ending.

[Cindywho · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book left me wishing I could remember the Ordinary better, but first it horrified me with child abuse and mass killings. The world is fascinating, but just too violent and creepy to be much fun.

[Milly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sci-fi books usually don't grab and hold my attention much because they all seem the same. This book was a little different. And that's all I need ...

[Devi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story but found it somewhat confusing at time.

[Norman Howe · Rating 3 out of 5]

A science fiction novel in which gods fight"," causing apocalyptic destruction and casualties among their human pawns. While there are many strong characters in this story"," few survive to the end.