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Doomtime
It all began when someone tried to push Creed into the flesh pool to be ingested. The assassination failed, but Creed was never the same again. Because it launched the new cliff-dwellers of Creed's colony onto a new course of life - which could lead to humanity's re-emergence as Earth's masters. In those far future days, Earth's masters were two trees. Not trees as we know them, but two Everest-high growths, whose sentient roots and fast-growing branches dominated every living thing on the world. Men lived between their arboreal combat.
173 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 5, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 19, 2016
Doris Piserchia rules, and I can conclude that after reading this one book even taking into account the fact that I’ve not read anything else by her. The writing here is just mad. The descriptive tone is so matter-of-fact about the most preposterous and strange scenarios that the only response is disbelieving laughter. Full of admiration. The narrative jumps around unforgivingly but is fully energised as a result, always holding onto a recognisable thread, like channel surfing and discovering the same film is playing in every side but running forever slightly ahead. The dialogue! So economic and clipped in its to-the-point nature, frequently hilarious as a result.
The world is centred on a landscape dominated by sentient trees, that interact with humankind by facilitating a type of mutually beneficial form of communication referred to as dipping. Those people who dip commune with the trees, being enveloped and sustained inside the trees for the duration of the process, and those entering experience a state of bliss and connection that is addictive. The act of oneness with the trees is regarded as “green therapy” and there are many correlations, satirical or embracing I’m not sure, between the themes presented and aspects of psychoanalysis.
Full of amazing imaginative creatures, I especially like the twirlies, who are only dangerous when they start to rotate, and tear through open fields like mini manic dust devils. The human groups also exist via strange means. A vast bowl is utilised to convert all unused flesh into bastardised versions of chicken and meat carcasses to be the nutrient staples of the populace. I could go on, but I’ll leave some delights for the curious to discover.
An amazingly odd and funny dose of weird science fiction, full of trippy organic outlandishness, nods to the new age plundering of the natural world and the atavism at the heart of explorations of the psyche for entertainment, this book is difficult to sum up. Will read more Doris Piserchia, without a doubt.
The world is centred on a landscape dominated by sentient trees, that interact with humankind by facilitating a type of mutually beneficial form of communication referred to as dipping. Those people who dip commune with the trees, being enveloped and sustained inside the trees for the duration of the process, and those entering experience a state of bliss and connection that is addictive. The act of oneness with the trees is regarded as “green therapy” and there are many correlations, satirical or embracing I’m not sure, between the themes presented and aspects of psychoanalysis.
Full of amazing imaginative creatures, I especially like the twirlies, who are only dangerous when they start to rotate, and tear through open fields like mini manic dust devils. The human groups also exist via strange means. A vast bowl is utilised to convert all unused flesh into bastardised versions of chicken and meat carcasses to be the nutrient staples of the populace. I could go on, but I’ll leave some delights for the curious to discover.
An amazingly odd and funny dose of weird science fiction, full of trippy organic outlandishness, nods to the new age plundering of the natural world and the atavism at the heart of explorations of the psyche for entertainment, this book is difficult to sum up. Will read more Doris Piserchia, without a doubt.
July 16, 2013
This is quite possibly the strangest book I've ever read.
You can't go into any Doris Piserchia book expecting any sort of coherent plot, explanation of character motivation, actions that make sense, conversations that make sense, transitions between scenes that make sense, really, anything that you look for in most any novel. And in that regard, this book is her masterpiece.
What you can go into a Doris Piserchia book expecting is: awesome monsters, people who act as pure id, weird settings, odd logical leaps that drive the whole shebang sideways instead of forward, and insane yet ineffectual bad guys. And in no other of her books is that more evident than in Doomtime.
So the plot. There's this city called Neo where Creed lives. Creed spends his life polishing the bronze flesh vat that creates all the city's food, by pouring semi-mobile, semi-sentient protoplasm into molds that form such things as "tasty chickens." Then someone tries to assassinate him, for no readily apparent reason, by pushing him into the flesh vat. Instead, the flesh vat eats part of the assassin's brain and welds Creed's and the assassin's skulls (and partially their brains) together. That's pages 1-3. Then the book gets weird.
The flesh vat starts pouring forth these centipede-like things that spin into fiery tornados and kill people. Meanwhile this green tree starts growing that people can "dip" in, which is not particularly explained, but they somehow like go into the solid wood of the tree, which will have waves and ripples and whatnot, and they commune with the tree, and then come out feeling really good. People start getting addicted.
Again, we're not really past page 20 here. It doesn't get any less weird.
If you're willing to completely suspend your disbelief, not think too much, and just sort of hold on for the ride, this book is amazing. If you try to think too hard, your brain will explode. Get this book, and just read it, and don't try to understand. Just let it wash over you, let the Doris flow. By the end, you'll feel like you just took a dip in a green tree.
You can't go into any Doris Piserchia book expecting any sort of coherent plot, explanation of character motivation, actions that make sense, conversations that make sense, transitions between scenes that make sense, really, anything that you look for in most any novel. And in that regard, this book is her masterpiece.
What you can go into a Doris Piserchia book expecting is: awesome monsters, people who act as pure id, weird settings, odd logical leaps that drive the whole shebang sideways instead of forward, and insane yet ineffectual bad guys. And in no other of her books is that more evident than in Doomtime.
So the plot. There's this city called Neo where Creed lives. Creed spends his life polishing the bronze flesh vat that creates all the city's food, by pouring semi-mobile, semi-sentient protoplasm into molds that form such things as "tasty chickens." Then someone tries to assassinate him, for no readily apparent reason, by pushing him into the flesh vat. Instead, the flesh vat eats part of the assassin's brain and welds Creed's and the assassin's skulls (and partially their brains) together. That's pages 1-3. Then the book gets weird.
The flesh vat starts pouring forth these centipede-like things that spin into fiery tornados and kill people. Meanwhile this green tree starts growing that people can "dip" in, which is not particularly explained, but they somehow like go into the solid wood of the tree, which will have waves and ripples and whatnot, and they commune with the tree, and then come out feeling really good. People start getting addicted.
Again, we're not really past page 20 here. It doesn't get any less weird.
If you're willing to completely suspend your disbelief, not think too much, and just sort of hold on for the ride, this book is amazing. If you try to think too hard, your brain will explode. Get this book, and just read it, and don't try to understand. Just let it wash over you, let the Doris flow. By the end, you'll feel like you just took a dip in a green tree.
June 27, 2025
Piserchia’s I, Zombie was great fun. It suffered from the same catastrophically bad writing found in Doomtime, but at least it had enough momentum to convince me to tag along.
Doomtime, on the other hand, is also pleasantly weird - but only until about the halfway point, when you realize “weird” is doing all the heavy lifting. Piserchia just picks up her protagonists and hurls them wherever and whenever she needs to in order to start a sentence. It’s like Barrington Bayley if he had no sense of rhythm, pacing, or structure.
I actually like her style - it’s raw, inventive, shameless, seemingly unedited. This one has Tolkien-like ents, tornado ferrets, and metal structures named Jack that slide around protecting people. Rad. But right when the story should ramp up Piserchia just lapses into a weird kind of ennui and then the novel just falls apart. Too bad.
Doomtime, on the other hand, is also pleasantly weird - but only until about the halfway point, when you realize “weird” is doing all the heavy lifting. Piserchia just picks up her protagonists and hurls them wherever and whenever she needs to in order to start a sentence. It’s like Barrington Bayley if he had no sense of rhythm, pacing, or structure.
I actually like her style - it’s raw, inventive, shameless, seemingly unedited. This one has Tolkien-like ents, tornado ferrets, and metal structures named Jack that slide around protecting people. Rad. But right when the story should ramp up Piserchia just lapses into a weird kind of ennui and then the novel just falls apart. Too bad.
June 17, 2016
This is the second book by Piserchia that I've read and manages to be even stranger (and better) than Spaceling, which I called "the weirdest book I've ever read."
What sets Doomtime apart is the flora and fauna of its setting, which may be an Earth of the far future but could also be another planet entirely. By escaping the somewhat-realistic setting of Spaceling, a post-Peak-Oil Earth with some extra dimensions for fun, Piserchia really lets her imagination run wild. Somehow it's easier for me to suspend any disbelief when the world is totally invented. There are two enormous trees possibly many miles in diameter (the geography of the trees gets truly mind-boggling in the final chapters), a bright green tree named Tendron and a deep vermillion tree named Krake. These trees are sentient, want to conquer the world through their expanding root network, and can communicate with their cloned offspring. Their bark is yielding to people, who discover they can "dip" in the trees, merging consciousnesses and experiencing an addictive bliss. Besides these antagonists, there are
Doomtime's protagonist is a man named Creed. He travels back and forth across the planet, discovers new societies, and battles the trees. His actions and motivations don't always make sense but he takes us on a fascinating psychedelic experience.
What sets Doomtime apart is the flora and fauna of its setting, which may be an Earth of the far future but could also be another planet entirely. By escaping the somewhat-realistic setting of Spaceling, a post-Peak-Oil Earth with some extra dimensions for fun, Piserchia really lets her imagination run wild. Somehow it's easier for me to suspend any disbelief when the world is totally invented. There are two enormous trees possibly many miles in diameter (the geography of the trees gets truly mind-boggling in the final chapters), a bright green tree named Tendron and a deep vermillion tree named Krake. These trees are sentient, want to conquer the world through their expanding root network, and can communicate with their cloned offspring. Their bark is yielding to people, who discover they can "dip" in the trees, merging consciousnesses and experiencing an addictive bliss. Besides these antagonists, there are
Doomtime's protagonist is a man named Creed. He travels back and forth across the planet, discovers new societies, and battles the trees. His actions and motivations don't always make sense but he takes us on a fascinating psychedelic experience.
November 27, 2022
Piserchia is 3-for-3 with me now, so much so that it's extremely difficult to say which of the trio I've so far read is the best. DAW, in their back-cover blurb, promises you "one of the strangest" visions of the future ever written, and that is no hyperbole. Like "I, Zombie" and "A Billion Days of Earth," "Doomtime" is hilarious, completely unique, surprising at every turn, and one of the best science fiction novels I've ever read.
April 20, 2020
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
3.75/5
"Welcome to the fevered fungal/vegetable nightmares and uncanny vistas of Doris Piserchia. A virtually forgotten science fiction author — her books are all long out of print — who deserves to be read and remembered.
Doomtime (1981) is by no means a classic (and not her best work) but should be read for its sheer imaginative and haunting power. Despite the fact that the pacing is poor, the characters undeveloped, and Piserchia’s prose often falters, [...]"
3.75/5
"Welcome to the fevered fungal/vegetable nightmares and uncanny vistas of Doris Piserchia. A virtually forgotten science fiction author — her books are all long out of print — who deserves to be read and remembered.
Doomtime (1981) is by no means a classic (and not her best work) but should be read for its sheer imaginative and haunting power. Despite the fact that the pacing is poor, the characters undeveloped, and Piserchia’s prose often falters, [...]"
December 27, 2024
4 stars: A bizarre, jumpy narrative about trees, people, and whatever the hell else Piserchia threw in there. This type of science(?) fiction novel is certainly safe from the AI revolution because who the f**k comes up with this stuff. I liked it but cannot guarantee that you will
March 21, 2016
Perhaps not THE best book by Doris Piserchia, but then again, how to choose?
Before diving in, I must refer to the STNeG rating I've invented for Science Fiction. Star Trek the Next Generation, aka STNeG, is a unit of absurd, incredible techno/science-babble. Meaningless but suggestive, and a poor substitute for good storytelling. Doris Piserchia actually uses almost none of this artless nonsense. She does refer to things like biotechnology and all sorts of other stuff, but not by name, not using the fetishized technospeak of today, but rather terms you'd imagine people who always lived with and around these things might use. Like we say "car" and "motor" instead of "horseless carriage" and "internal combustion engine" or "computer" rather than "electronic brain."
In the very distant future, where Earth's geography is unrecognizable to us today, biotechnology and evolution have change the face of life as much as the geology has changed that of the Earth. There are basically two trees in the world, and they're obviously engineered lifeforms. They are intelligent and able to meld with humans and animals. AND THEY HATE HUMANS. Very strange.
Meat is obtained from a huge vat of undifferentiated protoplasm which quickly absorbs anything organic (like the top of a certain antagonist's head in the opening pages) and is poured out into molds of some sort, where it becomes chicken, ham, beef, etc. OR, in the wrong mold, it becomes a bizarre life form distantly related to the Warner Bros. cartoon character, the Tasmanian Devil.
Really good, engaging storytelling makes me feel almost as if I am living or maybe dreaming the narrative. The author, perhaps, is doing the dreaming for me but then steps out of the way so it feels as if it is my own, homespun dream. THIS is what Doris Piserchia does for me and this is why I rank her as one of the two or three best women authors of science fiction. If I mix the company of women and men, she is still in the top two to five (depending on my mood and method of ranking) science fiction authors.
I always want her to have written MORE. Her narratives flow and skip along so smoothly through my mind I fail to notice that they are actually choppy and jumpy. Fast then slow, but the amount of detail per page stays the same and my interest level is always high, so it's like a dream-narrative for me, as I read. But if she had written longer books, filling in more of the timeline, I'd be a happier person today.
Doomtime takes place over a pretty long period, I think. Years. Mr. Justice was similar-years and years. But then read Earth in Twilight and it's maybe weeks or at most a couple months. A Billion Days of Earth, also maybe the weeks to months range, with references backwards to a few years prior to the main action. Still, this book carried me along comfortably from beginning to end.
Before diving in, I must refer to the STNeG rating I've invented for Science Fiction. Star Trek the Next Generation, aka STNeG, is a unit of absurd, incredible techno/science-babble. Meaningless but suggestive, and a poor substitute for good storytelling. Doris Piserchia actually uses almost none of this artless nonsense. She does refer to things like biotechnology and all sorts of other stuff, but not by name, not using the fetishized technospeak of today, but rather terms you'd imagine people who always lived with and around these things might use. Like we say "car" and "motor" instead of "horseless carriage" and "internal combustion engine" or "computer" rather than "electronic brain."
In the very distant future, where Earth's geography is unrecognizable to us today, biotechnology and evolution have change the face of life as much as the geology has changed that of the Earth. There are basically two trees in the world, and they're obviously engineered lifeforms. They are intelligent and able to meld with humans and animals. AND THEY HATE HUMANS. Very strange.
Meat is obtained from a huge vat of undifferentiated protoplasm which quickly absorbs anything organic (like the top of a certain antagonist's head in the opening pages) and is poured out into molds of some sort, where it becomes chicken, ham, beef, etc. OR, in the wrong mold, it becomes a bizarre life form distantly related to the Warner Bros. cartoon character, the Tasmanian Devil.
Really good, engaging storytelling makes me feel almost as if I am living or maybe dreaming the narrative. The author, perhaps, is doing the dreaming for me but then steps out of the way so it feels as if it is my own, homespun dream. THIS is what Doris Piserchia does for me and this is why I rank her as one of the two or three best women authors of science fiction. If I mix the company of women and men, she is still in the top two to five (depending on my mood and method of ranking) science fiction authors.
I always want her to have written MORE. Her narratives flow and skip along so smoothly through my mind I fail to notice that they are actually choppy and jumpy. Fast then slow, but the amount of detail per page stays the same and my interest level is always high, so it's like a dream-narrative for me, as I read. But if she had written longer books, filling in more of the timeline, I'd be a happier person today.
Doomtime takes place over a pretty long period, I think. Years. Mr. Justice was similar-years and years. But then read Earth in Twilight and it's maybe weeks or at most a couple months. A Billion Days of Earth, also maybe the weeks to months range, with references backwards to a few years prior to the main action. Still, this book carried me along comfortably from beginning to end.
March 20, 2020
Jack and the Beanstalk retold as the story of skybound super trees that use mind control and hypnosis to take over the world.
A delectable slog through bland, milky prose that's like eating the same meal over and over again during a fever dream.
Forgettable human characters, unforgettable nightmare plants, and a ridiculous, nonsensical plot that will make you wonder what Piserchia was smoking when she wrote this.
This is the weirdest book you will never finish, with one of the worst covers ever printed by a major publishing house.
Read at your own risk.
A delectable slog through bland, milky prose that's like eating the same meal over and over again during a fever dream.
Forgettable human characters, unforgettable nightmare plants, and a ridiculous, nonsensical plot that will make you wonder what Piserchia was smoking when she wrote this.
This is the weirdest book you will never finish, with one of the worst covers ever printed by a major publishing house.
Read at your own risk.
July 2, 2009
Possibly the best bad sci-fi ever written.
September 26, 2023
I think this is the third book that I have read by Piserchia. The other two are A Billion Days of Earth and Star Rider. I barely remember those books, but I do recall that they were imaginative. This brings us to Doomtime which I give 3 stars because I did enjoy Piserchia's fertile imagination. Imagine Brian Aldiss's Hothouse rewritten by R.A. Lafferty and Jack Vance on a drinking binge, and you have some idea of Doomtime. The scenario of a far future Earth dominated by two gargantuan sentient trees while humanity huddles around the remnants of their former technology. The trees recruit humans as soldiers and spies for their war on humanity, and many humans are willing collaborators as "dipping" in the trees is both pleasurable and addictive. Some humans want to resist the trees. The scenario has great promise. In execution, the novel is very disjointed as the story "jump-cuts" from scene to scene. Very hard to follow who is doing what and why. A good editor would have convinced Piserchia to smooth out these transitions. Hard to recommend.
September 12, 2020
Good stuff right here.
Like a lot of new wave science fiction it’s confusing as hell at first but just gets better and better the further in you get.
Like a lot of new wave science fiction it’s confusing as hell at first but just gets better and better the further in you get.
May 17, 2025
3.5 stars. That was so strange and weird. But enjoyable.
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