The Genocides

by Thomas M. Disch

This spectacular novel established Thomas M. Disch as a major new force in science fiction. First published in 1965, it was immediately labeled a masterpiece reminiscent of the works of J.G. Ballard and H.G. Wells

In this harrowing novel, the world's cities have been reduced to cinder and ash and alien plants have overtaken the earth.  The plants, able to grow the size of maples in only a month and eventually reach six hundred feet, have commandeered the world's soil and are sucking even the Great Lakes dry. In northern Minnesota, Anderson, an aging farmer armed with a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other, desperately leads the reduced citizenry of a small town in a daily struggle for meager existence. Throw into this fray Jeremiah Orville, a marauding outsider bent on a bizarre and private revenge, and the fight to live becomes a daunting task.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Horror, Apocalyptic, Dystopia, Aliens

162 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Poet and cynic, Thomas M. Disch brought to the sf of the New Wave a camp sensibility and a sardonicism that too much sf had lacked. His sf novels include Camp Concentration, with its colony of prisoners mutated into super-intelligence by the bacteria that will in due course kill them horribly, and On Wings of Song, in which many of the brightest and best have left their bodies for what may be genuine, or entirely illusory, astral flight and his hero has to survive until his lover comes back to him; both are stunningly original books and both are among sf's more accomplishedly bitter-sweet works.

In later years, Disch had turned to ironically moralized horror novels like The Businessman, The MD, The Priest and The Sub in which the nightmare of American suburbia is satirized through the terrible things that happen when the magical gives people the chance to do what they really really want. Perhaps Thomas M. Disch's best known work, though, is The Brave Little Toaster, a reworking of the Brothers Grimm's "Town Musicians of Bremen" featuring wornout domestic appliances -- what was written as a satire on sentimentality became a successful children's animated musical.

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gaia Strikes Back

The Genocides, written in 1965, is part of a very specialized dystopian sub-genre which might be called ‘Apocalyptic Greenery.’ This collection of anti-biophilia stretches at least from Greener Than You Think (1947), to The Day 0f the Triffids (1951), to Death of Grass (1982). All consider various sorts of revenge by the plant kingdom on its primary oppressors, human beings. The moral is clear: the world which houses us is not friendly toward us.

Of these fantasies The Genocides is certainly the most homicidal as well as the most biblically apocalyptic, referencing specific Old Testament passages throughout. Appropriately enough one of the key characters is a fundamentalist preacher turned survivalist. The send-up of Christianity is obvious in the comments made by one of his sons: “One way or another, atheists had to be stomped out. Because atheism was like poison in the town reservoir; it was like…. But Neil couldn’t remember how the rest of it went. It had been a long time since his father had given a good sermon against atheism and the Supreme Court.”

The Genocides differs from its peers in that it is not human beings who are the cause of earthly destruction but a mysterious alien race which uses the Earth as a plantation within which human beings, and apparently all other living things except a highly invasive species of plant, are merely vermin. The Genocides is also the only one to avoid any cliched allegory to the Cold War, a favourite trope among contemporary sci-fi writers. The ‘enemy’ is not our human confreres but something entirely ‘other.’

Disch suggests, therefore, that there are bigger problems than either international nuclear conflict or environmental destruction on the horizon: “There is evil everywhere, but we can only see what is in front of our noses, only remember what has passed through our bellies,” says the preacher’s other son. The clear suggestion is that we are part of a hierarchical gnostic universe which might contain any number of increasingly powerful species. To those some level beyond human, we are indeed mere vermin, as they perhaps are to those even more powerful.

Of course these unexplained aliens and their technologies of agriculture and pest-control are metaphorical but not in a hackneyed way. Disch points specifically to his issue: “There had been the intoxication, while it lasted, of power. Not the cool, gloved power of wealth that had ruled before, but a newer (or an older) kind of power that came from having the strength to perpetuate extreme inequity.” This is, I think, the core of the book: Power, what it is, how it is used, and where it leads, which is to eternal inequity. There is an important theological criticism here of Disch’s childhood Catholic education which insisted that all power comes from God and is distributed for the ultimate good of creation.

Disch makes no distinction between good power and bad power or between the power of Nature and the power of God. Power is of one kind only. It is a force which coerces. “Before the advent of the Plants, Tassel [a once prosperous farming community] had been the objectification of everything he despised: smallness, meanness, willful ignorance and a moral code as contemporary as Leviticus,” thinks the educated brother.

After the Plants and their alien Farmers arrive, the real status of human beings and their self-justifying ideas of power derived from some divinity are made clear: “They were the puppets of necessity now.” He who has the ‘best’ moral ideas, or the best weapons to enforce adherence to them, is ultimately irrelevant whether he knows it or not. Power is mere conceit and is only negatively associated with the divine.

The pursuit of power, in other words, is a central human failing. Ultimately it is vain, and will be proven so. None of us likes to recognise this. The idea of the divine source of power, it seems, is a typical human ploy to exert power over power by confining it in a benign (or at least sentient) box called God. “It wounded his pride to think that his race, his species, his world was being defeated with such apparent ease. What was worse, what he could not endure was the suspicion that it all meant nothing, that the process of their annihilation was something quite mechanical: that mankind’s destroyers were not, in other words, fighting a war but merely spraying the garden.”

[TK421 · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE GENOCIDES is a disturbing book: full of violence, unlikable characters, and an ending that will leave most people either flustered or upset...but, on the other hand, this is a very cool story.

The earth as we know it has been overrun with an alien plant species. This alien destroys the land by using up all of earth's water, forever altering the soil. Yeah, I know, it sounds like a cheesy B-movie. But it is anything but a cheesy B-movie plot line. These characters have depth...which leads me back to the top of this review. There wasn't one character that I found I liked. If anything, I liked the alien the best. Normally, I root (sorry for the pun) for humanity...strange. The invasion aspect of this novel would have been more than enough to satisfy my reading needs; but Disch also fully fleshes out the survival story, which kept me turning pages and wondering who was going to die next? Was there even going to be a survivor, will humankind ultimately kill this foe?

If you are looking for a quick, philosophical read that is not the normal science fiction lot, this book is it.

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

At one point in this novel a character expresses the view, "I'm not sure if we've been invaded or if they're just spraying the garden." Aliens have seeded the Earth with giant Plants that tend to eliminate all other plants by out-competing them for basic resources such as water and sunlight. Machines are systematically wiping out not merely humans, but all mammals. A band of survivors in the former USA struggle against Plants, aliens and - themselves. Despite the likely imminent extinction of the species, people still can't stop themselves from getting involved in destructive power politics and personal rivalries. It feels depressingly realistic.

The story is interesting and the bleak but realistic idea that if aliens with interstellar travel technology turned up here and didn't like us we wouldn't stand an - Earthly? - chance is in stark contrast to the much more commonplace scenario that the aliens will be defeated by their own hubris e.g. The War of the Worlds or humanity's intrinsic superior adaptability and inventiveness e.g. nigh-on every alien invader story from the 1950s on. But that isn't really what this book is about. It is in fact about spraying the garden - with dodgy chemicals. And turning over huge land areas to mono-culture crop growth. And global climate change - this has the earliest reference to the Greenhouse Effect of any piece of fiction I've read, as far as I can remember. Really, this is the fictional equivalent of the extra-ordinarily influential popular science work, Silent Spring. Other SF writers were working on the general environmental theme and the problems of bio-accumulating insecticides specifically back then, The Green Brain being a prime example. Other major problems facing humanity and indeed, much of life on Earth, were also being tackled back then, for instance population control, in A Torrent of Faces, a lesser known but tremendously fun James Blish novel in which a society trying to cope with a human population of one trillion is examined.

So, all those problems, understood back in the sixties - how many of them have we solved? And how many have got worse?

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Genocides was Disch's first novel, and is a pretty good post-apocalyptic story of ecological disaster. The characters are quirky, and there's a vague New Wave feeling to it that never overwhelms the whole thing. It doesn't seem to have aged as well, or at least to have maintained its original popularity, as well as his other work, but I remember enjoying the read. The ending is not really satisfying, a punchy shot that would have worked better with a shorter work.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to rate. I can not deny being completely wrapped up in the story. The final scene upset me a great deal, which is part of why I held off commenting on the book until now, more than a day after finishing. Books as disturbing as this tend to age well with me. I enjoy the after effects of being disturbed. I'm not kidding, this book really bothered me, which means I will probably return and change my rating to 5 stars if I follow my previous pattern.

The Genocides is a short sci-fi novel that packs quite a punch. The only other Disch novel I have read is Camp Concentration, which I did enjoy slightly more. Concentration was more social commentary and Genocides feels more traditional sci-fi. This is a violent book, more than I expected, which is silly on my part considering the title.

What really convinces me that Disch was an excellent and underrated author (maybe less known over underrated since this book was nominated for a Best Novel Nebula) is that I disliked every single character in this book and still love the story, was still incredibly bothered by what I read. I felt zero respect for the characters and I was barely into the story before I was wondering if these people even deserved to live (children excluded of course. Just had to say that considering...)

If you are a fan of H.G Wells but thought his work was maybe a little too tame, maybe not violent enough?, then this is the perfect novel for you.

So, that did not take long. I have nothing negative to say about this book and after reading what I just wrote, I'm rating a final 5 stars.

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

When earth is mono cropped by unseen aliens our entire ecosystem is strangled to death. A small pocket of survivors eek out a grim existence under the leadership of a bible quoting ass-pipe patriarch named Anderson. As circumstances deteriorate the survivors prove that even faced with an apocalypse, other people can always make it worse.

This is the first Disch book I’ve read and I’m interested to get into more of his work. This was a dark, disturbing book with morally ambiguous characters and very bleak circumstances.
It’s written in a very plain, matter of fact style that underscores the hopelessness of the situation and depravity of some of the characters.

[Manny · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a scene in this book which, I must reluctantly admit, is quite the definitive example of...

I'm sorry. I'm just about to make dinner, and I don't want to ruin my appetite. But trust me, it's definitive alright.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a SF post-apoc environmental catastrophe novel that was a Nebula Award nominee in 1965, which I read as a part of Earth Day Challenge in Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels

One of the early environmental catastrophe books out there. The calamity, giant alien plants, which grow fast and therefore strangle local competition, came from space, and not, as in many later works is caused by men. The plant destroy agriculture and cause global famine. A sturdy God-fearing patriarch (who sees himself as the chosen one) in rural US tries to adapt, by draining plants of nutrients to use them as a fertilizer for corn. He has sons, the older is faithful but not too bright and the second is the quintessential prodigal son, who returns after the rest of civilization dissolves. Not only plants are the problem: there are some mechanical objects, which burn people and other creatures when they encounter them. As the story progresses, the group loses more and more of their members and equipment. The final exposition gives some answers as to what has happened.

This is a novel with a punch line, which I guess is more suited for shorter works. Also its gloomy approach and attempt at high tragedy makes it a kind of literature I don’t usually read even if in this case it was justified.

[Unai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hay dos escuelas de pensamiento cuando uno no está con muchos ánimos, que tal como está la vida y el mundo somos muchos. Leer algo alegre y que te anime o leer algo tan sumamente desolador, terrible y descarnado que te deje peor que estabas, pero con el consuelo de que al menos no estas en los últimos momentos de la especie humana... todavía.

Esta novela cae en la segunda categoría, obviamente. El apocalipsis vegetal extraterrestre en todo su verde esplendor. Alguien o algo usa nuestro planeta literalmente como un huerto y nosotros somos simplemente una plaga ridícula de la que deshacerse. Apenas merecemos atención, ya nos iremos muriendo por nuestra cuenta, como el resto de las especies terrestres según las plantas alienígenas canibalicen todo el suelo del planeta, beban toda el agua dulce y sean cosechadas por esos alienígenas que no se molestan ni en dar la cara.

Y en ese escenario, un grupo de supervivientes como gusanos en una manzana, convirtiendo el infierno en algo todavía peor mientras se aferran a una vida sin esperanza ninguna. Terrible, duro, desagradable y violento no tanto en lo gráfico como en lo moral, como solo puede serlo gente que aún se aferra a su biblia random para justificar cualquier cosa y no afrontar nunca la cruda realidad de nuestra absoluta irrelevancia así como la indiferencia del cosmos.

[Carlex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three and a half stars

Well, that was like a shot in the head. But good stuff anyway.

[Ignacio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Los genocidas fue hace más de cinco décadas una obra fuertemente subversiva. Frente a las tradicionales historias de invasión, basadas en la resistencia ante el poder superior, el triunfo del ingenio, el enaltecimiento de los mejores sentimientos humanos, opone unos alienígenas que apenas actúan para conseguir sus propósitos (salvo en una brutal aparición). Su condición de obra revulsiva no reside tanto en su carácter pionero, como en su dureza inflexible. En cómo sublima los más bajos instintos de sus personajes, en la brutal ironía tras su tremenda devastación, en su inexorable rumbo hacia la extinción de toda la vida sobre el planeta. Estamos ante una narración de un pesimismo absoluto que no contiene la esperanza en su campo semántico. Además es un torpedo de unos cuantos kilotones lanzado contra el ambiente reaccionario en el que Disch se crió en el medio oeste estadounidense durante las décadas de los 40 y los 50. No es difícil pensar en uno de los personajes, Buddy, como un Disch obligado a retornar a ese ambiente retrógrado donde cualquier manifestación liberal (en su acepción social, no económica) se ve como una degeneración y es reprimida con saña.

También contiene detalles que muestran un escritor todavía en una etapa inicial de su carrera. Tal es el caso de la inclusión de un breve texto a modo de memorándum alienígena explicando cómo se va a abordar una de las acciones contra los restos de vida terrestre, completamente innecesario. O de la confusión del viaje por un paisaje oscuro y primigenio de su segunda mitad. Pero nada, ni siquiera la deficiente edición de La Factoría de Ideas o la vetusta de Edhasa, empaña la lectura de una de las novelas más desoladoras de la historia de la ciencia ficción.

[Plagued by Visions · Rating 4 out of 5]

That ending… 🫥

[Kartik · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Genocides is disturbing tale of an Earth where a species of giant, parasitic plants have all but stolen all of the world's land and water for their own purposes. In the wake of all this chaos, mankind progressively loses its humanity.

A certain colony of survivors in the American Midwest resists, but things begin to change. What follows is an unsettling story of how the colony tries to survive. The Plants' destruction of civilization is more a force of nature than something born from malice, which only adds to the terror.

Somehow, the book feels incomplete. The plot becomes a little unconvincing as the book progresses, and many questions are left unanswered. Some elements, especially new developments relating to the characters introduced towards the end, seem unnecessary. The characters however, manage to feel authentic.

While the premise is interesting and the characters' struggle against this unyielding, impersonal terror fill you with dread, the book doesn't manage to satisfy you. And it confuses you a little along the wat too.

[Joachim Boaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...

"Thomas M. Disch’s The Genocides (1965) is an incendiary assault on our senses and expectations of trope and genre. In the face of apocalyptic annihilation at the hands of a vast alien Plant spread across the Earth, biblical stories of redemption and (re)birth are subversively recast as either delusions or decrepit meaningless patterns. Disch conjures a frontier landscapes inhabited [...]"

[Fantasy boy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

The Genocides by Thomas. M Disch is a post-apocalypse science fiction book. The story is set in an alien-plants invading world, and thus this is quite a bleak world in Science fiction books. The story has dense religious doctrines and concepts. Characters has been living in an remote community since the plants intruded on Earth. The Plants are kind of invasive species which they aren’t indigenous on Earth, since they arrived, they has eliminated multiple aboriginal species on Earth; Interesting thing is that even they are immune to parasites. They grew and absorb water and carbon oxide that totally changed the environment on Earth. Humans were trying to survive under the circumstances, old civilizations were gone, the new age of the civilizations were restrained and being threatened by the plants and marauders who are pirates were born after the Plants invaded.

The story is the group of the community’s daily routines, how they survived after the plant invaded. Sometimes characters recalled the past before the invasion. One character whose name is Orville who was a pirate but after he was defeated, he joined the community. It’s interesting to see his POV from the past and compare his life in the community. The community is a patriarchy, everyone follows the eldest Anderson’s kinsmen. The family is very strict on the religion’s rule, so that some scenes like whipping might not be comfortable to read. After they were attacked by an unknown group of marauders; the Anderson family was leading the community to escaped to a cave. Inside the cave, they discovered the plant was deeply rooted underground and they explored the subterranean maze during the time of the winter. After the elderly Anderson was dead, Neil took over the authority and tried to against his father’s will; inevitably, it lead to his own destruction and other member’s life.

It’s a good pacing story with some interesting character development near the end of the story. The background story is interesting enough for me to turn the pages. Neil is a fun character not because he is the charming or shrewd one. However he is the one who has made lots of mistakes. Especially once he tried to set up his enemy, without proper knowledge of locating his route to the safe upper ground so that he was lost too. Buddy particularly akin to scorn Neil. The story convey one message to readers which is the plants is the intruders, but living inside the changed environment, humans are the vermin to the world living under the planets’s influence.

[Denis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was T.M. Dish's first novel, and the first I have read of his thus far. I have to say it is a strange one indeed and rather bleak. An expanded Twilight Zone type story: The earth is used by some alien species as a location for a grow-op of some sort. The inhabitants - human and animal are but pests that are dealt with when necessary. Pretty far fetched even for a 60's scifi novel - and really, there is not much to it. Interesting enough to see where it went.

[Shozo Hirono · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rounded up my rating from 2.5 stars. I think this is Disch's first novel, and the writing, characterizations, and ideas are pretty amateurish compared to his later work. During the first 30 or 40 pages, I was frustrated at the crude and unpleasant characters, so I read the rest of this short book very quickly, almost skimming, and enjoyed it more that way. The plot becomes more engaging once the action moves underground and Disch's pessimistic and perverse view of humanity comes on stronger. Also, the ideas in this book had more significance for me since I just watched Food Inc. Still, I would only recommend it for Disch completists and the rest should read 334, Camp Concentration, or On Wings of Song instead.

[Nathan Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disch's 1965 debut novel is a mean, grotesque and upsetting story regarding humanity's last days amidst the Earth basically being used as one large monoculture garden. Aliens plant seeds, those grow to vegetation of enormous proportions, leeching the earth of all of its natural resources, later to be harvested by said Aliens. In this scenario, the story follows a rural community, strong in its religious, patriarchal convictions, as they eke out their survival.

This is my introduction to Disch, who has become one of my latest priority authors to read as I've dived into the pool of New Wave science fiction over the past few years. What Disch does here very much fits into a lot of trends within that movement -- Doomsday scenarios, criticism of religion, conservatism and societal norms, environmentalist/cli-fi leanings, taboos, etc-- Very reminiscent of JG Ballard. It is a book populated by deeply unlikeable characters that may very intentionally make the reader feel as though their extinction is deserved. Very unpleasant and unsettling, but this is largely used to great effect. It's efficient in its approach, it never feels like it's trying to do too much (like a lot of other SFF from this era tends to suffer from) yet has a loftier approach to its writing that I'm sure only improved with the author's subsequent work. Looking forward to reading more of Disch im the future.

[ExtraGravy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plant apocalypse that was better and weirder than I had anticipated. Like many genre books from this period the characters were not well developed because it was all about the ideas. It is the idea of this apocalypse and its delivery that make this worth your reading time as a short fast paced novella.

(3.5) Recommended for those interested in a weird and rather unique end of the world scenario from the mid-60s.

[Angus McKeogh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had promise with a dystopian world after the arrival of an alien plant that decimates the landscape and is accompanied by a strange floating orb that scorches the earth. However it then devolves into a ludicrous survivalist scenario where mankind is living within the alien plant’s roots, and then the narrative just gets more and more ridiculous until the end.

[Math le maudit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Voici un vieux roman de SF (1965), qui a récemment été réédité par les Éditions Mnémos.

L'histoire se déroule en 1977, cinq ans après l'apparition sur Terre d'une plante étrange, très envahissante. La Plante en question ressemble à un gigantesque brin d'herbe. Elle est verte, lisse, très, très haute (plus de cent cinquante mètres de haut) et surtout, elle draine les ressources des sols au point de tuer dans son entourage toute végétation et d'assécher les points d'eau.

Nous suivons l'histoire d'un village de survivants d'un peu plus de deux cent personnes, qui lutte pour sa survie. Cette communauté est menée d'une main autoritaire par un leader fanatisé par sa foi. Ce dernier a décidé de mener la guerre à cette plante, qu'il pense avoir été envoyé par dieu pour punir la Terre. Pour se faire, il perce chaque jour la "peau" de la Plante pour lui pomper sa sève, qu'il utilise ensuite pour fertiliser les champs du village (des champs de maïs), incapables de se maintenir sans l'apport de la dite sève.

Assez vite, on apprend que les autorités politiques se sont effondrés très vite face aux famines déclenchées par l'arrivée de la Plante, et ce à travers toute la planète. On apprend également que cette plante est sans doute extra-terrestre. C'est du moins l'une des thèses qui nous est présentée.

Thèse qui est confirmée un peu plus tard, quand on comprend que la plante est surveillée par des sortes de drones qui éliminent toute forme de vie aux abords des plantes, l'Humanité se trouvant ravalée au rang de simple espèce nuisible pour la culture de la Plante.

Une fois ce décor planté, et comme beaucoup de romans post-apocalyptique, on va surtout s'intéresser aux interactions entre survivants, et constater que même au bord de l'extinction (beaucoup de personnes sont mortes en cinq ans. Genre, vraiment beaucoup), les rivalités personnelles et les petites luttes de pouvoirs sont plus que jamais à l'ordre du jour.

La question écologique et les relations humaines sont au cœur de ce roman, qui nous plonge dans un monde sombre, désespéré et crépusculaire. Le récit est prenant, glaçant, beaucoup de personnages sont peu sympathiques ou clairement stupides et les quelques personnages sympathiques n'en sont que plus attachants.

Ce roman avait la réputation d'être cynique et amer, et je dois dire que ce n'est pas usurpé.

[Jose Gaona · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://conclusionirrelevante.blogspot...

(...) En general a Los Genocidas, aunque es una buena novela, le ocurre lo que a tantas óperas primas: quiere contar demasiadas cosas y al final acaba contando lo justo, sin centrarse muchas veces en lo importante: los personajes. Su autor, que la escribió con apenas 25 años, consigue explorar con notable clarividencia las posibilidades de un escenario devastado en el que se ha reducido a lo que queda de la especie humana a la mera condición de parásitos. El tono razonablemente pesimista es el adecuado, la idea es fascinante y Disch la desarrolla con elocuencia, pero es inevitable pensar lo que podría haber llegado a dar de sí si hubiera focalizado mejor sus intereses y si hubiera estructurado mejor la importancia de los personajes. Seguramente hubiese logrado una victoria incontestable.

[Thom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dystopia by disaster, that is, not caused by man. The characters described are a pretty dislikable bunch, and commit most of the seven deadly sins within this fairly short story.

This novel was nominated for the first year of Nebula awards (1965), losing out to Frank Herbert's Dune. I can't compare those two works (yet), but found this an okay book - Thomas M. Disch's first. Like some of his later horror novels, it is set around Minneapolis (with one of the main characters returning from there shortly before the story begins) - and was a good read for my business trip to that fair city.

[Alexander Páez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es casi un 2,5. Hubiera funcionado mejor como relato, ya que a pesar de no llegar a las 200 páginas se hace largo y creo que hay mucha escena de relleno. Como digo, un relato medio largo hubiera sido mucho mejor y mi puntuación hubiera aumentado.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow. If you got done with The Road and thought, “can I get something a little bleaker?” have I got a recommendation for you.

[Linus · Rating 4 out of 5]

#1 THOMAS M. DISCH - 4/5

"The Genocides" is my introduction to the work of Thomas M. Disch, whom I first discovered through a career overview video by the Outlaw Bookseller. I was so intrigued that I will be reading all of Disch's SF books in the next time.

"The Genocides" is a rather short book and from the blurb of my German edition from the 70s I did not expect the direction the story takes. It gives more a thematic overview, but leaves any characters out. From the beginning, we go straight in medias res and follow a small community of basically the last survivors (at least in the USA it seems) after unknown, apparently extraterrestrial plants have conquered the landscape and eliminated all other life forms, both plant and animal. Of course, this only becomes clear as we go along.

The few people left live a very hard life as they have to fight these plants which are trying to strangle their small corn plantation and have already destroyed their old hometown. They basically live side by side in small huts and there is the leader, Anderson, who rules with the power of the Bible. You could say it's a pretty medieval way of life. And then the "fire demons", I don't have the original English work, maybe fire bugs or fire starters, come and try to reduce all the human huts and also the few farm animals that are left and also the people themselves to ashes. The survivors flee through the hollow roots of these plants into the depths of the earth to seek refuge...

I think it becomes clear that the focus of this novel is the fate of the last human survivors, and we follow them through their hard life, which becomes more and more unbearable. But what are these plants? Where do they come from? Who or what brought them to Earth? At the end, and also in small side chapters, Disch explains all these questions as an omnipresent narrator, but mankind itself has lost control over Earth, as a higher form of life uses the planet for its own purposes, where mankind is irrelevant, or rather bugs or pests that need to be exterminated to save their precious plants.

Despite its brevity, "The Genocides" is very interesting to read and especially the increasing state of neglect in the small surviving community is exceptionally well presented, especially the tensions between the leading family in the group.

More reviews of Disch to come... As for now, I already share the same opinion as Outlaw Bookseller as I cannot understand why there are basically no Disch books in print anymore!

[Sam Maszkiewicz]

Woof, this one is hard to review. The reading experience on first impression is kind of middling and it feels like a rip-off of Lord of the Flies. I was kind of disappointed with it... until I got to the epilogue which hits like a suckerpunch to the mouth. It recontextualized the entirety of the novel for me. The book tells the story of a handful of people losing their humanity and committing acts of extreme violence (murder, cannibalism, sexual violence, and other pleasantries) as they try to survive a hopeless situation. Then it puts a bow on things at the end by touching on the insignificance of humanity and how none of the horrible things you witnessed really matter :) It isn't a page-turner but the writing and story are good enough that you should definitely stick it out until the fireworks on the last few pages. This book has a lot of subtlety to it which makes it easy to overlook some of the thematic content it delivers, but the more I think about it the more it appreciates. In the moment its unexceptional, but, now that I've finished it, I kind of love it and think it'll stick with me. Its brutal and devastating, but its only 143 pages, so tough it out, read the epilogue, then come talk to me.

[Maks · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Génocides » fait parti de ces romans de SF à l’ancienne et un peu kitch (par moment) que l’on prend plaisir à découvrir avec du recul, ici les événements se déroulent en 1972 (qui se trouve être le futur pour nos personnages) et nous nous retrouvons à suivre un groupe de personnes qui feront tout pour survivre face à une invasion digne de « La guerre des mondes » dans son principe, avec une humanité en total déclin et une planète Terre envahie par « La Plante », énorme végétal recouvrant tout et partout.

La première partie verra évoluer les personnages en plein chamboulement, dans une communauté prête à tout pour survivre.
Ensuite "Thomas Dish" nous fait basculer dans un récit tout en profondeur, physiquement, mais aussi mentalement, jusqu’où iront ces humains pour survivre, quelle est la limite à ne pas franchir pour garder son humanité, dans quelles conditions, comment et pourquoi, les liens familiaux, l’amitié, l’adversité, tous ces sujets sont abordés.

Alors oui je vous dirais que ça à un peu vieilli, mais si l’on est d’accord avec le fait que c’est écrit dans les années 70, et que l’on fait donc abstraction de ce détail, on plonge dans une aventure terrible, glaçante et pessimiste à souhait, traitant des ressources de notre planète, de son écologie, du fait que l’homme se prend pour Dieu mais qu’il n’est au final qu’un mammifère, vous êtes prévenus, personnellement j’ai bien aimé cette noirceur et l’ancienneté du texte ne m’a pas dérangé, à l’instar d’un « Barjavel" ou d’un « Verlanger" par exemple.

Sur le blog :
https://unbouquinsinonrien.blogspot.c...

[Ariel]

This was on my shelf of books from Isak but I couldn’t remember if he loaned it to me (that makes it a good book) or gave it to me (that makes it a bad book). Turns out he gave it to me. If it was just plot/setup/themes I wouldn’t be trashing this book, but what really blew it for me was the astonishingly bad women characters, bad even for male ‘60s sci fi writers, eg ample-bosomed thirteen year old sex object, whimpering and slavish housewife, promiscuous femme fatale who gets-what’s-coming-to-her in the end. It’s a bleh from me

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good and very disturbing dystopian story but there honestly isn’t one likable character in the whole thing. I was honestly rooting for the plants. There are some pretty problematic things in this book but maybe that’s the point? Anyway, there is also some wild, weird, and imaginative stuff in this so I didn’t hate it, but there is some serious ick stuff in this so I can’t give it more than 3 stars. I really was going to give it 2 stars but despite some of the super ick stuff it is actually a really original and super creative story, so only 3 stars and I’m not recommending it. Proceed with caution.