Hothouse

Brian Aldiss

Synopsis

 In a world where the sun stopped moving, we follow some humans. One human in particular is still curious enough to travel around. He founds a morsel that talks to him and is somehow a bit smarter than what humans have become. Some baboons living on the dark side of the earth have become almost humans, and the dolphins are the smartest things there are on earth. The smart parasitical morsel attaches itself to the dolphin and understands that earth is doomed and goes on a giant spider space-ship to another planet with humans from the moon, when our hero decides to stay on earth.

My take

 It was well written, in the sense that the beginning of the book starts in a world where there are almost no more animals but insects and some humans, and the rest is vegetal. It felt very vegetative and at some point I was scared of getting bored of the book. It got interesting when we met the humans from the moon. In some ways, it made me think of the book "cage of souls' as it is also a book about earth being close to its end, and especially humanity not having much chances of survival. 
 I also appreciated that the hero doesn't go to another planet, and decides to spend the rest of his life on a dying earth. Somehow it was not the American feel-good ending expected.

Also read in 2021

A desolation called peace All Systems Red All These Worlds Artificial Condition Cage of Soul Diaspora Exit Strategy For We Are Many Fugitive Telemetry Hold Up The Sky Network Effect Numbers don't lie Of ants and Dinosaurs Originals Prelude to Foundation Rogue Protocol Ruby Under a Microscope Shape Up Termination Shock the beginning place The Burning God The Dragon Republic The Effective Engineer The Eye of the Heron The Ministry of the Future The Poppy War The Unicorn Project We Are Legion (We Are Bob)