Hothouse

Life is hard for humans millions of years in the future. A dying sun has irradiated the planet, a giant banyan tree covers most of the land mass, and our progeny are small arboreal creatures living in primitive societies where death, usually administered by any one of a wide variety of flesh eating plants, is sudden, violent, and yet so common place that the emotions it rouses among survivors are short-lived.

This is good, old-fashioned, adventure sf. At first I was put off by the funny names Aldiss gave the seemingly endless varieties of deadly plants and insects -- berrywhisks, leapycreepers, jumpvils, fuzzypuzzles, trappersnappers, the list goes on and on. But then I remembered that we talk with a straight face about butterflies, katydids, and pussy willows. People give names to things.

Hothouse is a journey through a hostile environment that even includes a surprising trip to the moon, that rock having moved so close to our planet that it can be reached by hitching on a ride on enormous, spiderlike fungi who spin webs connecting it to earth, The amount of organic detritus they bring with them has established a thin atmosphere there.

My personal favorite element in the book is the surprising role of the morel mushroom in human evolution.

Hothouse is pretty much non-stop action with excellent descriptions of the alien world the earth has become. The Baen Books edition i read has some sloppy editing but a cool cover featuring our plucky, little green hero challenging a big be3 with a thorn.