Weekly Short Stories: 1961 Science Fiction, Part 1

I begin my look at science fiction short stories from the year 1961 with the opening two tales from the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 23 (1961).  Just two stories here because they're both pretty long and each one gets a high recommendation from me to read.  In 1961 my family spent its first full year at our new home in the brand-new Boulevard Heights subdivision in West Hollywood, Florida.  I was four going on five...my sister Anita, four years older than me, went to Boulevard Heights Elementary School, which was a couple of blocks from our house.  I had my neighborhood friends Danny and Stevie and Jimmy I hung out with back then.  But enough of the personal stuff: here are my reactions to those stories...

THE HIGHEST TREASON by Randall Garrett
I was impressed by this story the first time I read it a few years ago, and still am after going through it again.  Set in a future interstellar space war between Earth, its colonies and outposts, and an alien humanoid militaristic society, an Earth military officer decides to desert his decadent, weak and complacent homeland to join the Kerothi as they are steadily and consistently winning the war.  His motivations at first seem despicable...but as the story goes on and especially at the end, the plan is entirely different.  Let's just say that some alternate histories of Judas and Jesus paint the former, almost always portrayed as the worst of all traitors, in a more sympathetic light.  The meaning of personal sacrifice in the pursuit of the greater good is the overriding theme here...

HOTHOUSE by Brian Aldiss
Aldiss meticulously created a scenario far off into Earth's future, billions of years from now, when the Sun is dying and the Earth always keeps one face to it while the moon is fixed sharing Earth's orbit.  Plants have taken over the biosphere and only five species of animals remain: humans and four insect forms.  The story takes place in a banyan forest (one giant banyan tree on the planet remains) as the various carnivorous plants prey on the small tribe of remaining humans, who struggle to survive until the next generation against the heavy odds stacked against them.  This story you probably want to take slowly and sit back from time to time, close your eyes, and visualize the environment and strange creatures the author imagined.  At first glance, Hothouse is a bleak look into the future, but upon reflection I have to admit that for a species such as our own which has only been around for less than a half million years, projecting its survival for another two billion years is actually a pretty doggone optimistic assessment.  The ending is fantastic...begging for a sequel...and uses cosmic radiation, plus the fact that it was early plant life on Earth that originally permeated its atmosphere with oxygen...

Next week: more science fiction short stories from 1961...