Trouble With Lichen
1 journaler for this copy...
As I've mentioned elsewhere, John Wyndham's short stories are amongst my earliest memories of reading and I have a great fondness for his work, but only recently managed to lay my hands on this particular classic (there is a serious shortage of Wyndham available in bookstores!). As with Kraken Wakes, this is both completely evocative of its era, and yet timeless sci-fi at its best. Wyndham has an instinctive understanding of human behaviour at both an individual and mass level that continues to amaze me.
From the cover:
It came from a lichen, a simple rock-loving plant made of fungi and algae. When biochemist Francis Saxover discovered its remarkable properties, the implications terrifed him. But Diana Brackley, who also know what it could do, envisaged a different outcome. She foresaw the coming of a new evolutionary order and with it a revolution. A revolution with women at its heart, women who previously had not had the time to make the most of their lives and abilities. For the lichen contained the most sought after substance in the history of humanity; a drug that could extend life, almost halt ageing; a drug that could change the world, or even destroy it...because the trouble with lichen was that there wasn't enough for everyone and who wouldn't want to defy the march of time?
From the cover:
It came from a lichen, a simple rock-loving plant made of fungi and algae. When biochemist Francis Saxover discovered its remarkable properties, the implications terrifed him. But Diana Brackley, who also know what it could do, envisaged a different outcome. She foresaw the coming of a new evolutionary order and with it a revolution. A revolution with women at its heart, women who previously had not had the time to make the most of their lives and abilities. For the lichen contained the most sought after substance in the history of humanity; a drug that could extend life, almost halt ageing; a drug that could change the world, or even destroy it...because the trouble with lichen was that there wasn't enough for everyone and who wouldn't want to defy the march of time?