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"As a writer, I don't want to chew my cud. I don't want to have to spit out and regurgitate the same stuff again."
- Harlan Ellison
 |
| House Trees | ||
| Living trees grown as houses; large hollow pods serve as living spaces. |
The dwelling spaces are actually hollow pods supported by branches, and connected by hollow boughs; the Iszic don't live inside tree-trunks. Ordinary workers live in three-pod or four-pod houses with minimal amenities; the wealthy live in enormous trees supporting dozens of pods with specialized functions, including food supply. The trees have limited motility and awareness, enough to require training and to allow Iszics to feel not merely pride of ownership, but actual emotional relationships with their homes.
| ...[There were] houses with buttressed pods for the high-gravity worlds of Cleo 8 and Martinon's Fort, and loose complex houses with pods like balloons for Fei, where gravity was only half that of Iszm. There were trees comprised of a central columnar trunk and four vast leaves, arching out and over to the ground to form four domed halls illuminated by the pale green transmitted light. There was a tough-trunked tree supporting a single turretlike pod, with lanceolate foliage spiking outward at the base: a watch-tower for the feuding tribesmen of Eta Scorpionis. |
| From The Houses of Iszm,
by Jack Vance. Published by Better Publications in 1954 Additional resources -
|
To put it crudely, the Iszic see a dwelling tree not as an object that you furnish and use, but as a companion creature that happens to provide shelter.
Farr lowered himself upon one of the frail magenta bladders. The smooth skin stretched and fitted itself to his
body.
The House Trees were at the center of the novel's plot; it centers around attempts to steal the seeds for House Trees and take them off-planet to destroy the Iszic monopoly. This same theme of tree theft breaking a monopoly is found in Clifford Simak's 1944 story Ogre.
Thanks to writer and editor Dominic Brown for contributing the original quote for this item. (I've included another excellent quotation in the comments.
The sphincter expanded and Farr stepped dubiously into the
chamber…the pod was thirty feet long, opening on a balcony with a waist-high balustrade. The walls and domed ceiling were tufted with trefoils of a silky green fibre; the floor was heavy with plum-coloured moss; quaint lamps grew out of the wall. There were four magenta pod-chairs against one wall. In the middle of the floor stood a tall cylindrical vase containing water, plants and black dancing eels. …
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and Technology from The Houses of Iszm
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| 555 KUBIK - If A House Was Dreaming |
| 'Tofu' Chair Inspired By Plant Cells |
| Instant Housing |
| Man Beds And SF Sleep Lairs |
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Gerry was dubious. She had seen abortive attempts at paralysis rays before.
Let your fingers - uh - your robot do the walking. And hopping.
