Plant Fiction

Reuben Downes is a Mallard. The kind that dominates the Co-Ed Fastpitch Softball League for Adults in Western Vermont, aka COFSLAW VT, aka The Coleslaw League. As a newcomer to the team and the town, Reuben is viewed as the oddball “from away” by his teammates and the quirky, curious, often opinionated locals. So, when he puts an “art” installation in his backyard that sets off a firestorm in the community, people demand answers for what it means. But Reuben, always more inclined to let others call the shots, keeps his motivations to himself.

In a world without rain, the desert sands are controlled by the only group with the technology and infrastructure to give water to the thirsty: The Distributor. When Friedrich, a nerdy engineer, discovers a bug in the Distributor’s systems, he realizes this is a chance to overthrow their oppressive regime. Friedrich’s tech can offer a better life to thousands in the Barrens, but he’ll need to reach the Distributor across hundreds of miles of empty desert.

Mrs. Jeepers is taking her class to a science museum. But when they stumble onto a secret lab, it looks like the real science is going on behind the scenes! The curator, Dr. Victor, has a helper named Frank. Frank is tall, scarred, and likes to spend time in the greenhouse with his flowers—just like the creature in the book Liza just read. But Frank couldn't really be Frankenstein's monster, could he?

The borders are blurred in the woods around Eilegate House. The nearby town has borne witness to the centuries of bloodshed and upheaval that crafted modern Scotland and . . . retains vestiges of an old and dangerous magic. In 1934, the threat of war lingers just beyond the horizon. When Great War veteran Albert Lerrant and his new bride Victoria move into the stately home of Eilegate, the couple realize the house is not quite as abandoned as it first appeared. Tensions take a turn for the dire when Albert wakes up one midsummer morning to find his wife vanished without a trace.

It's the summer of 1822, and Edinburgh is abuzz with rumours of King George IV's impending visit. In botanical circles, however, a different kind of excitement has gripped the city. In the newly installed Botanic Garden, the Agave Americana plant looks set to flower - an event that only occurs once every few decades. When newly widowed Elizabeth arrives in Edinburgh to live with her late husband's aunt, Clementina, she's determined to put her unhappy past in London behind her. As she settles into her new home, she becomes fascinated by the beautiful Botanic Garden.

The girl he’d planned to marry shattered his heart into a thousand pieces. His best friend stabbed him in the back. He was heartbroken, angry, and ashamed. Then he met Fiona. Could she help put his life back together, or would her witchy ways lead him further down a dark and wrathful path? And what of the plant? It had grown from a cursed seed that he’d nurtured with his own blood. Vengeance has teeth, and sometimes it comes in the form of a flesh-eating ecological horror.

The year is 1200, well, let’s just say it’s a time of brutal beauty, where the clash of steel echoes through the valleys and the stench of death hangs heavy in the air. Forget the polished tales of valiant knights and virtuous queens.

What may we become? How will we endure? The future is a daunting realm, filled with real and imagined perils. So enter it prepared! Here are vivid tales about possible tomorrows, from the keen eye and colorful pen of David Brin, a modern master of speculative fiction.

Ann weeds and waters her garden every day, and grows a variety of different foods.

Book-loving Lola is inspired by a collection of garden poems that she reads with her mommy. She wants to plant her own garden of beautiful flowers, so she and Mommy go to the library to check out books about gardening. They choose their flowers and buy their seeds. They dig and plant. And then they wait. Lola finds it hard to wait for her flowers to grow, but she spends the time creating her own flower book. Soon she has a garden full of sunflowers and invites all of her friends for cakes and punch and a story amongst the flowers.

The year is 1888. A pall of fog blankets London, obscuring the gaslit streets and lending an air of sinister mystery to the unfolding events. The city, a labyrinth of opulent mansions and impoverished slums, is gripped by fear. A killer stalks the shadows, leaving behind a single red rose as their chilling calling card the Rose Killer. Their victims, plucked from the diverse tapestry of London life from the women of the night to unsuspecting patrons are found with a horrific brutality that sends shockwaves through the metropolis.

In this installment, Leah the biology expert and Gustavo the history buff are whisked away on a mission to a forest in North Carolina, USA. There, they meet a botanist working to protect the amazing Venus flytrap - an endangered species of plant - from being stolen by poachers and sold for money. It'll take every bit of brainpower, bravery, and expertise that Leah and Gustavo have to stop the poachers and rescue the plants.

Lila Nova lives alone in a plain, white box of an apartment. Recovering from a heartbreaking divorce, Lila’s life is like her home: simple, new, and empty. But when she meets a handsome plant-seller named David Exley, an entire world opens up before her eyes. Late one night Lila stumbles across a strange Laundromat and sees ferns so highly-prized that a tiny cutting can fetch thousands of dollars. She learns about flowers with medicinal properties to rival anything found in drugstores. And she hears the legend of nine mystical plants that bring fame, fortune, immortality, and passion.

Bobby Greystein is a successful entrepreneur whose health concerns and sudden stewardship of a ninety-million-dollar trust dedicated to revolutionizing food leads him to launch Camelot, a sugarless ice cream that can compete favorably with the best super premium full-sugar brands. Camelot gets off to a tremendous start – but the company's good fortunes have put it on the hit list of The Food Mafia. And now the future of Camelot – and possibly Bobby's own life – hangs in the balance.

The catastrophic Purge War at the end of the 21st century destroys planet Earth, jeopardizing the future for the remnants of humanity. Horrific repercussions roll across the ages until, generations later, a scientific group called the Time Forward Project harnesses a deep-space wormhole in which they can travel through time. They find the portal unstable and shrinking, but they have little choice but to take desperate, drastic measures and journey back to prevent the war.

1979 Iran: Hours before the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty, eight American-trained SAVAK intelligence officers defect to the United States carrying with them a secret that could one day propel Iran to the rank of superpower. 2018 United States: When another series of peace talks over Iran's nuclear program fails and a rogue Iranian general flees to Greece to meet with a high-ranking CIA officer, the Iranian Supreme Leader, who's determined to redraw the map of the Middle East, orders the execution of an operation decades in the making.

Myriam Gurba has lived in California her entire life, with its plants and soils, forests and ecology, immersing herself in the language of the landscape as refracted through the languages and memories of her ancestors. In Poppy State, California plants serve as structural anchors in a wildly inventive work of narrative nonfiction that is part botanical criticism, part personal storytelling, part study of place. Gurba traverses themes of language, power, ancestry, and California's ecology, in masterfully constructed sentences that seem to defy gravity.

When a group of animals and plants in a Jamaican mesic forest learn that the government of Jamaica has implemented the construction of a major highway that is supposed to run through and destroy their forest home, the helpless animals and plants enlist the help of a twelve-year-old asthmatic orphan boy. Clueless as to where to begin, the powerless boy put together a motley crew that includes a Rastafarian callaloo, a mentally disturbed marijuana, a posh rose, a facetious croaking lizard, a warmonger tomboy worker bee, a gentle blackbird, a protester layer chicken, and the boy’s rescued ...

Mike Walton had experienced terrorism from every angle. As a covert field operations officer, he thought he'd seen it all, but that was before terrorism struck him directly at home. Suffering devastating physical injury and unthinkable personal loss, Mike had one of two choices: give up or fight back, and giving up wasn't in his makeup. Mike and his wife, Lisa, a medical doctor and fellow counter-terrorism expert, are recruited to lead a hastily assembled team to Europe to stop the madness before time runs out.

The CIA's most valuable assassin, Agent J.D. Mikel, wasn't supposed to fall in love with anyone - especially not Kate Morningside, a woman coveted by another powerful world player. When Kate is kidnapped, J.D. is pulled into a dangerous game of cat and mouse, and one false move could cost him everything. Indeed, there are players - and then there are the masters who make the rules, only to break them.