{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4230",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 4230,
    "subject": "\"The Last Hope of The Earth\"",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2004-09-28T13:06:47+00:00",
    "last": "2004-09-28T13:06:47+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<000901c4a596$a9ea7990$4108a9c0@pointserve.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "James Wynn",
        "address": "thewynns at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2004-09-28T13:06:47+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) \"The Last Hope of The Earth\"",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I just finished \"The Last Hope of the Earth\" (aka \"The Creeping Shroud\") by\nLan Wright. I hunted this book down because I suspected Wolfe may have been\npaying a tribute to it in the \"Short Sun.\"  And I must say I scored. :-)\n\nAside from that, the story quite good. Anyone who thinks Michael Crichton's\nSF hangs the Moon will like this too.\n\nI present an overview of the story below to detail the relevant points but\nit's heavy with spoilers.\n\nThe thing is that Lan Wright only seems to have written about 5 novels over \na period of 10\nyears that I can tell; the last being in 1968. He gets no mention in \"The\nEncyclopedia of Science Fiction.\" Has anyone read any of Wright's other\nnovels? And if so, what is your take on them?\n\n~ Crush\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...TOTAL STORY-KILLING SPOILERS BELOW\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n\n\"The Last Hope of the Earth\" by Lan Wright\n\nTLHotE features no alien invaders. There are no arrogant scientists or mad\ngeniuses who must be stopped before they destroy the world. The enemy in\nTLHotE is a plant. Not a plant mutilated by a nearby nuclear power plant or\na greedy corporation; but a real life plant that is still a problem even\ntoday: the WATER HYACINTH. This is what the Western Aquatic Plant Management\nSociety website says about the Water Hyacinth:\n\n\"Water hyacinth is listed as one of the most productive plants on earth and\nis considered one of the world's worst aquatic plants. It forms dense mats\nthat interfere with navigation, recreation, irrigation, and power\ngeneration. These mats competitively exclude native submersed and\nfloating-leaved plants. Low oxygen conditions develop beneath water hyacinth\nmats and the dense floating mats impede water flow and create good breeding\nconditions for mosquitoes.\n\n\"Water hyacinths are a severe environmental and economic problem in all of\nthe gulf coast states and in many other areas of the world with a\nsub-tropical or tropical climate. This species has rapidly spread throughout\ninland and coastal freshwater bays, lakes, and marshes in the United States\nand in other countries.\"\n\nIn tLHotE the Water Hyacinth began to clog waterways, first the Nile, then \nthe Amazon. Then it mutated to survive in sea water to travel worldwide and \nclog *every* river, bay, and stream, and in the ocean it quickly formed \nmassive ISLANDS that capture ships and impede navigation.\n\nWright adds a twist to the real-life Water Hyacinth in that his expels a \nthick sulphurous mist that eventually reduces visibility to a few dozen feet \nanywhere near water. The thick smog quickly caused a greenhouse effect that \ntremendously increases the temperature and humidity world-wide. Another \naspect to the climate change that Wright doesn't really justify is that over \na period of decades it causes the crust and mantel of the earth to heat up \nleading to increased earthquakes and volcanic activity. Japan and the US \neastern seaboard sink below the ocean.\n\nAll this causes civilization to breakdown. At the beginning of the novel, \nthe only outposts left are White Sands, New Mexico in America (the UN meets \nin Denver), England, Australia, and Kenya. The protagonist Peter Benbow, a \nbiologist, leaves his pregnant wife in England to go to America to be, from \nthere, dispatched on a secret mission that is seen as The Last Hope of \nhumanity. He is to go to Mars to help set up a colony there. Every spare bit \nof food and manufacturing resources on Earth is devoted to this plan. The \nleader of the English outpost promises to send Benbow's wife and child to \nhim as soon as he can. Unfortunately shortly after arriving at Mars, Benbow \nlearns that the English outpost has collapsed just before his wife was to \ngive birth, the leader executed. His wife has managed to get a note to him \nthat she plans to attempt to get to Africa.\n..\n...\n...\n...\nMUCH MUCH MORE MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW!!\n...\n..\n...\n...\n...\n...\n..\n...\n...\n...\n...\n..\n...\n...\n...\n...\n..\n...\n...\n...\n...\n..\n...\n...\n...\n...\n..\n...\n...\n...\nThose on Earth have heard that the Marsian colony is a futuristic Eden with \ntowering sky-scrapers and all the comforts of the by-gone Earth. When Benbow \narrives he learns the truth is quite different. The Mars colony consists of \nabout 4000 citizens huddled in shanties beneath cheap plastic domes. They've \nbeen working on the colony for about 8 years. Their food comes from \nhydroponics and yeast vats. It is understood that colony has about a year to \nbecome self-sufficient before supplies from Earth cease entirely. Benbow \nshortly becomes disenchanted with the prospects of the colony. THIS IS WHERE \nTHIS NOVEL SETS ITSELF APART FROM ALMOST EVERY OTHER SF NOVEL. Benbow meets \nwith the colony leader and makes an excellent case for why the Mars colony \nwill NEVER be self-sufficient. For example, the hydroponics and yeast vats \nrequire water -- but there IS NO water on Mars. He makes a trek to the ice \ncaps and is aghast. One of his team members says \"What did you expect? Giant \nglaciers and hundreds of feet of ice like in Greenland?\" The ice caps \nconsist of about 3 inches of surface ice. Actually, the picture Wright \npaints of Mars is far less hospitable than what we now know to be the case. \nBut even so, he has convinced me of the total impracticality of colonizing \nany other planet without enough breakthroughs to put off any consideration \nof the task for the next 500 years. Mars is colder, dryer, and less \nhospitable than a mountaintop in Antarctica. This is probably why this novel \ndidn't take off during the Cold War struggle to beat the Russians to the \nMoon. That, and the story's undercurrent of White Supremism. (ho hum)\n\nThe colony leader (Mueller) admits that what Benbow says is true. Mueller \nsends him to the little 5 mile-diameter moon Diemos to discover the great \nsecret of Mars...a secret unknown to anyone on Earth and to very few of the \ncolonists on Mars ....\n...\n...\n...\nBEWARE!!! BIGGER SPOILERS BELOW!!.....\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\nThere Benbow discovers two MASSIVE GENERATION ships under construction. Each \nwill hold 2000 passengers. One will go to Sirius. The other will go to Alpha \nCentauri. Benbow considers this idea crazy. He asks what the ships arrive \nand find no inhabitable planets? The answer is \"They'll continue to the next \nclosest star\".  No one on Earth is told of this plan for fear that they \nwould stop shipping supplies. No one on Mars is told of this for fear that \nit would break their spirits. Benbow receives permission to return to Earth \nto try to find his wife and child -- promising to tell no one what he has \nseen. When Benbow returns he discovers that his wife has taken a new husband \nsince she didn't think she would ever see him again (paraphrase \"Nettle will \nhave found a new husband by now. She was always a very practical woman).\n...\n...\n...\nBEWARE!!! HOW THE STORY ENDS.....\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n\n\n\n\nHe also discovers that the climate changes wrought by the Water Hyacinth are \nactually killing the plant worldwide. Earth is on the mend. White Sands has \nnot told the Mars colony because Gen. Kramer, the outpost leader,  has plans \nof world conquest from Earth to Mars. He is stockpiling supplies for an \nattack on the Martian heaven he has heard of to bring it under his control. \nThere are so many parallels between Gen. Kramer and Typhon, one could bat \nthem back and forth for days.\n\nBenbow explains to him that Mars isn't worth taking; that he needs to bring \nthe scientists back to help rebuild Earth. Unfortunately when they contact \nMars, they learn that the ship left 8 weeks previously during Benbow's trip \nto Earth. They are now beyond contact or recall."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}