The Russian-born French author Nathalie Henneberg collaborated with her husband Charles for years on works of fantasy and science fiction, but after his death in 1959, Nathalie continued to write and make a name for herself. Her 1960 story, “The Blind Pilot,” included in David G. Hartwell’s wide-ranging anthology The World Treasury of Science Fiction, is a prime example of the author’s extraordinary prose.
In this story about a blind young man and his disabled younger brother set in an unspecified far future, the settings of “The Blind Pilot” range from a dirty, crammed pawn shop to the outer reaches of the universe and the most beautiful cosmic sights a human can imagine. When an old explorer comes to the titular blind pilot hoping to pawn a siren-like creature he’s captured on one of his missions, the pilot agrees to take the creature, only to fall prey to its overwhelming abilities of persuasion. Though his younger brother Jacky does what he can to save him, the pilot is no match for the siren’s lure. Eventually, the creature’s ability to transport the pilot all over the universe (in an effort to find a world on which it wishes to settle) results in a tragic ending.
Henneberg turned to ecology and the vegetable world in The Green Gods. Published in English by DAW in 1980, The Green Gods was the first science fiction novel by a French woman to be translated into English, as well as the first work of French Society of Translators ( SFT) where both the author and translator were women. Like her wildly creative and dark short stories, The Green Gods imagines that humans have colonized the galaxy and thus earned the enmity of an alien species, which surrounds Earth with a magnetic shield. Over the course of centuries, the shield creates a greenhouse effect that enables plants and insects to evolutionarily surpass humans. Supersentient and now with paranormal abilities, the former realize that the spaceships of humanity’s descendants will soon arrive, and so they prepare to wipe out Earth’s last humans. Henneberg’s prose is rich and strange, presenting readers with images of plant/human hybrids and flesh-eating flora swimming in vats. A novel that spans eons and explores the potential intersections of species we would otherwise assume have very little in common, The Green Gods deserves a place in the genre that is increasingly interested in solarpunk and even eco-horror, as well as a place on your reading list from yesterday, today, and tomorrow.