“Invasive species” is such a judgmental term. After all, it’s the nature of life to spread when it can. Humans, originally found in Africa but now global, could be seen as invasive. Is it so terrible if other species follow our example—if zebra mussels find their way into the Great Lakes, if Argentine ants find extraordinary success in Europe, or if walking, carnivorous Triffids kill and eat unwary English people? The consensus appears to be “yes,” given how invasive species are treated in science fiction and fantasy.
Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr. (1938)
Antarctic explorers stumble over the ancient wreck of an alien starship. Nearby they discover the remains of an alien who apparently survived long enough to freeze in Antarctica’s endless winter. The humans make two fatal errors: they assume the alien froze to death, whereas it only froze, and they bring the remains back with them to their base.
Although frozen solid, the alien is still alive, needing only the warmth of the research station to reanimate itself. Once active, the ravenous shapeshifter begins to consume the researchers one by one, replacing each with seemingly identical duplicates. If the alien can escape Antarctica, the entire terrestrial biosphere is doomed. As their numbers rapidly dwindle, the scientists desperately search for a solution that may not exist.
The fact that the alien got to Earth in a starship raises the question of how many worlds it reached and converted before getting marooned on Earth. Interstellar exploration may be a very bad idea.
“Green Patches” by Isaac Asimov (1950)
To his increasing alarm, Terran explorer Saybrook discovers that there is only one lifeform on the unknown planet later known as Saybrook’s Planet. To its alarm, Saybrook’s Planet’s planetary consciousness discovers its visitors are pathetic individuals. Its attempt to remake Terran explorers in its image is successful enough for Saybrook to dispatch an alarmed message to Earth before destroying his ship and all aboard.
Years later, a research vessel is dispatched to Saybrook’s Planet. Determined to protect Earth from alien conversion, the researchers take every reasonable precaution against stowaways. Their efforts are successful…almost.
I don’t really understand the logic of funding a mission such that an oversight could very easily led to the involuntary conversion of the entire biomass of Earth. But old-time SF is full of decisions like that.
Pollinators of Eden by John Boyd (1969)
Freda Caron is vexed when her fiancé, Paul Theaston, decides to remain on the alien world Flora rather than return home to Earth to help plan their wedding. But not too vexed. Freda is also a botanist and can understand the allure of the mystery that keeps Theaston on Flora. Flora has no pollinating insects. Why, then, are there flowering plants clearly adapted to partnership with such insects?
The question is intriguing. Freda decides to experiment by planting some imported alien seeds. She soon discovers that the alien plants have bewitching abilities no terrestrial plant can match. When in an excess of prudence she resolves to exterminate the plants, she discovers that they have some lethal defensive adaptations. Has her curiosity doomed the terrestrial ecosphere?
Long forgotten now, Boyd was in his day a bountiful source of sex-obsessed, bizarre novels. This would be one of them. Freda does her best to answer the obvious questions, but there’s one that doesn’t appear to occur to her: Why would it be a good idea to plant alien vegetation on Earth, where it could easily spread?
The Outskirter’s Secret by Rosemary Kirstein (1992)
The second Steerswoman novel takes Steerswoman Rowan (a scientist, more or less) from the long-settled Inner Lands into the Outskirts. Rowan’s goal is to discover the place where the mysterious Guidestar fell. As a consequence, Rowan gains a far more detailed understanding of her world’s ecology.
The plants and animals of the Inner Lands are human compatible. Those in the Outskirts have been shaped by a considerably more hostile environment. Beyond the so-called Face, an entirely alien ecology rules. How two such incompatible ecologies could exist next to each other is a puzzle, one whose key may be the harmless phrase “Routine Bioform Clearance.”
Although the Steerswoman series reads at first glance like fantasy (a hypothesis that the cover art of some editions supported), the series is the very hardest of hard SF, an example from which other authors could and should learn. One hopes the long delayed fifth volume will soon appear.
In the Company of Others by Julie E. Czerneda (2001)
To the delight of terrestrial explorers, the Milky Way has an abundance of Earthlike worlds suitable for human occupation. Given a star drive (which they have), determination, and ingenuity, humanity will surely spread across the galaxy…provided a solution can be found for the Quill.
Seemingly harmless, Quill were introduced to all the colony worlds as a decorative plant. Quill are not harmless. Humans clued into the danger about the time the colonies were being depopulated by the mysterious Quill Effect. Dr. Gail Smith believes she is on track to discover a cure for the Effect. An unwilling Aaron Pardell finds himself drafted to see if Smith is correct. Failure will be embarrassing for Smith, and fatal for Pardell.
I’d love to say nobody would be stupid enough to deliberately spread an invasive species without due diligence. The examples of the common dandelion and kudzu in North America and beavers in Argentina argue otherwise.
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These are, of course, a very small subset of a thriving subgenre. Perhaps you have your own favorites not mentioned above. If so, feel free to discuss them in comments below.
In the words of fanfiction author Musty181, four-time Hugo finalist, prolific book reviewer, and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll “looks like a default mii with glasses.” His work has appeared in Interzone, Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis) and the 2021, 2022, and 2023 Aurora Award finalist Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by web person Adrienne L. Travis). His Patreon can be found here.
I know Gerrold is never going to finish at this point, he’s taken far more time to continue the series than George RR Martin has Game of Thrones, but the four books of War Against The Chtorr are exactly about combatting an aggressively invasive ecosystem that is taking over Earth.
See also War with the Newts (1936) by Karel Capek. A species of humanoid, intelligent amphibians (“Newts”) are discovered on a Pacific island, and are employed at first in pearl-fishing, then brought elsewhere around the world for other water-related work (e.g. building hydroelectric projects). The Newts begin to evolve and reproduce rapidly, and begin excavating land into pools and canals to provide more “living space” for themselves.
It was widely assumed that Capek intended this as a satire of Nazi Germany’s threatened encroachment on his native Czechoslovakia, so much so that after the Nazis occupied the country, they send the Gestapo to arrest Capek, who, much to their disappointment, had died days before they arrived.
James Schmitz’s stories include ‘The Pork Chop Tree’, in which the human spacefaring civilisation is faced with the question of how a treelike alien lifeform ended up on three different worlds… and if it was transplanted, what happened to the humans who transplanted it.
Christopher Anvil’s “Colonization” stories have a couple of worlds with invasive species (“Star Tiger” has tiger-like predators, “Odds” has technology-eating insects) but in both cases the species don’t seem to have made it off their home worlds in quantity before the problem is acknowledged and countermeasures developed.
As dopey as it looks, The Green Slime takes a fairly sober look at keeping an invasive species contained on a space station so it doesn’t reach Earthside.
“invasive” species are the ones we don’t want to spread, or decided later were a problem (like kudzu). A .lot of SF writers talk about terraforming planets that had flourishing biospheres when humans arrived, such as Bujold’s Barrayar, and authors and characters take for granted that this is a good idea, and maybe talk about the difficulties of replacing native vegetation with Earth crops.
Niven’s sunflowers are highly invasive
@6 You might describe stage trees as invasive as well.
Robert Sheckley’s “The Leech” is about an alien life form which absorbs energy and appears able to grow without limit.
Jack Finney wrote a novel in 1954 entitled The Body Snatchers — and, yes, the two versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers are based upon it. I’ve seen both films, and they are excellent, but have never read the book. I should correct that.
The 1965 THomas/Wilhelm The Clone is about an invasive organism. (There’s a purported review on YouTube which appears to be about a totally different work.)
Ray Bradbury’s short story “Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar!” from 1962 (alternatively titled “Come into My Cellar,” it seems) is a brilliantly fun story about space mushrooms that invade via the Sea Monkey method of advertising.
@2 I am SO glad someone mentioned Čapek’s novel! War With the Newts even sees the exploited slave salamanders “aqua-form” the Earth to suit their own needs. Great stuff!
@1 All Gerrold has to do is say is “The Chtorr won. There is no more story.”
How about Heinlein’s “The Puppet Masters”?
Just the biomass? Pikers. Murray Leinster, “Proxima Centauri”, 1935. If I recall correctly, the tiniest particle of the rocket’s fuel touching a solid body, including a planet, makes it all blow up. Amazingly, this is not the focus of the story.
The focus is on invasive plants. Literally. Sapient walking talking cardboard … that’s what swipe typing gave me for “carnivorous”, & in this case it’s scarily accurate … space-warship-flying plants.
‘Feed me!’ says Audrey, Jr.
Cane Toads introduced into Australia. Toxic to most predators, though crows have learnt to skin them before eating. There was a short documentary film including a little girl who dressed up the toads & wheeled them about in her doll’s pram.
Anyone reminded of Hans Andersen’s The Mud King’s Daughter?
Pretty much anything involving Humans on an alien planet would qualify… Or their own in most cases.
The Rifters trilogy by Peter Watts – B-Max is a truly invasive species
“Greener than you think” by Ward Moore. Gave me a bad case of depression when i read it as a kid.
Clifford D. Simak, All Flesh Is Grass.
The Andromeda Strain. For that matter, the theory of panspermia is that life itself is an invasive species – EVERYWHERE.
@17 – Cane Toads are merely one of the more notable examples of disastrously destructive invasive species introduced to Australia. Other notable examples include rabbits, foxes, household cats (resulting in a massive feral cat problem) and the prickly pear cactus. There have literally been whole books written on the subject.
Along the same line, the rock band Genesis preformed a mini rock opera called The Return of the Giant Hogweed on their album Nursery Cryme. Loosely based on the real life hogweed infestation still prevalent in England.
Charlotte Macleod wrote a fantasy cozy mystery- The Curse of the Giant Hogweed
In Thomas M. Disch’s The Genocides, never-seen alien attackers introduce invasive plants to Earth that don’t eat anyone, or poison anyone, or move, or do anything at all except grow very fast. That’s enough; after a few years the aliens don’t need to put a lot of effort into their final mop-up operation.
@24, @25; One species of giant hogweed is known in Russia as Stalin’s Revenge (it was introduced as a fodder crop in Soviet times); in Norway another goes by the less threatening name of Tromso palm. It’s a third species tjhat causes problems in Britain.
Then there are tribbles, introduced in one of my favorite Star Trek: TOS episodes, The Trouble With Tribbles.
It’s relatively fortunate that the only environments these extremely prolific breeders are seen invading are the relatively closed and controllable ones of some starships and a space station.
The script author, David Gerrold, said he realized his tribbles are also similar to the Martian flatcats in Heinlein’s The Rolling Stones, which I have not read.
Philip K. Dick’s “The Father-Thing” has a similar line to Invasion of the Body Snatchers — but, being PKD, more horrific: the pod-creatures’ first meals are the insides of the people they replace, leaving only the skin. ISFDB says the PKD was received by Scott Meredith in the middle of 1953, but the two stories both saw print near the end of 1954; I don’t know whether both authors picked up an idea that was floating around, or one picked it up from conversation about the other, or the two just happened to have similar ideas.
Hugh Walters’s Operation Venus tells of an insufficiently-sterilized (i.e., not at all) probe bringing a nasty fungusoid back to Earth; since it will cover all life on Earth in a few years, the space agency assumes Venus (which isn’t fungusoid-colored) has some natural counter which Our Heroes must find and fetch back. A side note: this has the first description I’ve found of a device intended to remove LEO trash — which a few developers are finally working on coping with.
@10: technically not; there’s a geeky description (that I didn’t know enough biochemistry to guess whether it was believable) that explains both its spontaneous appearance in the sewers and its first vulnerability. Nothing from the outside, just our own sloppiness come back at us.
Speaking of Argentine ants, here in Australia there was an annual Argentine Ant Eradication Programme in the late 1960s and the 1970s in which children could collect a free test tube and illustrated guide from their local pharmacy, capture a sample ant and return the tube with ant to the pharmacy, to be sent to a government lab for analysis (said ant having been drowned in methylated spirits to preserve it). Identifying a new area of infestation would earn the lucky child $10, a princely sum to a 6 or 7 year old in that era. I never won the money but do still have my participation certificates decades later.
The Invasion from Outer Space , By Steven Millhauser – The New Yorker , 1 February 2009
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/02/09/the-invasion-from-outer-space
About seeds conquering Earth surface by relentless reproduction
There’s also the Red Weed in The War of the Worlds.
My favorite real-world invasive species — cocaine hippos in Columbia: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01818-z
I never knew that the phrase “The Thing from Another World” was associated with the printed version of “Who Goes There?”
Do you have a date for that cover and how it relates to the release date of the film of that name?
Dr. Thanatos: a little digging on ISFDB (start with entry for John W. Campbell Jr. and look at all instances of “thing”) gives a book it calls The Thing and Other Stories but with that cover (click on “view all covers”). ISFDB lists the book as 1952, while Wikipedia says the original movie was 1951, so it looks like the UK paperback republisher of the 1948 hardcover collection Who Goes There was trying to capitalize on the movie. (Attention-grabbing retitling is a long tradition — not just in SF (e.g. magazine serial The Man Who Counts becoming War of the Wing-Men) but generally (e.g. Murder at the War becoming Knightfall when it came out in paperback).)
Dies “Supernature” by Marc Cerrone qualify (Wikipedia says Lene Lovich)? “The potions that we made touched the creatures down below, and they grew up in a way that we’d never seen before. They were angry with the man, ’cause he changed their way of life, and they take their sweet revenge as they trample through the night. For a hundred miles or more, you can hear the people cry”, etc. Disco Era of course :-) So… the creatures down below invaded the surface? Moles? Earthworms?
Recently, you could make a case for Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. The Sun has been colonized by spacegoing critters called astrophages, who subsist by eating the Sun’s energy output, eventually condemning Earth to a premature frozen grave (of course for a few years, this might help with global climate change.) Cue the plucky crew sent forth to a star that apparently recovered from its infestation, to find out how it survived.
OK it’s not a book but it’s been both a serious (kinda) movie and a Broadway musical turned into a movie.
Can we all say “Feed me, Seymour, feed me NOW!!!!!”
Little shop, little shop of horrors…