"The Lotus Eaters" is a

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the April 1935 issue of '' Astounding Stories''. "The Lotus Eaters" was Weinbaum's fifth published story, and is a sequel to " Parasite Planet".

Plot summary

A month after the events in "Parasite Planet", Hamilton "Ham" Hammond and Patricia Burlingame are married, and thanks to Burlingame's connections, the two have been commissioned by the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

and the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

to explore the night side of

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

. There they find a species of warm-blooded mobile plants with a communal intelligence that Burlingame nicknames Oscar. Oscar is very intelligent, quickly picking up English from Hammond and Burlingame. The humans learn that the Oscar beings reproduce by releasing clear bubbles full of gaseous spores. When the bubbles burst, the spores come to rest on another Oscar being, eventually grow into another individual, and bud off. In "Parasite Planet", the vicious, night-dwelling ''Triops noctivivans'' used these bubbles to attack Hammond and Burlingame, since the spores have a soporific effect on humans. The humans are horrified to learn that, being plants, the Oscar beings have no survival instinct. Despite their greater-than-human intelligence, the Oscar beings react with indifference when the local trioptes attack and consume them. This prompts Burlingame to name their species ''Lotophagi veneris'' – the lotus eaters of Venus. Hammond and Burlingame barely escape the trioptes themselves after exposure to the spores leaves them almost catatonic.

Collections

"The Lotus Eaters" appears in the following Stanley G. Weinbaum collections: * ''The Dawn of Flame'' (1936) * '' A Martian Odyssey and Others'' (1949) * ''A Martian Odyssey and Other Classics of Science Fiction'' (1962) * ''A Martian Odyssey and Other Science Fiction Tales'' (1974) * ''The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum'' (1974) * ''Interplanetary Odysseys'' (2006)

Reception

Floyd C. Gale said in '' Galaxy Science Fiction'' in February 1960 that the story "gleams like new despite a quarter-century".

References

External links

*
"The Lotus Eaters"
at Project Gutenberg of Australia. Short stories by Stanley G. Weinbaum 1935 short stories Short stories set on Venus Works originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact {{1930s-sf-story-stub