I bought an eBook from the UK-based publisher, Unsung Stories' website.I have loved Aliya Whiteley's fiction for years and this was another brilliant story. It is about Penelope Greensmith, a woman in her early fifties who meets a strange man calling himself The Horticulturalist, who convinces her that she must travel across the universe with him to save the earth from a virus infecting plants. It wasn't until some way into the book that I realized Whiteley is riffing on the science fiction TV s...

A beautiful, lyrical and mind-bending journey through space and time, with an end-of-the-world setting. Inventive writing following an interesting protagonist that left me thinking about it long after finishing. Would recommend highly!

💚💚💚http://dancingonglass11.blogspot.com/...

I've been following Aliya Whiteley and reading her work since her very first publications and I thought I had a fairly good handle on her general tone, not just the sort of things she writes about but the way she generally writes about them, but I have to admit that 'Greensmith' has really thrown me for a loop. This is a side of Whiteley I've never seen before, and it is most delightful. In her newest novella, 'Greensmith', Whiteley brings her interest in the natural world, especially in plants

Most of this was incomprehensible. There was potential for this story, but it lacked a lot of necessary exposition. The relationship between the two MC’s was touching, though, even if I was left unsatisfied by it. I think this novel desperately needed a good editor.Also was not aware going into this that it was a not-so-subtle critique of Doctor Who, a show I’d love to forget.2.5/5

I love Whiteley’s work and am glad her brain exists. I thought this was a super interesting take on Doctor Who tropes.spoilers below: This book reminded me indirectly of The Prestige, or I guess more specifically the idea that one cannot just teleport from place to place and come out as the same exact person who endeavored to teleport in the first place. Understanding what the snapshots really meant for the travelers at the end was so unsettling. I’ve also heard this idea discussed on the “Flash...

I wish the opening scenes and spirit had continued throughout the book. Fun, light and reflective. But, with the world ending, perhaps it was too much to ask. Maybe I was hoping for a different journey, but Whiteley lost me several times. Quite a wonderful world and worlds. Loved the Rampion and all the flowers.

Across the universe with Aliya!It was a funny and affectionate shot of the weird and I'm delighted to say the usual 'oh,wait... what the hell just happened?' moments are there as always. Wonderful stuff that will grow on you like an alien flower type thingy.

A fantastic melancholy yet beautiful trip through space that reminds us life carries on - haunting yet peaceful Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...

10/11/2020 Another winner from Aliya Whiteley! Full review tk at TheFrumiousConsortium.net.10/13/2020 Bear with me for a moment while I serve up a relevant anecdote here.When I was 8 years old, on a layover in London, I climbed the stairs of the narrow house of the auntie who was hosting my mother and me, and turned on the TV in the bedroom. I was fresh out of things to read and figured I could sample some of what England had to offer in terms of televised entertainment. There was an episode of

Penelope Greensmith, a middle-aged bio-librarian, dedicated her life to cataloging and safekeeping seeds of all known plants in a mysterious device left by her father. She has no other interests or meaningful relationships. She keeps irregular contact with her daughter (named Lilly after Lilium Longiflorum) and her ex-husband. People find her eccentricities charming at first, but unbearable in the long run. One day a strange and charming adventurer, Hort, pays her a visit. He claims her collecti...

More interminable cryptic crossword clue than SF novel, this reached for artistry but achieved only incomprehensibility. A fantastical and disjointed story about ecological decay and loss that appears to have little purpose but to deliver what struck me as an aggravatingly sanguine concluding paragraph/poem:"Will we survive? What would it mean to survive?Does it matter?All that mattersafter allafter everythingis thatthe journey was interesting."A dispiriting, fatalistic and deeply incorrect take...

I loved it. A dreamy trip with echoes of Jeff Noon and Lewis Carroll. Think interstellar travel with flamingo freedom fighters, and a protagonist who may be a pot plant.

This is the first work I’ve read from Aliya Whiteley and I do like her style. Very intelligent writing and a nicely measured injection of sardonic humour. Although set against a backdrop of the destruction of an entire planet’s plant life, this novel really asks fundamental questions about the nature of existence and our perceptions of reality and identity - and does it in a very engaging way and without becoming pompous. The main character (Penelope) is a 50-something English woman and the incl...

In the aftermath of an insidious information war, bio-librarian Penelope Greensmith has one concern: preserving the Collection, a vast bank of seeds originally assembled by her father. This task becomes even more urgent when plants across the world are afflicted by a fast-spreading disease that causes them to melt and die. Then a dashing adventurer – who introduces himself as the Horticulturalist (aka Hort) – appears in Penelope's garden. It turns out that the virus sweeping Earth is a universe-...

Magnificent. In her own inimitable style Whiteley has done it again. Such truthful insight delivered so bizarrely, this book was a delight to read. Can’t wait to reread again in a few years and discover yet more, for I’m sure that there are layers to this tale.

Greensmith is a richly imagined, empathetic SFF adventure on the grandest of scales - which also casts a slightly jaundiced eye on one of the most celebrated franchises in the genre.Penelope Greensmith is working on a project - to catalogue and preserve the entirety of the world's flowers. She's assisted in this by an ingenious device her father (who began the work) left to her. Called the Vice, it has take a flower and compress its essence, its information, into a disc from which images and the...