This post is brought to you by Ships of Steel edited by G. W. Thomas. This anthology of Space Opera and SF Adventure tales features four novellas, each with its own illustration by M. D. Jackson. If you enjoy your Science Fiction with more action this is the book for you. Manhunts across a giant spaceship, a quest for stolen space pirate treasure with killer androids, a lost child that is the key to a mystery and a planet with a deadly secret that will cause a galactic war. These are stories that move but will also move you. Be sure to check Whispers of Ice and Sand by G. W. Thomas as well, featuring four stories about Sudana and Zaar.
I’ve looked at all kinds of plant monsters in this blog, but there is one trope that keeps popping up like dandelions on my lawn. The idea of a killer plant that can appear as a loved one or other person is an idea I thought was invented in 1934 with Stanley G. Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey” (Wonder Stories, July 1934). In that tale, Earthman, Jarvis, wanders about Mars with a local bird-like alien named Tweel. Tweel has to save Jarvis from the Dream-Beast:
“I was tired, as I said. I kept thinking of a good hot meal, and then from that I jumped to reflections of how nice and home-like even Borneo would seem after this crazy planet, and from that, to thoughts of little old New York, and then to thinking about a girl I know there—Fancy Long. Know her?”… “I know her pretty well—just friends, get me?—though she came down to see us off in the Ares. Well, I was thinking about her, feeling pretty lonesome, and all the time we were approaching that line of rubbery plants… And there she was—Fancy Long, standing plain as day under one of those crack-brained trees, and smiling and waving just the way I remembered her when we left!”
Tweel saves Jarvis, returning the favor. The real Dream-Beast looks like:
“… All I could see then was a bunch of black ropy arms tangled around what looked like, as Putz described it to you, an ostrich. I wasn’t going to interfere, naturally; if both creatures were dangerous, I’d have one less to worry about…There was a flurry of tentacles and a spurt of black corruption, and then the thing, with a disgusting sucking noise, pulled itself and its arms into a hole in the ground…
Now it shouldn’t surprise me that Weinbaum wasn’t working in a vacuum, for there is an older SF novel that features a similar creature, one that may have suggested the idea to the later writer. The Elixir of Life (1914) by Herbert Gubbins, has a Chapter Twenty-Three called “The Death Flower”. The narrator is exploring the grounds around a mansion when he finds a flower but it isn’t:
‘Twas a woman’s face, or else my sight was vision distorted, my brain reeling towards madness. I remember I tried to pull myself together to break this unearthly spell, but the attempt was useless. I knew that I was compelled to look into the flower face as if I was hypnotised. A flash of crimson wings and the joyous burst of a cardinal’s song shattered the stillness for a moment, but it was impotent to break the spell.
The beauty of the girl flower was as the beauty of the Lady Zoe. There came an alluring smile on the face, like that I have seen on the face of Ayala. Were not these her lips, her eyes, her smile ? 
Once in the trap:
…I have a dim recollection of seeing one of the long arm-like roots encircling my legs and holding me to the earth as if chained. Then it seemed as if the rest of the arms rose from the ground with extraordinary quickness and passed round my arms and wrists and drew me to the flower. I struggled with all the strength that I possessed, but I was as a child in the arms of a giant. The long sinuous arm coiled round my body and held me absolutely powerless. I shiver now as I write these lines, for I can fancy that I feel the tightening of that demon arm.
My strength was fast spending itself. I could not possibly hold out much longer. Still the eyes of the death-flower looked into mine, while a wondrous mocking smile seemed to greet me. I felt with a sudden intuition that it was the flower that killed.
My breath was now coming in sharp quick gasps, a great faintness came stealing over me. The deathflower, the flesh-like branches danced wildly before my eyes and seemed to be turning black, while the ground felt to be slipping away from me. Finally my legs tottered, a thick mist rose before my eyes, and I remembered no more.
The narrator survives because Don Terrecilla sees him enter the garden and rescues him, using his knife to cut each tentacle. “…I could not find you at first, but at last was horrified to find you embraced by the deathflower. I was almost overcome as you were by the wonderful, indefinable fragrance that emanates from every petal of the flower. Happily I had a sharp knife, with which I severed those arms that held you fast. I began to hack and tear away like a madman, till one by one the tentacles were torn from your flesh.”
This short episode is not key to the over-all story but it is very familiar for fans of killer plant stories and those who have read Weinbaum.
The influence of Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey” is well-known. SF fans back in 1934 thought it an instant masterpiece. It is touted as the first SF Pulp story to use actual alien aliens. (The use of the word “alien” meaning an extraterrestrial only started in 1935 with “The Robot Aliens” by Eando Binder in Wonder Stories, February 1935. Before this, it referred to foreigners of an earthly sort.)
I knew immediately what inspired Fantasy writer, Terry Brooks, back in 1977’s The Sword of Shannara when Menion encountered the Siren Tree:
At the peak of a particularly bleak rise, somewhat higher than the surrounding hillocks, Menion found her sitting beneath a small twisted tree with long, gnarled branches that reminded him of willow roots. She was a young girl, very beautiful and obviously very much at home in these lands as she sang brightly, seemingly oblivious to anyone who might be attracted by the sound of her voice…
Of course, she’s a tree:
For one second Menion hesitated, unable to believe what had just oc-curred, and then hastily moved to withdraw. But the loose ground about his feet opened even as he paused, releasing a heavy cluster of thick-gnarled roots which wound themselves tightly about the young man’s an-kles, holding him fast. Menion stumbled over backward trying to break free. Fora moment he found his predicament to be ludicrous. But try as he might, he could not work free of those clinging roots. The strangeness of the situation increased almost immediately as he glanced up to see the strange root-limbed tree, previously immobile, approaching in a slow, stretching mo-tion, its limbs extended toward him, their tips containing small but deadly-looking needles…
Like Gubbins’ book, the episode is not an important one to the over-all tale. It allows us to meet Hendal the dwarf. Brooks does solidify an important Fantasy reference in calling it a “Siren” tree, for the trope goes back to Greek mythology and the lovely sea maidens who call sailors to their deaths. Whether you call it a Dream-beast, a death Flower or a Siren Tree, the act of luring prey remains the same.
Conclusion
The truth of the matter is Science Fiction and Fantasy readers have short memories. Fans in 1934 had forgotten Herbert Gubbins for the most part, just as fans in 2026 may have never heard of Stanley G. Weinbaum. Some day, perhaps sooner than you think, Terry Brooks and his twenty-four Shannara novels will also be a memory, superseded by new writers. It is the nature of literature, to seek the new, to move on from the old, all the time recycling ideas. It did not surprise me to see this trope show up in a current Fantasy project, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) with the Mimic monster. Gary Gygax was a Stanley G. Weinbaum fan. Any older D&D player would nod and smile, knowing all about Weinbaum’s old SF tale, while younger ones might just think it is cool. The beautiful maiden has been replaced by a chest, hopefully full of treasure. The desire is different but the idea remains the same.
Sword & Sorcery from RAGE machine Books
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