The story “Seeds of the Dusk” by Raymond Z Gallun, published in 1938, is a classic science fiction gem. Its 31 pages give us an insight into the lives and fates of three species: an alien invasive plant intelligence; the descendants of the ravens; and the descendants of Man. There are big events and an unforgettable, haunting mood in this tale that is well encapsulated in the title.
The tone of the author’s narration is relaxed, not exactly “talkative” but casually thoughtful, with a dash of “perhaps” and hesitations and even self-questioning in the descriptions and explanations given, which paradoxically strengthen our imaginative belief, our sense of being shows us something real.
…It looked entirely like a lucky toy. And, of course, to a certain extent it was…
…And now, perhaps, the thing was beginning to feel the first glimmers of an awareness, like a human child emerging from the blurry fog with no memories of birth…
A sensitive vegetable? Without intelligence, the ancestors of this nameless invader from across the void would likely have lost their battle for survival long ago.
What senses were given to this strange mind, by means of which it could be aware of its surroundings? Undoubtedly, he possessed sensory faculties that could detect things in a way that was as beyond ordinary human conception as vision is for those born blind.
You see the kind of style I mean: hesitant, divided into probing questions and explanatory answers. Gallun makes no attempt to hide the fact that he is a storyteller for our time telling us a story many millions of years ahead. In a way, therefore, he is distancing himself from the story he is telling; but in doing so, he leaves himself free to make bridging comments, to give explicit clarifications, tailored to our needs as readers, which he could not do if he himself assumed the real voice of the future point of view.
The story heats up as the invading spore from Mars takes root, grows and spreads, using its intelligence and defensive powers to prepare for the clash it knows is coming with Earth’s ruling race, the Itorloo:
Men. Or rather the cold, cruel and cunning little beings who were sons of men.
Of the three protagonist species of this story, the reader probably sympathizes more with birds. Kaw, the clever descendant of ravens, alarmed by the invasive plants, decides that the devil one knows is preferable to the devil one does not, and flies off to warn his hereditary enemies, the Itorloo. But the degenerate Sons of Men believe they can do it alone, that the way to defeat the invasive plants is to sterilize the Earth of everything except human life…
The plants win, and they and many other living things are saved. The man, who has become the enemy of all, succumbs. The reader feels a kind of relief that the Man, or his Itorloo descendants, are gone and the world can live in his grim peace.
It’s a great idea, or will be, when we stop taking our science fiction heritage for granted, that this story was written way back in 1938. In fact, it’s not the only science fiction story to prophetically echo some of our contemporary environmental concerns. Mainly, however, Dusk Seeds is notable as a timeless, timeless classic of a haunting mood.