{"id":4664,"date":"2022-06-30T11:03:03","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T11:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=4664"},"modified":"2022-08-11T16:53:41","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T16:53:41","slug":"rhizome-by-starlight-by-fran-wilde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=4664","title":{"rendered":"Rhizome by Starlight by Fran Wilde"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>Rhizome by Starlight<\/em><\/strong> by Fran Wilde (<em>Rebuilding Tomorrow<\/em>, 2020) is set on an island that is overgrown with what appears to be a fast-growing, mutant, and malevolent form of kudzu. The story opens with the narrator cutting back the day\u2019s growth from the seed bank cum greenhouse where she lives and works.<br>We later learn that she is the third generation of her family to do this job:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-default is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>It was left to us to tend the seeds because something in grandfather\u2019s genes wasn\u2019t right. That\u2019s what he wrote in the manual. He, and others like him, stayed with the greenhouse, while others, much stronger and better, found safety on the ships. At least that\u2019s what the neat seed-letters say. His young daughter, her genes like his, remained too. She, and we became the promise he made: to stay, to be gardeners.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>After some further description of the narrator\u2019s daily routine and backstory (as well as a rare visit to the island from a scientist who she avoids), she decides to build a boat and leave the island.<br>When the narrator is later picked up by a ship (spoiler), she is kept prisoner, and it becomes apparent that she is a form of mutant plant or semi-plant life herself. At the very end of the story the scientist who visited the island frees her before she dies from lack of light.<br>This tale starts off as a future eco-disaster piece but appears to turn into something more far-fetched, or perhaps even magical realist.<br>** (Average). 3,750 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rhizome by Starlight by Fran Wilde (Rebuilding Tomorrow, 2020) is set on an island that is overgrown with what appears to be a fast-growing, mutant, and malevolent form of kudzu. The story opens with the narrator cutting back the day\u2019s growth from the seed bank cum greenhouse where she lives and works.We later learn that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[154],"tags":[17,296,881,155,1114,1106,12],"class_list":["post-4664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fran-wilde","tag-17","tag-296","tag-eco-doom","tag-fran-wilde","tag-plant-life","tag-rebuilding-tomorrow","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4664"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5318,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4664\/revisions\/5318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}