"All Flesh is Grass" by Clifford Simak, summary

The plot centers on the contact between the residents of the provincial American town of Millville and an intelligent plant civilization from a parallel timeline. The science fiction novel was published in 1965. In 1966, the book was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel.

The Invisible Dome Over Millville

Bradshaw Carter lost his insurance business. Electrician Ed Adler carefully cut the telephone wire in his office to pay off debts to the telephone exchange. The cordless telephone rang. An unfamiliar, ingratiating voice on the phone offered the bewildered clerk the opportunity to act as a diplomatic envoy on behalf of mysterious employers, promising a generous reward and support through a wealthy local manufacturer, Gerald Sherwood. Sherwood handed over the money to Carter. Complete designs for complex inventions appeared in the manufacturer’s mind, inspired by an invisible mental double.

Late that evening, a local drunkard named Shkalik Grant unexpectedly barged into Carter’s kitchen. The tramp was panting heavily. He fell to the floor, dropped his keys, and muttered a strange warning about an impending atomic bomb. Dr. Fabian took the sick man away. Alone, Carter used his keys to unlock Grant’s pristine shack on the edge of the swamp and discovered boxes of Scotch whiskey under the table, along with a stash of identical rotary-dial telephones.

That morning, Carter drove onto the highway. A heavy road train with a trailer slammed at full speed into a resilient, invisible barrier, crushing a passenger car into a roadside ditch. The barrier repelled living flesh. The empty, driverless old car easily crossed the mysterious barrier by inertia and burned with a roar before the eyes of onlookers. Half of Doneven’s garbage man’s house remained behind the barrier.

The mentally challenged Tupper Tyler, missing ten years ago, appeared in Brad’s yard, wearing a straw hat and nothing but his clothes. The young man drooled happily. He talked about beautiful flowers and suddenly vanished among the thick purple stems behind the greenhouses. The city siren blared. Mayor Higgy Morris gathered the confused residents in front of City Hall to appeal for order. The wall began to move. A huge green wall of uprooted trees and torn grass slowly rolled forward, and a hurricane rained billions of tiny, hard seeds onto the exposed field.

Beyond the time barrier

Brad followed in Tupper’s footsteps. One decisive step through the flowerbed instantly transported him to a parallel plane of Earth time, where familiar city streets and brick buildings dissolved completely under the merciless light of the blinding midday sun. Purple buds lay everywhere. Near the riverside hut, Tyler sat unharmed, wearing the clothes he’d been given, cooking unsalted vegetable stew in a clay pot.

The Flowers spoke through the boy. The plant massif acquired a collective consciousness a billion years ago thanks to the genetic experiments of an ancient race. The lands are separated by mere fractions of a second. The stems possess a unified planetary nervous system with powerful root nodes and can transform into any agricultural crop to provide food for future allies. The aliens require human hands. The green mind seeks to apply the knowledge accumulated over long eons to the peaceful exploration of adjacent dimensions.

Carter climbed to the top of the hill. On the sandy slope of the stream, the remains of an ancient stone structure were visible, with hewn slabs and traces of mortar. Bones protruded from the ground. Brad carefully dug out a whitened human skull, irrefutable evidence of the tragic death of the former inhabitants of this lush plain.

At night, the hill was illuminated by moonlight. A group of dark-skinned, naked humanoids with lush silvery tufts of hair perched on the summit, chattering animatedly in a melodious, wordless dialect. The aliens activated a multi-lens sphere. The volumetric projection revealed a terrifying image of a flourishing metropolis reduced to dust by the blinding flash of a thermonuclear explosion, accompanied by the jubilant cries of idle travelers witnessing the catastrophe. Carter tucked the sphere under his jacket. The invisible mental presence of Lilac gently guided the explorer back to the edge of his abandoned garden.

Negotiations and ultimatum

Brad’s friends were waiting for him at home. The ball, brought in, suddenly filled the cramped kitchen with a deafening, rhythmic roar and punched a clean hole in the ceiling of the wooden building. The device flew into orbit. Policeman Hiram Martin tried to start a fight in the yard, but was crushed in the jaw by a defending Carter with a cobblestone.

A meeting was held at the barrier that morning. Senator Gibbs and State Department representative Arthur Newcomb greeted the mediator’s report with undisguised diplomatic skepticism, demanding irrefutable material guarantees of security. General Billings insisted on bombing. The military commander proposed wiping out the isolated town with a thermonuclear charge to prevent the possible takeover of the planet by alien flora. Biologist Davenport sharply condemned the general. A crowd of Millville residents demanded that the Washington guests immediately lift the blockade and return to work.

The bushes were covered with banknotes. Every shoot in Carter’s yard sprouted exact replicas of the fifty-dollar bills from the envelope stolen by the aliens, sparking a flurry of greedy arguments among the bewildered townspeople. Dr. Fabian suffered a stroke. Carter contacted the Flowers on Sherwood’s factory phone, demanding urgent medical attention for the dying elderly doctor. Two messengers emerged from the flowerbed. A wizened dwarf healer instantly repaired the internal organs of the paralyzed Dr. Fabian and restored the health of the rest of Millville’s ailing residents.

Diplomat Mr. Smith met with the press. A tall humanoid announced over the microphone the plant coalition’s categorical demand for the complete dispersal of Earth’s fissile material stockpiles in small portions across the territories of all states. An orbital sphere monitored all arsenals. Any non-dispersed nuclear storage facility would automatically detonate on the appointed day without prior warning. Reporters rushed to their phones.

Saving Union

The news of the disarmament sparked public rejoicing. The Pentagon, in the strictest secrecy, was preparing a preemptive strike on Millville before the aliens’ ultimatum expired. Panic gripped the nighttime streets. Embittered Millville residents, led by Hiram Martin, set fire to the Carter family’s wooden house, blaming the gardening family for all the misfortunes that had befallen the town. The building burst into flames. Crested aficionados of other people’s spectacular catastrophes suddenly emerged from the darkness. The old elm tree by the greenhouse, with a commanding mental cry of Lilacness, immediately banished the idle humanoids into the darkness.

The fugitive Shkalik Grant approached the edge of the dome. The vagabond had snuck past army posts to save his fellow countrymen from certain death under the bombs. Shkalik had found a solution to the situation. Brad’s father had carefully planted the stems in the flowerbeds solely for the sincere aesthetic pleasure of their unique beauty. People are capable of loving flowers. A certain percentage of these sentient shoots would forever remain beautiful garden plants to decorate human homes in exchange for mutual trust and technological collaboration. Carter hurried to the phone.