The Genocides Add a review

The Genocides is a 1965 science fiction novel by American writer Thomas M. Disch, published by Berkley Books as his debut. Years after unknown extraterrestrials sow Earth with gargantuan, fast-growing plants that overwhelm native life, the novel follows a small community along Lake Superior. The group struggles to adapt to a collapsing ecosystem and to impersonal machines that erase the last traces of humanity. Combining survival narrative with a stark, naturalistic tone, the novel presents the alien crop as a system that renders people incidental. The Genocides was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel for the 1965 awards year.

Later discussion has emphasized ecological catastrophe and plant horror as central concerns, as well as the novel’s alignment with New Wave-era skepticism toward technocratic rescue. Contemporary reviews were divided, with praise for its severity and atmosphere alongside objections to its anti-heroic focus. Subsequent overviews have tended to treat it as a significant early work in Disch’s career and a touchstone in accounts of ecological science fiction. The book was reissued in hardcover in 1978 and continues to be cited in surveys and critical studies of apocalyptic and eco-SF.