Flowering Evil by Margaret St. Clair Episode #153
Margaret St. Clair | December 7, 2023-
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Flowering Evil by Margaret St. Clair Episode #153
Margaret St. Clair
FLOWERING EVIL
Episode #153 · Written by Margaret St. Clair · Narrated by Scott Miller
Some gifts look harmless until they begin to take root.
Amy Dinsmore fills her days with gardening, soap carving, and preparing elaborate meals for her nephew, a young officer on a space freighter. The exotic plants he sends her are treasures from distant worlds, carefully tended in a humid glass sanctuary behind her home. But one rare Venusian specimen begins to change in ways that are difficult to ignore. It thickens. It flourishes. And something near the hothouse begins to disappear.
At first there are uneasy dreams. Then there are discoveries on the path that cannot be dismissed as coincidence. The plant seems to grow stronger as Amy grows weaker, and the boundary between tending and feeding becomes dangerously thin. When the truth presses close, Amy is forced into a confrontation that leaves no room for hesitation. What she chooses in that moment reshapes everything that follows.
Flowering Evil blends quiet domestic life with creeping extraterrestrial menace. The tension builds patiently, not with explosions, but with dread that seeps in through the ordinary. The result is both unsettling and darkly satisfying.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margaret St. Clair published extensively in leading science fiction magazines of the 1940s and 1950s, including Astounding Science Fiction, Planet Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Fantastic Adventures, and Startling Stories. She was equally at home in science fiction and fantasy, sometimes writing under the pseudonym Idris Seabright. Her novels include Sign of the Labrys and Agent of the Unknown, works that reveal her fascination with altered states, hidden forces, and unseen influences. Flowering Evil reflects her recurring interest in the intrusion of the alien into intimate human spaces, and her skill at giving her characters surprising resolve when confronted with the unthinkable.
LISTEN TO THE STORY
Listen to Flowering Evil by Margaret St. Clair — a chilling tale of a carnivorous alien plant in this classic science fiction episode of The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.
VENUS AND VENUSIAN RELATED STORIES
Venus has always been science fiction’s most tempting lie.
For decades, writers looked at that bright point in the twilight sky and imagined a world hidden under cloud—steaming jungles, poisonous swamps, strange ruins, and creatures built for heat and pressure. Then the real data arrived. The romance didn’t die. It evolved. Venus became a test of nerve, a place where humans bargain with an environment that never bargains back.
In these stories, Venus can be a destination that breaks crews, a route that turns routine hauling into a trap, or a rumor that follows you home. Sometimes “Venusian” means a living species with rules of its own. Sometimes it means a human scheme stamped with a glamorous label and sold as destiny. Either way, once Venus enters the story, the air gets heavier.
You’ll find explorers stepping into landscapes no Earth-born body was meant to endure. You’ll find salvage crews and pilots learning that the shortest path can be the cruelest one. You’ll find satire that uses Venus as a mirror, then tilts the mirror until the joke turns sharp.
Start anywhere below. If you want the pure “planetary Venus” mood, go for the swamp-world classics. If you want Venus on the shipping lanes, pick the cargo runs. If you want a grin with teeth, try the Venus comedies.
- The Guest Rites by Robert Silverberg
- The Moon That Vanished by Leigh Brackett
- The Queen of Space by Joseph Slotkin
- The Venus Evil by Chester S. Geier
- F.O.B. Venus by Nelson S. Bond
- The Yes Men of Venus by Ron Goulart
- The Flight of the Eagle by Alfred Coppel
- Before Eden by Arthur C. Clarke
- Savage Galahad by Bryce Walton
- Double–Cross by Frederik Pohl
- In the Walls of Eryx by H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth Sterling
- First Landing by Roger D. Aycock
- Flowering Evil by Margaret St. Clair
- Quarantined Species by J. F. Bone
- Short Snorter by Charles Einstein
- Patch by William Shedenhelm
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