The Good Seed by Mack Reynolds
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"The Good Seed" by Mack Reynolds is a science fiction short story written in the late 1950s. The narrative unfolds on a distant, Earth-like planet called Mersey, focusing on Calvin Mulloy, a top survey engineer who finds himself stranded on a small island during a violent storm. The story explores themes of survival, existential dread, and the quest for significance in life, especially through the eyes of one's own mortality. As the
storm intensifies, Calvin encounters an intelligent plant that also faces imminent death due to the rising waters. Their conversations reveal Calvin's inner turmoil and his desperation to accomplish something meaningful before his potential demise. The plant expresses a different perspective on life and death, emphasizing the importance of having seeded and contributed to existence even in the face of mortality. Eventually, in a moment of revelation, Calvin realizes the true essence of living not just for oneself but for a greater purpose, culminating in his act of saving the plant's seeds, which symbolizes hope and continuity beyond his own life. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Reynolds, Mack, 1917-1983 |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Wood, Wallace, 1927-1981 |
| Title | The Good Seed |
| Series Title | Produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960 |
| Credits |
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net |
| Reading Level | Reading ease score: 91.8 (5th grade). Very easy to read. |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Science fiction |
| Subject | Short stories |
| Subject | Islands -- Fiction |
| Subject | Survival -- Fiction |
| Subject | Human-alien encounters -- Fiction |
| Subject | Space colonies -- Fiction |
| Subject | Floods -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 60761 |
| ISBN (HTML) | 979-8-238-60761-0 |
| Release Date | Nov 22, 2019 |
| Last Update | Oct 17, 2024 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 429 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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