''Greenworld'' (
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
: グリーンワールド
Hepburn: ''Gurīn wārudo'') is a 2010
speculative evolution
Speculative evolution is a genre of speculative fiction and an artistic movement focused on hypothetical scenarios in the evolution of life, and a significant form of fictional biology. It is also known as speculative biology and it is referred ...
and
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
book written by Scottish geologist and paleontologist
Dougal Dixon
Dougal Dixon (born 1 March 1947) is a Scottish geologist, palaeontologist, educator and author. Dixon has written well over a hundred books on geology and palaeontology, many of them for children, which have been credited with attracting many to ...
and primarily illustrated by Dixon himself, alongside a few images by other artists. ''Greenworld'' features a
fictional alien planet of the same name and a diverse biosphere of
alien organisms. ''Greenworld'' has so far only been published in Japan, where it was released in two volumes.
The premise of ''Greenworld'' follows
human colonisation of the alien planet over the course of a thousand years, chronicling mankind's disastrous impact on Greenworld's ecosystems, similar to how humans today are
impacting Earth and its life. Greenworld and its creatures were originally designed by Dixon as a design exercise for his local science fiction group and the planet and its organisms first appeared in a 1992 episode of the
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
series ''
Equinox
A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise "due east" and se ...
'', followed by appearances in various other media, including the 1997 programme ''
Natural History of an Alien
''Natural History of an Alien'', also known as ''Anatomy of an Alien'' in the US, is an early Discovery Channel mockumentary similar to ''Alien Planet'', aired in 1998. This mockumentary featured various alien ecosystem projects from the Epona Pro ...
''.
''Greenworld''
's premise is similar to, and repurposed from, Dixon's original idea for his book ''
Man After Man'' (1990), which would have involved humans time-travelling 50 million years into the future to colonize biosphere of the future he had developed for ''
After Man
''After Man: A Zoology of the Future'' is a 1981 speculative evolution book written by Scottish geologist and palaeontologist Dougal Dixon and illustrated by several illustrators including Diz Wallis, John Butler, Brian McIntyre, Philip Hood, ...
'' (1981). The version of ''Man After Man'' that was eventually published was considerably different from Dixon's original concept.
Summary
Greenworld is a hypothetical
Earth-like exoplanet with a diverse and thriving
biosphere
The biosphere (from Greek βίος ''bíos'' "life" and σφαῖρα ''sphaira'' "sphere"), also known as the ecosphere (from Greek οἶκος ''oîkos'' "environment" and σφαῖρα), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also ...
. All animal-analogous organisms on Greenworld are descended from a
radially symmetrical
Symmetry in biology refers to the symmetry observed in organisms, including plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria. External symmetry can be easily seen by just looking at an organism. For example, take the face of a human being which has a pla ...
six-legged
starfish-like animal. Animals on Greenworld secondarily developed
bilateral symmetry (which is what is seen in most animals on Earth), developing into two major groups; “sulcosyms” in which the plane of symmetry lies between the legs (meaning they have three pairs of limbs) and “brachiosyms” in which the plane of symmetry has led to the formation of one “arm” at each of its ends (meaning two pairs of limbs and two unpaired limbs, one at the front and one at the back).
In the book, humanity discovers Greenworld just as Earth finally collapses under the pressure of mankind's impact and a
generation ship with ten thousand people is sent to colonize the planet.
''Greenworld'' then explores the first thousand years of
human colonisation on the planet through following some key families of settlers.
Over the course of this timespan, every
ecological catastrophe
An environmental disaster or ecological disaster is defined as a catastrophic event regarding the natural environment that is due to human activity.Jared M. Diamond, '' Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed'', 2005 This point disti ...
caused by humans on Earth is repeated on Greenworld.
The book is divided into several shorter chapters, each telling a short story and featuring illustrations of the local animals and their interactions and relations to humans. Illustrations also include “excerpts” of advertisements, science papers, field guides and recipes.
By the end of the book, Greenworld and its ecosystems are in ruins, mankind having caused a
mass extinction event through their actions on the planet.
Development
The fictional planet and biosphere featured in ''Greenworld'' was originally created as a design exercise by Dixon for his local science fiction group, basing it on the same biochemical processes behind the
evolution of life
Evolution is change in the heredity, heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the Gene expression, expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to ...
on Earth. Before Dixon put the whole concept together as a cohesive book, parts of the project appeared in different media in which Dixon featured.
In this capacity, Greenworld first appeared in the
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
programme ''E.T, Please call Earth'' (part of the series ''
Equinox
A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise "due east" and se ...
'') in 1992, followed by appearances in BBC's ''
It'll Never Work?'', ''
The Radio Times
''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...
'' and in ''
BBC Focus
''BBC Science Focus'' (previously ''BBC Focus'') is a British monthly magazine about science and technology published in Bristol, UK by Immediate Media Company. Edited by Daniel Bennett, it covers all aspects of science and technology and is writ ...
'' in 1993 and it was one of many hypothetical alien worlds by different scientists featured on the
BBC2/
Discovery Channel programme ''
Natural History of an Alien
''Natural History of an Alien'', also known as ''Anatomy of an Alien'' in the US, is an early Discovery Channel mockumentary similar to ''Alien Planet'', aired in 1998. This mockumentary featured various alien ecosystem projects from the Epona Pro ...
'' in 1997.
Following the success of his previous speculative evolution books ''
After Man
''After Man: A Zoology of the Future'' is a 1981 speculative evolution book written by Scottish geologist and palaeontologist Dougal Dixon and illustrated by several illustrators including Diz Wallis, John Butler, Brian McIntyre, Philip Hood, ...
'' (1981) and ''
The New Dinosaurs
''The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution'' is a 1988 speculative evolution book written by Scottish geologist and palaeontologist Dougal Dixon and illustrated by several illustrators including Amanda Barlow, Peter Barrett, John Butler, Je ...
'' (1988), Dixon worked on a new project dubbed ''
Man After Man'' which was to involve mankind avoiding catastrophes such as
overpopulation
Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon in which a species' population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scal ...
and
mass starvation by inventing
time travel
Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a ...
and moving 50 million years in the future to re-establish civilization. As such ''Man After Man'' would have been set in the same world as ''After Man'' and would have focused on the man-made catastrophes destroying the ecosystems Dixon had established in the previous book. The final version of ''Man After Man'', published as a book in 1990, was instead focused on future climate change through the eyes of future human descendants genetically engineered to adapt to it and was a project Dixon was reluctant to be involved in.
Dixon's original concept for ''Man After Man'', the destruction of an established ecosystems by mankind, was instead eventually used for ''Greenworld'', with Dixon applying it to the fictional alien world which he had created.
The majority of the illustrations in ''Greenworld'' were done by Dixon himself, though some images were also produced by other artists
such as
Julius T. Csotonyi and Margaret Walty. Although ''Greenworld'' has so far only been published in Japan,
Dixon has expressed interest in getting an English-language version published.
In the spring of 2021, the fictional biosphere of Greenworld was highlighted among other science fiction works at the exhibition "Interspecies Futures" at the
Center for Book Arts in
New York.
References
External links
*
Greenworld' on Dougal Dixon's website
at Sigmund Nastrazzurro's blog ''Furahan Biology and Allied Matters'', featuring images from ''Greenworld'' and a segment of the planet's 1997 appearance in ''Natural History of an Alien''.
Archived 2010 websitefor ''Greenworld'' by Tokyo-based publisher Diamond.
for ''Greenworld'' by the Japanese Rights World Agency.
{{Dixon Speculative Evolution
2010 science fiction novels
Science fiction books
Evolution in popular culture
Books about evolution
Speculative evolution
Japanese-language books
Books by Dougal Dixon