Hot(ter)house Cretaceous

[La Volpe]

At this level I think you are entirely correct. The trees are sentient is a great example. So let's say we want to write the "trees are sentient" story. The next step is not to go back and try to figure out if the trees can become sentient because of a 4 degree temperature change 50 million years ago (unless you really want to take the hardest longest more indirect path possible to a story)
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I have seen far too many writers disappear into the black hole of world building and never emerge with a coherent story not to counsel caution in this regard.

I agree. Though the last time I had this problem, it just ended with me never getting to writing the story because there was simply too much to research. Ergo, rather than bad story, there was just no story.

On a totally unrelated note Harry Harrison's Deathward novel was a classic about sentient plants etc. I also recall a great Hammer's Slammer's story about a similar topic. Both of which had very clear social messages and strong world building hand in hand.

Quite embarrassingly, I've never heard of either of those two.

 

[Russ]

Quite embarrassingly, I've never heard of either of those two.

It's probably an age thing, they are a tad old, but very good.