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Old Friends Are the Best

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

9 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1960

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About the author

Jack Sharkey

192 books6 followers
Sharkey, John Michael

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5 stars
8 (27%)
4 stars
11 (37%)
3 stars
7 (24%)
2 stars
2 (6%)
1 star
1 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
6,726 reviews5 followers
February 25, 2025
Entertaining fantasy listening 🌐🙂

This kindle ebook novella is free from Amazon.

I listened to this story and did not connect with the story.

I would recommend you give it a try and maybe it will connect with you. 😕🙃. 2025 🤔🎶
Profile Image for Sue.
1,506 reviews7 followers
January 29, 2023
I’d never heard of this book and discovered it on good reads as a suggestion. It’s short and I figured why not because I read magazine articles that are as long. Well none of those magazine articles makes me sit up straight as think “holy hell” as it ends.

This was charming, then drifted into the why I am reading this territory and then when the meteors began I was alarmed. Then came that ending! And what a fine ending this has!
Profile Image for Sterlingcindysu.
1,722 reviews78 followers
January 24, 2023
A very thoughtful free read for Kindle on Amazon. Sharkey packs a lot in nine pages!

Now here is one thing that makes this story science fiction. There's no way that moonplant could multiply that fast because...you know...
squirrelseating

Best of friends since the beginning of time!

moonearthfriends
Profile Image for Zen.
911 reviews
July 2, 2026
".... A moonplant! Growing in my garden! He decided, as is the way with botanists, to name his—it was now "his"; having abandoned liberty when it abandoned the moon—to name his plant after himself.
And that's how it came to be called the "Peter W. Merrill Moonplant." He put it in his garden, arranged a small protective wire cylinder around it, and sprinkled it with water....."

Oh for Shame! A True Gardener knows that They are never truly Masters of "Their" Garden. What a Beneficial Gardener learns to do is to "Manage" the Inherent Wildness of the Plant Life, in a Small Section of Mother Earth that They have marked out as "Their Garden".

But Mother Nature is always waiting, quietly, just out of sight, to Spring Forth and Bite Ignorant Humanity on the Asterisk!

And Fun Little Story with a Cheeky Sense of Humour that I quite Enjoyed.

Despite how bad things just kept on getting for Humanity in the story, not a single Human Brain seemed capable of Waking up and Understanding the actual scope of Their Danger. Ah well, a deserved end for the Human Fauna.

I particularly liked the opening section where we learn about the long, long, timeless Hibernation Cycle of the Moonplant long, long before there was a pretensious Peter S. Merrill Fauna breathing air and who named the Plant after His Self.

Recommended Read.

And a btw here for those interested......

The largest Fungus (which is not plant btw) is the Humongous Fungus (armillaria ostoyae), an 8,000 year old entity that lives in Oregon's Malheur National Forest. It weighs "hundreds of tons" and is 2,385 acres, or 4 square miles, or 2,651,753 square meters large. And that's a lot of Campbell's Mushroom Soup.
Profile Image for Forked Radish.
4,197 reviews86 followers
March 9, 2026
Plants that can outthink humans? Dandelions have been doing that for centuries.
Profile Image for Susan Molloy.
Author 153 books90 followers
December 27, 2023
✔️ Published in Amazing Science Fiction Stories, March 1960Amazing Stories March 1960.

When oranges began rolling off the ground in the California and Florida groves, and huddling in a mound here and there upon the countryside, the Spirit of Worry injected itself into the public consciousness. . . . It came to be called the "Peter W. Merrill Moonplant."


This story was fair; it deserves to be re-read by me at another time to gain a better understanding of what the heck is going on here and with the odd dénouement.

🟤Project Gutenberg.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews