Jack Oakley published two science fiction short stories in the mid 90s. His debut, “The Tragedy of KL,” appeared in Weird Tales from Shakespeare, edited by Katharine Kerr and Martin H. Greenberg. His second story, “Fiat Silva,” was bought by the same editorial team and appeared in Enchanted Forests the following year.

While on a family camping trip, Adams finds the birds and the trees talking to him. Astounded by the wonder of being able to hear the trees, he learns that they talk to everyone. What sets him apart is that he actually spoke back to the trees. An unapologeticy environmentalist story, the trees describe the process of deforestation to Adam and ask for his help in stopping their plight. Adam, quite reasonably responds that as a young boy, there is little he can do to stop deforestation.

The trees give Adam a magic pine cone that will help with reforestation of the world. Adam shares his story with his sister on their car ride home, demonstrating the pine cone’s magic and accidentally disrupting the interstate system.

Although Adam and his sister are able to begin a reforestation project, it doesn’t come without a personal price, although the kids don’t necessarily view that as a negative. Even their parents seem to be blasé about the price when they figure out what is happening, which plays into the story’s concept of conservation above all else.

Which is a problem for the story. Oakley plays up the fantastic elements of the story with the starting point that reforestation is a good thing and a return to nature should be the goal. By accepting both of those statements, he doesn’t allow his characters or story any introspection or discussion about why reforestation and conservation should be goals that humanity strives for. By introducing a cost for those activities which has no real basis in reality and which aren’t seen as a cost by the characters, he fails to explore the cost of environmental policies or an explanation for why the policies are worth their cost.

In the end, “Fiat Silva” is a pleasant pro-environmental tale which tends to subvert its own message by removing any real world exploration of the issues it raises and making the resolution a little too pat to appeal to those who are already on-board with Oakley’s general message.

---

Steven H Silver is a twenty-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference six times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.