Gaia, or how to write the perfect eco-thriller

Back in 2021 I heard about a new film out of South Africa called Gaia. According to the plot synopsis, the story starts with two characters Gabi and Winston exploring a forest in South Africa. When they leave, Gabi tells Winston that we can't just leave our trash here." It then turns out that Winston has been infected by a lethal fungus, similar to a mutated version of cordyceps (see below), which Gabi later links to a Gaia-worshipping survivalist cult.

The movie didn't achieve wide release, however the reviews were quite good. According to Roger Ebert, Gaia has a lot to say about humanity's destruction of the environment, about the tipping point' we have collectively reached in the Anthropocene, but the film says it with creativity, mad flights of imagination, and even humor."

My interest though was due to the fact that in 1999 I wrote a screenplay that was also called Gaia. In my version, the story starts with two sisters Sandra and Anne exploring a forest in Venezuela. When they leave, Anne tells Sandra We shouldn't leave behind any trace that we were here." It then turns out that Anne has been infected by a mutated version of cordyceps, which Sandra later links to a Gaia-worshipping survivalist cult.

At the time I found an agent with an address on Sunset Boulevard, and had some interest in the screenplay from a (now-defunct) UK production firm, but it didn't go anywhere. (Twenty-five years ago, before anyone had heard of Covid and global warming was just a theory, the idea that the Earth might try to rid itself of us through a disease might have seemed a little ... fanciful.) So I adapted the screenplay into a novel (represented this time by the Robert Lecker Agency) and switched my focus to writing books on science and economics.

Now, leaving aside the question of whether the South African team had come across my book during their research (available in self-published form at Amazon since 2009, and cited e.g. here); noting that the stories do take very different turns (mine moves to the city and has a much bigger scale, different style etc.); and acknowledging my own limitations as a fiction writer (as one editor politely informed my agent, David's strength is in non-fiction"); I think that the initial premise which the two stories share is in some ways pretty optimal for an eco-thriller about our relationship with the living planet.

When I wrote my screenplay, the logic of the story was that if the Earth is alive, and humanity is harming it, then the Earth will produce an antibody to counter us, which we will perceive as a disease. The Earth doesn't make a very good antagonist in a story though, so as a human stand-in I used the leader (Angel) of an Earth-worshipping cult who plans to spread the disease to save Gaia.

The nature of the disease - a variant of the fungus cordyceps - was inspired by an article on the Venezuelan tepuis (where Anne contracts the disease) in the May 1989 edition of National Geographic. The article included the macabre image of an ant whose body has been taken over by the fungus. The same disease was used later in another apocalyptic drama The Last of Us, based on a video game of the same name. The one in the South African film is unnamed, but as one review wrote it bears an eerie resemblance" to a mutated cordyceps infection."

Images from a 1989 National Geographic show an ant infected by cordyceps (left) and the red-tinged water of the tepuis (middle), seen also in the picture for the cover of my book (right) which I took during a visit in 1995.

In the South African film the protagonist Gabi is a forest ranger, while in my version the main protagonist Sandra is an oil company PR executive. For me, this choice of profession was important. As a recent Nature review of a book on James Lovelock, of Gaia theory fame, wrote: If you wanted to be spiritual about it, you could argue that Gaia chose Lovelock as her messenger, despite - or perhaps because of - his evident personal failings. You'd expect a tree-hugger to tell you that the planet is one vast interconnected system powered by life. But when a scientist paid by Shell and Dow Chemical delivers the message, you believe it." So in my story, it is Anne the environmentalist who dies, and the oil company executive who must stop the disease and save the world (or at least the human part).

The similarities between the stories are impossible to ignore, from the initial set-up in an isolated forest, to the specific nature of the disease, to the role of a survivalist Gaian cult, and even in echos of dialogue (we can't leave our trash here). To be clear, I don't think the issue is direct plagiarism - it is more about ideas than words.¹ Indeed, I congratulate the South African team for bringing Gaia to life through story, which was the main aim of my screenplay. The success of their film serves as a proof-of-principle that the central premise of the story works.

And if further proof is needed, I learned more recently that there is yet another Gaia-related movie from 2021, called In the Earth. One article described it as uncannily similar" to the South African film, another said the similarities between the two films are as clear as day", while an academic review from 2023 described them as twin films". Common elements naturally include a fungal disease based on cordyceps, and a cult. The similarity is put down to synchronicity, and the influence of the pandemic, though that wouldn't apply to my version.

Of course there are many other ways to write a story about the living Earth (see for example David Brin's Earth). And as mentioned, my screenplay is far from being perfect. But if anyone is planning another version (and every good horror film needs a sequel), then please get in touch - maybe I can save you some trouble this time.

1. Though it wouldn't be the first time. One author helped themselves to an entire chapter (I ended up receiving a portion of the royalties), another copied an essay for their book (the subject coincidentally was Gaia theory, they were surprised to learn that we shared the same agent), and on a number of occasions academics have lifted sections of my books for their articles (in one case over 2000 words).