Book Review: The Fungus by Harry Adam Knight
Dr. Jane Wilson, brilliant mycologist, wants to feed the world with mushrooms. (Maybe she got the idea from Time and Mr. Bass?) To that end, she’s created a virus-like enzyme that causes the edible mushrooms she’s been working with to grow to enormous size at an accelerated rate. Commendable! But when she makes a tiny lab safety error, the enzyme escapes into the outside world. It turns out to work on all kinds of fungi, including ones you maybe don’t want to be enormous and growing at accelerated rates.
This 1985 horror/disaster novel was written by John Brosnan and Roy Kettle under their shared pen name of Harry Adam Knight. (Movie fans may remember one of their other works, Carnosaur.) It sold well at the time, including under the American title Death Spore. Valancourt Books, who do a lovely line in midlist horror reprints, has brought out an edition with a foreword by Roy Kettle reminiscing about his late co-author and how they came to make the book.
After some vignettes establishing the horrific ways people are affected by the fungi, and medical investigator Dr. Bruce Carter learns it’s too late for London, we move on to the main plot. Barry Wilson is Jane’s estranged husband, also a mycologist but without the “brilliant” part. He quit the field, leaving their children with his wife to go off to Ireland and write schlock thrillers. (The authors are making fun of themselves a bit here.) He’s on deadline, so has been isolated for the last couple of weeks with no human contact.
When armed men burst into his house, Barry thinks he’s finally ticked off the IRA enough to get assassinated, but it’s actually the British military. Turns out they’ve figured out that Jane is somehow connected to the outbreak, but her notes were missing from the laboratory. The plan is for Barry to go into the now fungus-coated London area, find Jane and/or her notes and see if that will give a clue to how to stop the menace.
Joining him on this mission are two experts in their own fields. Sergeant Slocock, a violent man well-versed in the business of killing; and Dr. Kimberly Fairchild, a South African physician who is tasked with keeping the men dosed with an experimental drug to prevent fungal infection. Both of them have their own secrets.
They’re on a bit of a time limit; the mycological infestation is rapidly spreading, and France wants to nuke the site from orbit to be sure. The United States is less ready to wipe out Britain, but if our team doesn’t succeed….
The writing is suitably lurid, with fun fungus facts scattered through and nifty set pieces. As is common with Eighties horror fiction, there’s quite a bit of sex and sex talk going on, and considerable grossness.
Content note: Body horror galore; this is not a book for the weak of stomach. There is a rape scene, played for black comedy. One of the dysfunctional relationships depicted is borderline abusive (but it’s lesbians so yay diversity?) Period racism (an early victim tries to show his “totally not racist” credentials by calling all Indian waiters “Panjit.” Neither his dinner companion nor the waiter can figure out how that’s not racist.) Onscreen extramarital sex. Loads of violence.
The climax of the story is… something. Would say that I didn’t see it coming, but there’s a full chapter before that indicating at least partially what’s going on. This is, after all, horror.
Obviously not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you are a fan of Eighties style schlock horror fiction, this is a prime example.
