The Fungus (UK: Star Books, 1985)
Tagline: "It grows on you."
Already you're digging that undeniably disgusting cover and I'm there with
you. Now who, upon seeing this on the shelf back in the day, wouldn't
want to read this? Well, lots of people probably, but that sort doesn't
interest us here. Cool cover with screaming man infested by mushrooms
and assorted fungi. Enough said. This one was penned by Harry Adam
Knight, author of other wonderful nasties like Carnosaur and Slimer, and
trust me, he knows his business. Knight was a pseudonym for Australian
science fiction and fantasy author John Brosnan whom we sadly lost in
2005. Brosnan wrote under a variety of pen names such as Simon Ian
Tagline: "It grows on you."
Already you're digging that undeniably disgusting cover and I'm there with
you. Now who, upon seeing this on the shelf back in the day, wouldn't
want to read this? Well, lots of people probably, but that sort doesn't
interest us here. Cool cover with screaming man infested by mushrooms
and assorted fungi. Enough said. This one was penned by Harry Adam
Knight, author of other wonderful nasties like Carnosaur and Slimer, and
trust me, he knows his business. Knight was a pseudonym for Australian
science fiction and fantasy author John Brosnan whom we sadly lost in
2005. Brosnan wrote under a variety of pen names such as Simon Ian
Childer (Tendrils), but it is Knight we are interested in here. It has been oft pointed out that the
initials of Harry Adam Knight spell HAK, which might have been an inside joke by Brosnan...but hack
or not, Knight knew his business.
As always, beware for spoilers abound.
Let's cut to the chase. Mycologist Jane Wilson has created a mutant macro-enzyme which makes
fungi--all fungi--grow at an alarming rate. And if you ever had basic bio in high school you know very
well that mushrooms and toadstools are but the tip of the fungal iceberg. As can be imagined, this
macro-enzyme gets loose and causes hell at every turn as every fungi it comes into contact with
mutates and proliferates at an alarming rate. Like this woman finds out early in the book:
"She picked up a length of wood and thrust it angrily into one of the bigger mounds of fungus.
Unexpectedly, a ripple ran through the growth then the whole mound moved...
Even worse, it spoke to her.
'Nora,' it said in a thick muffled voice. 'Nora...it's me...' "
Which is bad enough, but nothing compared to this woman's gruesome discovery:
"Her horror and disgust gave her extra strength. She violently wrenched her body to one side,
simultaneously giving the rapist a powerful shove with her arms...
There was a distinct crunch. Then a thin, wailing scream. She looked up and saw him kneeling
there clutching at his crotch. Blood spurted out between his fingers.
His companion cried, "What's wrong? What did she do to you?"
The other one just continued to scream. It was then that Kimberley became aware that he was still
inside her. She realized that his grotesque member was so diseased with fungus it had simply
snapped off...
In the course of some 220 pages, all manner of horrible things happen. A man's Athlete's foot
mutates and absorbs his legs, making them crumble to gray powder. A pair of lesbian lovers are
consumed by oral thrush after...well, you know. Intestinal fungus living in cowshit assimilates a
sleeping family on a campout. Soldiers burst apart with green and black slime. Every imaginable
form of fungi--toadstools, mushrooms, yeast, molds--is infected and soon England is under siege
once again (poor old England, it suffered so in the nasties). Enter Barry Wilson, spy novelist, and
former mycologist. And also the husband of Jane who started this hideous mess. The military
arrests him and sends him deep into fungi-occupied London to search for his wife and the key to
the infestation. In a specially-designed armored vehicle, he penetrates the fungal hellzone of London
with a bitter, used-up asshole of a soldier named Slocock and a perverted hottie named Kimberley
Fairchild who happens to be a specialist in tropical medicine. Knight paints neither of these
characters in a very sympathetic light--Slocock is an alcoholic bully and Kimberley is true whack-job
with a sexual obsession for men with power. They both torment Wilson who is obviously--and
understandably--scared. Over the intercom Wilson hears them having sex--the paunchy Slocock
and the depraved young Kimberley. At first Wilson is appalled, but then he begins to find them both
pathetic and appalling. No longer shrinking from the fungi horror outside, Wilson channels the spirit
of Flannery, the Irish tough guy of his spy novels, and soon sets things to right, breaking Slocock's
nose with a rifle and in the process, symbolically castrating him in Kimberley's eyes. She soon is
attracted to him. You get the idea. When these two meet their ends, the reader greets it with
sadistic pleasure.
This novel is very well researched and darkly imaginative. It's worth the price just to read of
Wilson's ride through London. People and animals have become spongy slime molds. Buildings are
shrouded in nets of spiderweb fungus. Immense mushrooms rise from the wreckage of buildings.
Fungi people hunt the mushy streets in wolfpacks. Does Wilson find his wife? Yes, he does. She
has become a mad fungi-sporing messiah of a cult of fungus females. The ending is great, but in
this one it's getting there that really counts.
Pros: Just about everything. Definitely ghastly, definitely gruesome, and definitely gor-ifying, so it
meets the three essential G's of nasties. Also, characters with issues, perverted sex, horrible
happenings, and let's not forget the definitive nasty rape scene which may be the finest horror rape
scene since that girl got slimed and violated by the giant maggot in Galaxy of Terror.
Cons: Can't think of any. Well-written, perfectly paced, perfectly disturbing.
Overall: Go grab this one. If you like this kind of stuff, you won't be disappointed. Harry Adam
Knight (Bronson) is to be commended for writing a near-perfect piece of pulp horror.
I give this one five bloody skulls out of five.
Next month's Guilty Pleasure:
"They slime, they ooze, they kill--"
initials of Harry Adam Knight spell HAK, which might have been an inside joke by Brosnan...but hack
or not, Knight knew his business.
As always, beware for spoilers abound.
Let's cut to the chase. Mycologist Jane Wilson has created a mutant macro-enzyme which makes
fungi--all fungi--grow at an alarming rate. And if you ever had basic bio in high school you know very
well that mushrooms and toadstools are but the tip of the fungal iceberg. As can be imagined, this
macro-enzyme gets loose and causes hell at every turn as every fungi it comes into contact with
mutates and proliferates at an alarming rate. Like this woman finds out early in the book:
"She picked up a length of wood and thrust it angrily into one of the bigger mounds of fungus.
Unexpectedly, a ripple ran through the growth then the whole mound moved...
Even worse, it spoke to her.
'Nora,' it said in a thick muffled voice. 'Nora...it's me...' "
Which is bad enough, but nothing compared to this woman's gruesome discovery:
"Her horror and disgust gave her extra strength. She violently wrenched her body to one side,
simultaneously giving the rapist a powerful shove with her arms...
There was a distinct crunch. Then a thin, wailing scream. She looked up and saw him kneeling
there clutching at his crotch. Blood spurted out between his fingers.
His companion cried, "What's wrong? What did she do to you?"
The other one just continued to scream. It was then that Kimberley became aware that he was still
inside her. She realized that his grotesque member was so diseased with fungus it had simply
snapped off...
In the course of some 220 pages, all manner of horrible things happen. A man's Athlete's foot
mutates and absorbs his legs, making them crumble to gray powder. A pair of lesbian lovers are
consumed by oral thrush after...well, you know. Intestinal fungus living in cowshit assimilates a
sleeping family on a campout. Soldiers burst apart with green and black slime. Every imaginable
form of fungi--toadstools, mushrooms, yeast, molds--is infected and soon England is under siege
once again (poor old England, it suffered so in the nasties). Enter Barry Wilson, spy novelist, and
former mycologist. And also the husband of Jane who started this hideous mess. The military
arrests him and sends him deep into fungi-occupied London to search for his wife and the key to
the infestation. In a specially-designed armored vehicle, he penetrates the fungal hellzone of London
with a bitter, used-up asshole of a soldier named Slocock and a perverted hottie named Kimberley
Fairchild who happens to be a specialist in tropical medicine. Knight paints neither of these
characters in a very sympathetic light--Slocock is an alcoholic bully and Kimberley is true whack-job
with a sexual obsession for men with power. They both torment Wilson who is obviously--and
understandably--scared. Over the intercom Wilson hears them having sex--the paunchy Slocock
and the depraved young Kimberley. At first Wilson is appalled, but then he begins to find them both
pathetic and appalling. No longer shrinking from the fungi horror outside, Wilson channels the spirit
of Flannery, the Irish tough guy of his spy novels, and soon sets things to right, breaking Slocock's
nose with a rifle and in the process, symbolically castrating him in Kimberley's eyes. She soon is
attracted to him. You get the idea. When these two meet their ends, the reader greets it with
sadistic pleasure.
This novel is very well researched and darkly imaginative. It's worth the price just to read of
Wilson's ride through London. People and animals have become spongy slime molds. Buildings are
shrouded in nets of spiderweb fungus. Immense mushrooms rise from the wreckage of buildings.
Fungi people hunt the mushy streets in wolfpacks. Does Wilson find his wife? Yes, he does. She
has become a mad fungi-sporing messiah of a cult of fungus females. The ending is great, but in
this one it's getting there that really counts.
Pros: Just about everything. Definitely ghastly, definitely gruesome, and definitely gor-ifying, so it
meets the three essential G's of nasties. Also, characters with issues, perverted sex, horrible
happenings, and let's not forget the definitive nasty rape scene which may be the finest horror rape
scene since that girl got slimed and violated by the giant maggot in Galaxy of Terror.
Cons: Can't think of any. Well-written, perfectly paced, perfectly disturbing.
Overall: Go grab this one. If you like this kind of stuff, you won't be disappointed. Harry Adam
Knight (Bronson) is to be commended for writing a near-perfect piece of pulp horror.
I give this one five bloody skulls out of five.
Next month's Guilty Pleasure:
"They slime, they ooze, they kill--"
Copyright 2010 by Tim Curran