Having just spent an intensely creepy 80-something minutes watching the series premier of The Last of Us (HBO), I’m now forced to sit here and contemplate just how terrifying fungi can be. If you’re not scared, then you definitely haven’t watched this show… or read any of the books I’m about to talk about!
Let’s start with The Last of Us. This show has been getting tons of hype — well deserved! For those who aren’t familiar with the history, The Last of Us started as a videogame (released in 2013) that was absolutely huge — and which is generally considered a giant step forward in gaming in terms of both graphics and storytelling. (For more on the game and its significance, read here — but note that there are spoilers for the overall storyline). I’m not a gamer, so that aspect doesn’t mean a whole lot to me, but I do love a good post-apocalypse story… and this one is a doozy.
Here’s the official trailer from HBO:
Are you scared yet?
After watching the first episode, I naturally starting thinking about the scary-as-hell books I’ve read over the past several years featuring horrific fungi — and thought I’d share the case of the creeps with everyone else!
If you’re into fungal horror (or want to know what books to avoid at all costs), then check out this list. I’ve provided links to my reviews, in case you’re interested.
The Girl With All the Gifts was my first exposure to zombie apocalypse via fungus, and man, was it horrifying! It’s a great story — and at the time when it was released, the marketing cleverly didn’t disclose what it was actually about. I expected a story about kids with some sort of paranormal abilities, perhaps, and instead… FUNGAL HORROR. So good…
This was a 2022 release, and it’s just amazing (and creep-tastic). A retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher, but with fungi! You’ll never look at a rabbit in quite the same way again.
I almost hesitated about including this one, since the very fact that I’m putting it here is entering into spoiler territory… but it’s a prime example of great fungus-based horror!
This is the 2nd book in the Comet Cycle trilogy (and I’m eagerly awaiting the release of #3!). In these books, a comet that passes close by Earth has a devastating effect on the world as we know it. The first book, The Ninth Metal, relates one aspect of the story, and here in book #2, we see an entirely different set of effects on the natural landscape, including… you guessed it… horrifying fungi! I tend to describe these books more as sci-fi than horror, although there’s plenty of ickiness too.
Those are the examples from my own bookshelves… but there’s more! If you just can’t get enough of deadly fungi, check Fangoria’s list of movies, TV episodes, and books with fungal horror plotlines.
And if you want to start on a less terrifying note, then there’s always this goodie (available via Amazon and elsewhere):
Wow, this is a cheerful post! So now that I’ve shared my selection of frightful fungal horror, I’ll ask you:
Have you read any other horror books with deadly/disgusting/horrifying fungi taking over the world (or at least a corner of it)?
Please share any recommendations… not that I need any further fuel for my nightmares.
Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.
Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.
Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!
The end of the world is the weirdest time to come of age.
Welcome to the end of the world. One minute, people are going about their lives, and the next—not. In the wake of the inexplicable purge, only a handful of young misfits remains.
When it all went down, “Wizard of Odd” Dev Brinkman was seeking shelter from the taunts of his classmates. Goth girl Lucy Abernathy had lost her best friend and had no clue where to turn. And Twinkie-loving quarterback “Marcus” Haddad was learning why you never discuss politics and religion in polite company—or online.
As if life when you’re sixteen isn’t confusing enough, throw in the challenges of postapocalyptic subsistence, a case of survivor’s guilt turned up to seven billion, and the small task of rebuilding humankind…
No one said doomsday would be a breeze. But for Dev, Lucy, and Marcus, the greatest hope—and greatest threat—will come when they find each other.
How and when I got it:
I picked up the Kindle edition a couple of years ago.
Why I want to read it:
This book came to my attention thanks to social media praise and a blurb by one of my favorite authors, Maria Doria Russell. Not only that, but David Sosnowski wrote one of the most inventive yet under-the-radar vampire novels I’ve read in the last 20 years (Vamped, published 2004). So how could I resist?
Now, you may be tempted to shrug and say, “seen one apocalypse novel, seen ’em all”. Fair. I do feel like I’ve read my share (and then some) of end-of-the-world books, filled with plucky survivors, weird post-apocalyptic new realities, and the fate of humanity at stake.
Still, the synopsis sounds pretty charming and funny, and — this can’t be emphasized enough — Mary Doria Russell loved it! So it must be pretty darn awesome.
Title: Any Sign of Life Author: Rae Carson Publisher: Greenwillow Books Publication date: October 12, 2021 Length: 384 pages Genre: Young adult – Science fiction Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
When a teenage girl thinks she may be the only person left alive in her town—maybe in the whole world—she must rely on hope, trust, and her own resilience.
Paige Miller is determined to take her basketball team to the state championship, maybe even beyond. But as March Madness heats up, Paige falls deathly ill. Days later, she wakes up attached to an IV and learns that the whole world has perished. Everyone she loves, and all of her dreams for the future—they’re gone.
But Paige is a warrior, so she pushes through her fear and her grief. And as she gets through each day—scrounging for food, for shelter, for safety—Paige encounters a few more young survivors. Together, they might stand a chance. But as they struggle to endure their new reality, they learn that the apocalypse did not happen by accident. And that there are worse things than being alone.
Any Sign of Life opens to a scenario that hits a little too close to home in 2021, when we still can’t say that the coronavirus pandemic is behind us. In this YA sci-fi novel, our current pandemic is a memory from the past for the characters. As the book begins, we meet main character Paige Miller as she awakens from a coma to confront a world wholly different from the one she thought she knew.
Paige wakes up to discover an IV in her arm and her family’s dead bodies in her house. As she ventures out away from the horror, she encounters nothing but more horror. Every home in her neighborhood contains dead people — she appears to be the only one left alive. After liberating a neighbor’s dog from their locked house, Paige and Emmaline set out to scrounge for supplies and figure out if anyone else has survived.
What seems from the beginning to be a story about a horrific virus that’s wiped out nearly all of humanity takes a turn as Paige starts to realize that this virus couldn’t have been naturally occuring. As far as she can tell, it killed people worldwide in only a week, and that just doesn’t make sense. When Paige meets Trey, another teen survivor, they start to put the pieces together, and realize that humankind didn’t just die out — it was exterminated.
Figuring out how this happened, and desperately fighting for a slim chance at survival, Paige and Trey’s journey leads them to a handful of other survivors and a small chance at making a difference in what seems to be a losing battle to hang onto a world that might still be fit for human life.
Any Sign of Life is both a story of the end of the world as we know it and a tale of a fight for survival. There are exciting action sequences as well as plenty of strategizing about how to survive — and whether there’s a reason to survive. The author gives the characters individuality and personality, as well as giving them each a backstory and inner depth.
Paige, as the POV character, is strong-willed and capable, but also carries the pain of her lost family with her always. Trey is also a great character, and all of the characters we meet are mourning someone they loved.
While the action sequence toward the end of the book is a little confusing, it’s still gripping to read, and I couldn’t help holding my breath while rooting for the good guys to succeed. The book ends on a positive note, but the future still looks grim — and I couldn’t help wondering whether a sequel will be coming along at some point. The ending works, but there’s plenty of room for more of the story to be told.
Any Sign of Life is an engaging read, once I got past the fact that what I thought would be a story about surviving a worldwide plague ended up being about a different sort of threat completely. Not giving too much away, the revelations about the cause of the virus and what the future might hold didn’t wow me, because I feel like I’ve read plenty of stories along these lines already,
Still, I liked the characters and the particular episodes involved in their survival, and have no problem recommending this book to anyone who enjoys post-apocalyptic YA fiction.
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Title: The World Gives Way Author: Marissa Levien Publisher: Redhook Publication date: June 15, 2021 Length: 380 pages Genre: Science fiction Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
In a near-future world on the brink of collapse, a young woman born into servitude must seize her own freedom in this glittering debut with a brilliant twist; perfect for fans of Station Eleven, Karen Thompson Walker, and Naomi Alderman.
In fifty years, Myrra will be free.
Until then, she’s a contract worker. Ever since she was five, her life and labor have belonged to the highest bidder on her contract–butchers, laundries, and now the powerful, secretive Carlyles.
But when one night finds the Carlyles dead, Myrra is suddenly free a lot sooner than she anticipated–and at a cost she never could have imagined. Burdened with the Carlyles’ orphaned daughter and the terrible secret they died to escape, she runs. With time running out, Myrra must come face to face with the truth about her world–and embrace what’s left before it’s too late.
A sweeping novel with a darkly glimmering heart, The World Gives Way is an unforgettable portrait of a world in freefall, and the fierce drive to live even at the end of it all.
Based on the synopsis, I expected a dystopian world of class wars and enforced servitude. And yes, that is what’s going on here, but also…
[SPOILER ALERT FOR BIG REVEAL AT END OF FIRST CHAPTER]
[BUT IS IT REALLY A SPOILER IF YOU FIND OUT IN THE FIRST CHAPTER???]
Here’s the spoiler…
The world is a spaceship.
Yup. This is a science fiction novel, and I had no idea before I picked it up!!
Now that that’s out of the way…
Myrra Dal is indentured to the Carlyle family, thanks to a contract signed by her great-grandmother. It’s a work contract that’s binding for not just the original contract signer, but for generations to follow. Myrra is the last in the chain. There are fifty years left on her contract, and then she’ll be free. Of course, this isn’t really a comfort to Myrra: A woman in her 20s, she doesn’t relish the idea of being old by the time she’s released from the contract, but she has no options. Contracts are completely binding and are enforced by the government’s security bureau, which tracks down those who try to escape. Rumor has it that there are executions, but no one really knows for sure.
And back to that spaceship thing: The world of the The World Gives Way is a huge space ship (which the book refers to as “the world the ship” and people just think of as the world). It’s been traveling for centuries, and is expected to reach their planetary destination within fifty years. It’s implied that the Earth was on its way to becoming uninhabitable when the ship was built and launched, and finding a home on board sounds like it was something available to the privileged and wealthy, plus all the workers needed to support a comfortable lifestyle during the lengthy journey.
When I say that the ship is huge, I really mean it. It’s described as being about the size of Switzerland! Which (I looked up for comparison) is equivalent to about Vermont and New Hampshire combined, or closer to home for me, about the size of the Bay Area. (I absolutely couldn’t grasp the size until I had something more familiar to compare it to.)
The world of the ship includes large cities, resort getaways, mountains, deserts, and seas. It really is a world unto itself. For those who can afford it, there are luxuries and extravagances. For everyone else, there’s work and a daily drudge.
As the novel opens, Myrra’s employer, Imogene Carlyle, summons Myrra to the roof of their penthouse. Imogene intends to jump, and wants Myrra to promise to care for her baby, Charlotte. She tells Myrra a huge secret, known only to the top tier of politicians (such as her husband) and government scientists — there’s a breach in the outer hull of the ship, and despite months of study and efforts, there’s no way to repair it. The ship is doomed, expected to breach completely within the next few months. Imogene and Marcus have decided to end their lives now, leaving Charlotte in Myrra’s care. And then she jumps.
Myrra can’t quite believe what’s happened or what she’s just heard, but after searching Marcus’s office, she’s convinced. Taking money from the Carlyle’s safe, she escapes with Charlotte, heading out on the run in search of temporary freedom, alone with the knowledge of the inescapable end of the world.
From here, we also meet Tobias, a rookie cop with a burdened family history who’s assigned the Myrra Dal runaway case as his big opportunity to prove himself. Since no one knows why the Carlyles committed suicide, or if it might even be murder, Myrra is not only an escaped contract worker but also a suspect in their deaths and the kidnapping of their daughter. Tobias and his older partner are hot on Myrra’s trail, following leads that take them to Palmer, an underwater domed city, and onward from there.
Meanwhile, the world begins to show signs of doom. There are more and more frequent “earthquakes”, causing damage, then city-ending destruction, and other strange phenomena as well. Buildings collapse and people are killed, and finally, the government has no choice but to share the horrible news.
But what good does knowing do when there’s no escape? The world the ship is alone is space, years away from any known destination or safe harbor. As the end nears, all Myrra can do is continue her journey, trying to find some sort of solution for Charlotte, and almost inadvertently looking for a semblance of peace for herself.
The World Gives Way has a sense of inevitability about it. As interspersed chapters tell us, the end is indeed coming. These small interludes, in between the chapters focusing on Myrra and Tobias, show us how different parts of the world experience the end and what happens to the people there. It’s awful, because we know all along that there’s only one way the story can end — the world does in fact give way.
That said, Myrra and Tobias’s parallel and then joined journeys are fascinating and moving to read. Their experiences combine elements of an adventure story — daring escapes, near misses, constant danger, clever ruses — with introspective moments about their lives, their pasts, and their hopes, now shown to be out of reach.
As with other books about the end of the world, it can be a very melancholy read, as we know that no matter how much we might wish otherwise, all the characters we meet are doomed. Still, their journey is powerful and and I was very caught up in seeing how their experiences would change them. Would they find peace? Would they make new discoveries? Would they find a way out for Charlotte? I won’t tell here, but I found the ending sad, satisfying, and oddly right, in its own way.
I will say that my brain could never quite grasp the enormity of the world the ship. How can there be a space ship the size of Switzerland? There are only brief descriptions of the overall shape and design of the container of the world — the ship’s hulls, its cylindrical shape, its rotational access — but my mind just never quite got how there could be an entire world, with geographical features like seas and mountains, inside a ship. (That said, I was fine with reading Discworld, in which the entire world travels through space on the back of a giant turtle… but hey, that’s fantasy!)
Despite not being able to come to terms with the size and features of the ship itself, I did enjoy the attempt to picture it all, and couldn’t help but admire the author’s inventiveness in creating such a strange, weird world. Besides the physical aspects of the world, I thought it was also very clever to create such a stratified society, with the ultra-privileged wealthy few dominating the lives of so many contract workers and free working class people. It’s literally an entire world created to support the privilege of those able to afford a new life on a new planet, and the social structure really is fascinating.
The World Gives Way is a little inconsistent in tone, with its ups and downs of action and emotion, but I did like it very much. It wasn’t what I expected, but it ends up really delivering an engrossing and thought-provoking reading experience.
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Title: The Apocalypse Seven Author: Gene Doucette Publisher: John Joseph Adams Publication date: May 25, 2021 Length: 363 pages Genre: Science fiction Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley (plus a Goodreads giveaway!) Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whatever.
The whateverpocalypse. That’s what Touré, a twenty-something Cambridge coder, calls it after waking up one morning to find himself seemingly the only person left in the city. Once he finds Robbie and Carol, two equally disoriented Harvard freshmen, he realizes he isn’t alone, but the name sticks: Whateverpocalypse. But it doesn’t explain where everyone went. It doesn’t explain how the city became overgrown with vegetation in the space of a night. Or how wild animals with no fear of humans came to roam the streets.
Add freakish weather to the mix, swings of temperature that spawn tornadoes one minute and snowstorms the next, and it seems things can’t get much weirder. Yet even as a handful of new survivors appear—Paul, a preacher as quick with a gun as a Bible verse; Win, a young professional with a horse; Bethany, a thirteen-year-old juvenile delinquent; and Ananda, an MIT astrophysics adjunct—life in Cambridge, Massachusetts gets stranger and stranger.
The self-styled Apocalypse Seven are tired of questions with no answers. Tired of being hunted by things seen and unseen. Now, armed with curiosity, desperation, a shotgun, and a bow, they become the hunters. And that’s when things truly get weird.
I found myself mumbling or exclaiming “WTF???” practically once a chapter, start to finish, in this incredibly entertaining and mind-blowing novel of the apocalypse.
Or, as Touré puts it, the whateverpocalypse.
Seven seemingly random strangers wake up to find that they’re alone in a world suddenly overrun by plant life and wild animals — in what was formerly an urban college town. At Harvard and at MIT, several individuals wake up in confusion. Robbie wakes up in his dorm room bed, frantic that he overslept on the first day of freshman classes, only to discover that his technology doesn’t work, he has no idea what time it is, the clothes in the dresser drawers aren’t his, and there’s absolutely no one else around.
Before long he meets fellow student Carol, a blind young woman unsuccessfully trying to locate her dog, and the two then meet free-spirited Toure. Meanwhile, MIT astrophysicist Ananda wakes up at her office desk, confused by why she’s wearing her “Monday clothes” on a Tuesday, teen-ager Bethany wakes up in her suburban family home to see the shrine her family has erected in her memory, pastor Paul leaves his isolated New Hampshire mountaintop chapel when he realizes he’s all alone, and tough-girl Win mounts a horse to head toward a city and try to find other people.
They quickly realize that they’re the only people in the greater Boston area, and most likely in the world, but they have no idea why. How could all these trees and plants have grown so rapidly? Why are there deer and boar and wolves roaming and/or rampaging through the city streets?
Survival is the first issue to address, and initially, Robbie, Toure, and Carol are in rough shape, with no practical skills between them. As they connect with the others and explore local resources, they form plans, raid local malls to stock up on tools and clothing, figure out which parts of campus are safe (and where they’re most likely to run into packs of slavering wolves), and generally start to squeak their way toward something like building a way of staying alive.
The question remains, though: Why did they survive, and no one else did? What made them different? What actually happened to the human population of earth?
Don’t look at me — I’m not giving a thing away! Hints and odd facts and anomalies come to light along the way, but it’s only in the last 20% or so that the characters start to arrive at some real answers. I gotta be honest — even having finished the book, I’m not sure I completely get it, but I think it’s more a question of my brain not being able to fully follow the WTF-ness of it all than it not making sense. There is definitely an answer — but it’s kind of bent my brain into a pretzel, and it’ll take me some time to untangle it all.
There’s so much to love about The Apocalypse Seven. I’m often put off by books that focus on a group coming together, because many times the characters are introduced too quickly or in too large a chunk for them to really differentiate themselves as individuals. Not so in this book — each of the seven are special and memorable, with distinct personalities and backstories and abilities, and I really appreciated how well described they all are.
I also really enjoyed the setting. Who would have thought that a college town like Cambridge would offer so many resources for hiding, finding survival gear, and making a safe(ish) long-term shelter? The use of the campuses and their resources is really ingenious, and I was charmed by the characters’ inventiveness.
It’s also worth noting that this book — despite being about the near-total extinction of the human race — can be really, really funny. The characters are clever and the banter is crisp, and certain elements are just ridiculous enough to make me laugh out loud (or feel quietly charmed).
I really, really want other people to read this book! First of all, it’s so enjoyable and mind-warpy, frightening in its own way — but really, how seriously dire can the end of the world feel when characters use words like “whateverpocalypse”? Beyond the terrific reading experience, I want people I know to read The Apocalypse Seven so someone can explain the ending to me and tell me if we understand it the same way!!
Really and truly, though, The Apocalypse Seven is a terrific read, and I had a great time zipping my way through it.
Big shout-out and thank you to the publisher and Goodreads — I won a copy in a Goodreads giveaway!
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Title: Hollow Kingdom Author: Kira Jane Buxton Publisher: Grand Central Publishing Publication date: August 6, 2019 Length: 308 pages Genre: Horror Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
One pet crow fights to save humanity from an apocalypse in this uniquely hilarious debut from a genre-bending literary author.
S.T., a domesticated crow, is a bird of simple pleasures: hanging out with his owner Big Jim, trading insults with Seattle’s wild crows (those idiots), and enjoying the finest food humankind has to offer: Cheetos ®.
Then Big Jim’s eyeball falls out of his head, and S.T. starts to feel like something isn’t quite right. His most tried-and-true remedies–from beak-delivered beer to the slobbering affection of Big Jim’s loyal but dim-witted dog, Dennis–fail to cure Big Jim’s debilitating malady. S.T. is left with no choice but to abandon his old life and venture out into a wild and frightening new world with his trusty steed Dennis, where he discovers that the neighbors are devouring each other and the local wildlife is abuzz with rumors of dangerous new predators roaming Seattle. Humanity’s extinction has seemingly arrived, and the only one determined to save it is a foul-mouthed crow whose knowledge of the world around him comes from his TV-watching education.
Hollow Kingdom is a humorous, big-hearted, and boundlessly beautiful romp through the apocalypse and the world that comes after, where even a cowardly crow can become a hero.
If you think a book whose lead character is a crow must be weird, well, you’re right. It’s also amazing and fabulous, and I loved it a bunch!
In Hollow Kingdom, something is very wrong with the humans (referred to as MoFos by our hero, S.T. (whose name stands for Shit Turd, in case you’re wondering). There’s the fact that Big Jim’s eyeball has fallen out. And their heads are all at weird angles. And they run their fingers over surfaces until they’re worn down to bone and beyond. And they’ve become feral. Yeah, the world has definitely changed. And S.T. doesn’t like it one bit.
All S.T. wants is for things to go back to normal, so he can watch TV and eat Cheetos with Big Jim, but sadly, it’s looking less and less likely. Finally, S.T. decides to set out with Big Jim’s dog Dennis to find out what’s going on with the rest of the MoFos outside their Seattle home.
It’s not pretty. The world has fallen apart. As S.T. learns from the murder of crows who hang out at the university, all of humanity has been destroyed by a technology-spread virus. Now, it’s time for nature to reassert a sense of balance in the world. The zoo animals have been released, and giraffes and elephants wander the city. There’s a trio of tigers on the loose as well, and a local stadium has become home to hippos. S.T. and Dennis set out on a mission to free the domestics — finding ways to break into homes and release the pet animals who would otherwise starve to death, locked inside houses where there are no more humans to open the doors or provide food.
It’s a dangerous and awe-inspiring adventure, and S.T. is a magnificent narrator. He considers himself more human than crow, and his journey gives him an opportunity to reconsider where he fits in the natural world and to reconnect with his crow-ness.
The mythology of the animal world is inventive and oddly logical, and the interplay between species works so well. And it’s not just animals — for those who listen, even the trees have wisdom to impart.
S.T. is an opinionated, foul-mouthed anti-hero, who finds himself in the hero business purely by accident, and then rises to the occasion. That doesn’t mean that he loves everyone he meets or revises his condemnation for lesser creatures, including his loathing of penguins — as when he encounters the welcome sign at the zoo:
You can imagine how elated I was to discover that they’d placed cutouts of frolicking penguins all over their sign. Fucking newspaper-colored, ice-balled dick goblins, yeah, that’s who you want as your brand ambassador.
He looks down on lots of birds and animals, to be sure:
It had become clear on this second attempt at going airborne that I now had the aviation skills of an obese chicken. Again, I tried to focus on the positive and not the comparison to a bird who likes to sing while ovulating and has the worst retirement plan of all time (pot pie).
But there are also moment of adulation:
We were utterly surrounded. Plovers, kingfishers, ospreys, sapsuckers, larks, nightjars, shrikes, and buntings. I got starstruck at the sight of a snowy owl, because, I mean, Harry Potter.
S.T. isn’t the only narrator — in brief chapters mixed in throughout the book, we get scenes from the point of view of cats, dogs, trees, and even a polar bear. One of my favorites is Genghis Cat, who has a unique worldview, especially when it comes to taking care of the orangutan who’s come into his life:
Orange needs my protection. He is very, very fat. I summon my feline kin to join me in his protection. Striped ones with laser-pointer moves, jumpers, long-haired assassins, night kings, mousers, shadow stalkers, tree scalers, and one strange naked one that looks like an uncooked chicken. We are killers, warriors, hunters.
I could go on, but you probably get the idea. Hollow Kingdom is strange and wonderful, incredibly fascinating and surprisingly funny and moving. It’s a brave new world, one without MoFos like us, and the animal kingdom is ready to take it on.
Hollow Kingdom is, plain and simple, a great read, unlike anything else I’ve read in the past few years. Don’t miss it.
“Take a Peek” book reviews are short and (possibly) sweet, keeping the commentary brief and providing a little peek at what the book’s about and what I thought.
Synopsis:
(via Goodreads)
From the national bestselling author of Alice comes a postapocalyptic take on the perennial classic “Little Red Riding Hood”…about a woman who isn’t as defenseless as she seems.
It’s not safe for anyone alone in the woods. There are predators that come out at night: critters and coyotes, snakes and wolves. But the woman in the red jacket has no choice. Not since the Crisis came, decimated the population, and sent those who survived fleeing into quarantine camps that serve as breeding grounds for death, destruction, and disease. She is just a woman trying not to get killed in a world that doesn’t look anything like the one she grew up in, the one that was perfectly sane and normal and boring until three months ago.
There are worse threats in the woods than the things that stalk their prey at night. Sometimes, there are men. Men with dark desires, weak wills, and evil intents. Men in uniform with classified information, deadly secrets, and unforgiving orders. And sometimes, just sometimes, there’s something worse than all of the horrible people and vicious beasts combined.
Red doesn’t like to think of herself as a killer, but she isn’t about to let herself get eaten up just because she is a woman alone in the woods….
My Thoughts:
The Girl in Red brings together so many elements that I absolutely love in books. Pandemic? Check. Breakdown of civilization? Check. Woman having to survive on her own? Check, check, check.
Red, in her earlier years, was an avid consumer of horror and disaster films, and so she knows the rules. Be prepared. Always have your weapon and pack ready. Never split up. Don’t do the stupid things that movie characters always do, because that leads to very bad things. And if you want to survive, you’ve got to learn fast and do whatever it takes.
I loved Red. She’s smart, strong, and determined. Left alone suddenly and tragically, her only hope is to avoid what she’s sure will be certain death in a quarantine camp by making her way to her grandmother’s isolated home in the woods, which means trekking through hundreds of miles of forest and defending herself along the way, all without being discovered or captured or exposed to the deadly disease that’s ravaged the world. Also, as a biracial, bisexual, disabled woman, Red is a breath of fresh air as a main character, especially since she’s a survivor who never lets anything, including her prosthetic leg, keep her from her path.
The plot is exciting and filled with danger. I love how the author flashes between present day, as Red progresses on her journey and uncovers all sorts of disturbing secrets, and the past, as she and her family prepare their escape and have their plans fall apart as the crisis escalates.
My only quibble here is that the end comes much too soon, and there are so many plot threads left untied. What happens next? What caused all the bad things (being vague here…)? I certainly hope there’s a next book, because I’m dying to know more. (I just wish this book was clearly marked as book #1 in a series, so I’d have been prepared to feel left hanging at the end.)
The Girl in Red is a great read, and I want more! I haven’t read anything else by this author yet, but that’s clearly got to change.
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The details:
Title: The Girl in Red
Author: Christina Henry
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: June 18, 2019
Length: 308 pages
Genre: Speculative fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Memory makes reality. That’s what New York City cop Barry Sutton is learning as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.
Neuroscientist Helena Smith already understands the power of memory. It’s why she’s dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious moments of our pasts. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent.
As Barry searches for the truth, he comes face-to-face with an opponent more terrifying than any disease—a force that attacks not just our minds but the very fabric of the past. And as its effects begin to unmake the world as we know it, only he and Helena, working together, will stand a chance at defeating it.
But how can they make a stand when reality itself is shifting and crumbling all around them?
When I read Black Crouch’s previous novel, Dark Matter, I used the word mind-f*ckery in my review. And apparently, this author excels at mind-f*ckery, because that’s exactly how I’d describe this book too.
And I mean that as very high praise!
Recursion is crazy heaps of mind-melting, time-distorting, reality-altering fun, and I loved it start to finish.
Barry is our non-scientist entry into the world of playing with reality by activating memories. Helena is the scientist who makes it all possible. Her goal is to help her mother before she completely loses herself to Alzheimer’s, but an innovative mega-millionaire realizes that Helena’s invention can be so much more. When he funds her research, the best scientific minds are assembled to create the device at the heart of Helena’s studies, a chair that enables people to save the synaptic imprints of vivid memories so that they can be re-experienced later, perhaps when those memories have been consumed by disease and deterioration.
I won’t go deeper into plot than what I’ve already said. Through Barry and Helena’s separate experiences, we learn about the research, the ulterior motives of Helena’s benefactor, and the mind-boggling way in which her device can be put to use. The end results are far from what Helena intended or even dreamed… and from the reader’s perspective, it’s just so weird and cool. I came close to permanently tying my brain into a pretzel trying to follow some of the logic and cause-and-effect factors and timey-wimey shenanigans that get wilder and wilder as the book progresses. How crazy is it all? There are apocalypses. Yes, plural. Apocalypses.
At the same time that all this reality bending is going on, there are deep and beautiful relationships at stake, painful emotions and harsh truths, and some really intriguing thoughts about the role of memory and the meaning of experiences.
He is always looking back, living more in memories than the present, often altering them to make them prettier. To make them perfect. Nostalgia is as much an analgesic for him as alcohol.
The plot is complex and made me work hard to follow it (and I’m not sure I always understood exactly why things happened how and when they did), but I loved every moment and couldn’t put the book down. Recursion reminded me a little of one of my very favorite science fiction books, Replay by Ken Grimwood (which, if you haven’t read it, drop everything and go find a copy!).
As I think is obvious by now, I completely fell for Recursion and have been recommending it like a madwoman ever since I finished it. And every time I got confused by a freakish time twist? I just remembered a comment of Helena’s:
You have to stop thinking linearly.
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The details:
Title: Recursion
Author: Blake Crouch
Publisher: Crown
Publication date: June 11, 2019
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
“Take a Peek” book reviews are short and (possibly) sweet, keeping the commentary brief and providing a little peek at what the book’s about and what I thought.
Synopsis:
(via Goodreads)
When a beloved family dog is stolen, her owner sets out on a life-changing journey through the ruins of our world to bring her back in this fiercely compelling tale of survival, courage, and hope. Perfect for readers of Station Eleven and The Girl With All the Gifts.
My name’s Griz. My childhood wasn’t like yours. I’ve never had friends, and in my whole life I’ve not met enough people to play a game of football.
My parents told me how crowded the world used to be, but we were never lonely on our remote island. We had each other, and our dogs.
Then the thief came.
There may be no law left except what you make of it. But if you steal my dog, you can at least expect me to come after you.
Because if we aren’t loyal to the things we love, what’s the point?
My Thoughts:
A man stole my dog.
I went after him.
Bad things happened.
I can never go home.
I’ll keep this short and to the point, because it would be way too easy to veer into spoilery territory, and this book is best experienced fresh and free from a whole lot of expectations. It’s a wonderful story about love and loyalty, centered around a quest to retrieve a beloved dog, and filled with danger, unexpected alliances and moments of grace, bravery, and defiance. And yes, a little sadness too.
The title says a lot about the basics of the book. The key point is that this is a world of after — nothing is as we know it. And it’s not because of a world war or other doomsday scenario. Instead, the world basically went infertile, except for a very small percentage of people who didn’t. There was a last generation, and once they died out, the people who remained — about 7,000 worldwide — were left to live on in whatever fashion suited them. The world we know was essentially dead. Nothing new was made or created, and people survived through farming and scavenging (or, as Griz’s family calls it, “viking” — they’d go “a-viking” to see what they could find to reuse and repurpose on their own little isolated island).
Told through Griz’s first-person narration, the story takes us along Griz’s journey, across the sea and through an abandoned and alien mainland… because a stolen dog cannot be forgotten. I loved the writing, both plain and unembellished, yet full of fun word play and cadences:
And then the thing that happened happened and what happened was really three things and they all happened at once.
I really truly loved this book. It’s sad and frightening, but also lovely and inspiring. Griz is a terrific, memorable main character. The story wraps up well, neatly enough to leave me satisfied, but I still wish I could learn more about this world and the people left in it.
Highly recommended. What a treat!
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The details:
Title: A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World
Author: C. A. Fletcher
Publisher: Orbit
Publication date: April 23, 2019
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Speculative/post-apocalyptic fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Bookshelf Fantasies 