Mushrooms, love them or hate them, they have experienced a spurt of popularity in the last few years, and none more so than in the horror, apocalypse and science fiction genres. Which is totally fine by The BookBug.
Fungi is fascinating and, if you haven't picked up a copy of Merlin Sheldrake's ENTANGLED LIFE already, then do so at the earliest opportunity, and not just because it's a pretty cool name.
Over the last few years I've read a number of great books that cast fungi, and particularly Cordyceps, the one that takes over insects, like ants, and turns them into zombies. It's a really interesting organism and one that is worth reading up on, as authors seem to have been doing lately!
Anyway, the proliferation of books where fungi is the progenitor of the end of the world has produced some great fiction which The BookBug has devoured. The Girl With all the Gifts springs to mind and the great Netflix show The Last of Us. Two great examples of storytelling where fungus is the beginning of the end.
There are more, and in a later post I may well do a TOP 10 of Fungi Fiction!
But today is about a book I picked up this week and read - COLD STORAGE by David Koepp.
The book is a quick and enjoyable read. Fast-paced, energetic and very believable for the most part. What The BookBug liked most about this book was how quickly it hit the ground and how it maintained the pace throughout the book. The characters were diverse, well-drawn and in the main, very funny. There is a degree of dark humour throughout the book that on occasion made The BookBug snort with laughter. The main characters of Naomi and Teacake are easy characters to like as are the characters of Roberto Diaz and Trini Romano, the agents who first encountered the deadly fungus.
It has the pacing of a film, and with David Koepp having written the script for Jurassic Park, the pacing is ideal for an action science film of that ilk. The fungus (which has a sort of point of view in this book) is well thought out, it's ability to morph to suit the environment, to work out how to evolve and escape confinement, are both scary and believable.
Cold Storage is a great read, a one-sitter, best enjoyed with some dark ambient music in the background, your favourite drink and time to savour the action as it unfolds at a rapid rate. The humour is well-used, it feels true to life, being dark, sarcastic and in places dead-pan. In fact, to me, the humour felt at times very British, but also reminiscent of Return of the Living Dead, but that might be just poor memory on my part. I need to rewatch that classic!
If you haven't read this book, then I wholeheartedly recommend you do. Better still, pick it up from the store from the link below.
And watch out for the deer!
And, if you were interested in last weeks books, you can also pick them up from the store!
HAPPY READING FELLOW BOOKBUGS!
