Adrian M. Gibson

Mushroom Blues

Mushroom Blues is an indie published urban fantasy dipped in weird sauce and sprinkled with cyberpunk vibes. The name says it all: the setting is quite emotionally blue and everything is fungi. The setting is a fungal town, where people are essentially anthropomorphic mushrooms and most things are fungi related, which was defeated in a war and is now colonized by humans.

The story is told through the narration of the main character, a human detective that has to investigate the murder of a fungal child and is forced to work with a fungal policeman. The mystery gets more complicated and connected in a predictably grand strategy with how the human/fungal relations, peace and colonialism will tread on - or not.

I must say that the idea of this book is really good and thought out. Adrian M. Gibson gives the reader a good complex setting, filled with racism and colonialism themes, differences and both within and between cultures and a believable post-war status quo, and a main character that starts with an uncontrollable aversion to fungi and a personal trauma that is forced to engage with the world and her self beyond her guardrails. The mystery itself is what one would expect, good to get the story going, never really surprising in the long run.

- The overwhelming need to transmit the setting to the reader. Everything in this book is a mycothis, a polyporethat, a fruiting body here, a lot of spores there. In the beginning, and considering the main character's reaction, it makes real sense, but we could do with a lot less reminders that all is fungal, half way across the read we already see it before he writes it. The fungal culture is, on the other hand, heavily Japanese inspired, to a point where I might have liked it to be less obvious, as it got me "out" of the story at times.

- The resolution to the main character's fungal aversion mixed with racism. These things are never easy and it would always be hard to "explain" how someone changes their mind and even their physical reaction to something or someone in one novel that isn't solely focused on that, and I felt it was too quick and clear to be believable.

All in all, a nice read - I can see how the SPFBO judges wanted to highlight it - and I must say that, even if I am unsure if I'll dive into so much mushroom again (I eat quite enough as it is) I would be interested to read other things written by Adrian M. Gibson in the future.

André Nóbrega

Mushroom Blues is an indie published urban fantasy dipped in weird sauce and sprinkled with cyberpunk vibes. The name says it all: the setting is quite emotionally blue and everything is fungi. The setting is a fungal town, where people are essentially anthropomorphic mushrooms and most things are fungi related, which was defeated in a war and is now colonized by humans.
The story is told through the narration of the main character, a human detective that has to investigate the murder of a fungal child and is forced to work with a fungal policeman. The mystery gets more complicated and connected in a predictably grand strategy with how the human/fungal relations, peace and colonialism will tread on - or not.
I must say that the idea of this book is really good and thought out. Adrian M. Gibson gives the reader a good complex setting, filled with racism and colonialism themes, differences and both within and between cultures and a believable post-war status quo, and a main character that starts with an uncontrollable aversion to fungi and a personal trauma that is forced to engage with the world and her self beyond her guardrails. The mystery itself is what one would expect, good to get the story going, never really surprising in the long run.
Two points that I did not enjoy:
- The overwhelming need to transmit the setting to the reader. Everything in this book is a mycothis, a polyporethat, a fruiting body here, a lot of spores there. In the beginning, and considering the main character's reaction, it makes real sense, but we could do with a lot less reminders that all is fungal, half way across the read we already see it before he writes it. The fungal culture is, on the other hand, heavily Japanese inspired, to a point where I might have liked it to be less obvious, as it got me "out" of the story at times.
- The resolution to the main character's fungal aversion mixed with racism. These things are never easy and it would always be hard to "explain" how someone changes their mind and even their physical reaction to something or someone in one novel that isn't solely focused on that, and I felt it was too quick and clear to be believable.

All in all, a nice read - I can see how the SPFBO judges wanted to highlight it - and I must say that, even if I am unsure if I'll dive into so much mushroom again (I eat quite enough as it is) I would be interested to read other things written by Adrian M. Gibson in the future.

Mushroom Blues

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