THE GENIUS PLAGUE

Fiction

Fungus among us

THE GENIUS PLAGUE

By David Walton

384 pp. Prometheus Books

Reviewed by Eric Petersen

Sci-fi/horror master David Walton is back with his third novel. Like his previous novels Superposition and Supersymmetry, (also reviewed on this site) it features the common theme of humanity facing a potentially catastrophic alien threat.

Unlike the novels that preceded it, which deal with an alien threat spawned by experiments in quantum physics, the alien threat in The Genius Plague shares our planet with us. In fact, it’s been here for millions of years.

The story begins in the jungles of the Amazon rainforest, with Paul Johns, an American mycologist, ready to return to civilization after spending nearly a week on his own collecting samples of fungi. On his way to catch a riverboat, he runs into a fellow American named Maisie – a bored rich girl in search of adventure.

The two strike up a friendship as they wait with some tourists for their boat, which picks up its passengers on time. Paul and Maisie’s boat ride takes an ominous turn when a patrol boat appears on the scene. The soldiers on the boat seem oddly coordinated, their actions apparently choreographed.

One of the soldiers boards the passenger boat and talks to the pilot – then nonchalantly shoots him in the head. The next thing Paul knows, the soldiers on the patrol boat open fire on everyone with automatic weapons, massacring them.

Paul and Maisie dive into the water and swim for their lives, escaping their attackers by fleeing into the rainforest. While walking through the jungle, Paul notices a strange, unfamiliar species of bioluminescent fungus growing in brightly glowing green splotches, lighting up the night:

From time to time, Paul stopped to examine the glowing spots, but he learned nothing new. The fungus all appeared to be the same species, one that he didn’t recognize. He wanted to take a sample, but he knew that it would be useless to do so. All of his sample packs were in his abandoned pack, and putting samples in his damp pocket would just mean a pocketful of decaying slime by the time he could retrieve them.

The path continued for miles, leading them unerringly across easy terrain and around obstacles. They followed it, its twin glowing lines stretching deeper into the dark forest, until the light vanished. Without warning, the luminescence shut off suddenly as if someone had thrown a switch, plunging them into complete darkness.

He felt Maisie’s hand groping for his and he grasped it, holding on tightly. 

“Paul?” she said, her voice tight with fear. “What’s going on?”

Meanwhile, back in America, Paul’s brother Neil Johns, who provides the first-person narration, wants nothing more than to work for the National Security Agency (NSA) like their father, a legendary NSA agent. Sadly, the man is now suffering from late-stage Alzheimer’s disease and can barely remember his own name.

Neil wants to work as an NSA code breaker, but his interviewer is less than impressed by his history of troublemaking and expulsion from several universities. Then he decodes an extremely complex cipher without the use of a computer, catching the eye of the boss, Melody Muniz.

His brother Paul, who had disappeared in the Amazon rainforest, contacts the family and comes home, only to collapse and suffer from a severe fungal infection. He recovers, but his friend Maisie, who suffered the same infection, dies from it. Paul finds that the infection has caused a spike in his intelligence and focus.

Now a probationary NSA agent, Neil’s first assignment is to crack a strange code being used in South America, which he identifies as the language of the Johura, a small, isolated native tribe in the Amazon. The language is very primitive and extremely difficult to translate. The NSA fears that it’s being used by drug traffickers to communicate with each other.

There’s a new drug flooding North America and Europe, one that has the authorities very concerned. It’s called Neuritol, and it does a lot more than get you high – it greatly increases one’s intelligence and focus, making it very popular with college students, including Melody Muniz’s granddaughter.

Neil is angered when Paul injects their father with the fungal spores that had infected him – until the man’s Alzheimer’s ravaged brain is miraculously restored. But as Neil and the NSA are about to discover, there’s more to this fungus than meets the eye, as South America suddenly explodes into chaos.

Democratically elected leaders in various countries are assassinated and replaced. Soldiers are turning on their countries and overthrowing their governments. Nations that were political polar opposites and enemies for decades have suddenly become close allies. Just about every country in South America is working together for the common good – protecting the Amazon rainforest from destruction.

Neil Johns soon discovers the horrifying truth: the spores of an ancient, previously unknown species of fungus have found their way into the perfect hosts – the bodies of humans, making them geniuses and influencing their behavior. Under the fungus’s control, people are finally putting aside their selfish interests and learning to work together to build a better world.

Paul sees this as the next step in human evolution, but Neil believes that the loss of free will is too steep a price to pay. And whose common good are the people really working for? Neil soon discovers the fungus’s ultimate plan for the human race…

It’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets the X-Files in a thought-provoking sci-fi/horror tale that’s impossible to put down. A well-written and well-researched masterpiece of suspense, The Genius Plague is a must-read! Highly recommended!

Eric Petersen is an administrator and blogmaster for the Internet Writing Workshop, an international, online writer’s group run out of Penn State University. You can reach him by e-mail at EricPetersen1970@hotmail.com