Return to the mushroom metropolis of Neo Kinoko, immerse yourself in a sinister world of gangsters, blackmail, and fungal cuisine, and prepare for a Michelin-star tragedy in six courses.
The knives are out in this fast-paced, standalone Fungalverse novel. Set several months after the events of the award-winning Mushroom Blues, this side story combines the culinary wonder of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, the kitchen chaos of The Bear, and the explosive tension of Hong Kong crime thrillers.
In the aftermath of the “Fuyu Massacre,” riots and whispers of revolution continue to plague the Hōpponese capital of Neo Kinoko. As a result, the iron grip of a foreign military occupation tightens day by day. Amidst this, Pocho Jiro, a once-renowned makizushi chef, has chosen to cook for Duncan MacArthur—the Coprinian Military Governor in Hōppon—as his personal chef… and indentured servant.
A run-in with dangerous fungal gangsters sets off a chain of events that Pocho cannot escape from. He’s left with two choices: Assassinate MacArthur, or watch his beloved sister die in front of his eyes. Will Pocho take up his knife and prepare MacArthur’s final meal?
Shit… writing a second book really is hard
Just before I published my debut novel, Mushroom Blues, I had all these grand, ambitious publishing plans, and even a projection timeline that lined up release windows years in advance. I told myself, “I’ll write and release book two by X date, and then do book three by Y date, et cetera et cetera.” But, well… all of that fell apart faster than a goddamn fungus grows after a rainstorm.
Turns out, writing a second book can actually be as challenging as people say—it certainly was for me. “The Sophomore Slump,” “Sequelitis,” “Second Book Blues” or whatever you want to call it, it’s real! The thing is, as much as I’d prepared myself mentally (even talking to numerous published authors on my podcast about this very concept), I wasn’t ready for how I would actually feel once Mushroom Blues was published, nor was I ready for the weeks and months that followed. I put so much of my mental and emotional energy into that book that I didn’t leave room to enjoy the achievement of debuting, or the successes that followed, or the fact that I had other stories that I wanted to write.
And that’s not to be negative and poo-poo my whole experience—on the contrary. For a self-published debut, Mushroom Blues has done really well: it has sold thousands of copies; it got nominated for a bunch of awards and won many of them; and it even landed 2nd place (out of 300 books) in Mark Lawrence’s tenth Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) competition. That’s a lot to live up to for a project that started out as an experiment and has developed into something far beyond my expectations. But that comes with a lot of baggage, too. I set the bar pretty fucking high for my first go at this, so the aftermath of my debut was riddled with starts and stops, ideas that burst into my brain, only to fizzle away after a few self-conscious pages. I found myself plagued with questions that did more to break me down than build me up: Was Mushroom Blues a fluke? Would I be able to write a good book again? What the hell am I even doing? A second book became something that felt more and more distant, even unattainable.
All this to say, writing a second really can be that hard, because it comes with all of the internal and external expectations of that first book. At least, that was the case for me. I didn’t just produce my first novel through some divine act of inspiration, and I didn’t forget how to write, either. A Murder Most Fungal is proof that I was able to write, finish, edit and publish a second novel, but it took me not writing a direct sequel to get there. (Side story standalones, for the win!) Now, looking back, I realize I was too caught up in the perceived requirements of being a debut self-published author, and I let my entrepreneurial pursuit override the fact that I’m a creator first and foremost. In a kind of self-destructive way, I took the fun away from myself by prioritizing the business side of things far more than the act of writing the stories that would fuel that business in the long term. Speaking of which…
Creativity is sacred (and marketing can only take you so far)
Truthfully, my debut broke my creative spirit. In hindsight, a major reason why the sophomore slump hit me as hard as it did is because I didn’t stop marketing Mushroom Blues for a year-and-a-goddamn-half. I was so wrapped up in making that book a success that I created this tunnel vision scenario for myself, where nothing felt as important as the thing that already existed—this tangible book that had already been published. “I can hustle and get that book into more readers’ hands!” I repeated to myself again and again.
But there was a convergence point that snapped me out of my marketing-induced fugue state: all of my marketing efforts started to plateau, the book had developed its own word-of-mouth snowball effect, and the creative parts of my brain were screaming at me to “WAKE THE FUCK UP AND WRITE!” I realized I couldn’t market this book forever, and the best marketing I could and should do was write and publish the next book. After all, I’d spent far too long desecrating the most sacred aspect of being an author: writing.
With that in mind, I went through a period of serious self-reflection, thinking on how I could move forward in this industry in a way that was creatively sustainable for me. It took a lot of effort, but I began to find joy in the process again. Drafting A Murder Most Fungal really helped, as did my folktale novelette “The Stem-Cutter’s Daughter” (featured in The Book of Spores anthology). Another thing that aided my creative rejuvenation was collaborating on projects with friends, including a graphic novel and an audio drama. I didn’t need to make a sacrifice at the altar of some creative deity, but I did find my way again, bit by bit. And the newfound respect I have for my process is invaluable, such that marketing can occupy the sidecar of my creative motorcycle as opposed to riding the bike itself.
Food makes for excellent worldbuilding fuel
I love me some food. Cooking, too. But at the outset of writing A Murder Most Fungal, I had a lot of trepidations about centering an entire story around food. Not only that, centering it around a chef who is also a mushroom person. Yet as I delved deeper into the role food plays in the culture of the fungal people of my secondary world, the more doors I opened into what it means for them to be them. Ultimately, every biological being requires some degree of sustenance, and that sustenance can take many forms. But once a living being reaches a level where they manipulate their food beyond its natural state, oooooh, that’s when things get fun! After all, even mushroom people have to eat.
That’s because food is a fundamental pillar of most any culture (real, fantasy or otherwise), and it can reveal so much about a people once it becomes cuisine. The food itself represents a culinary chronicle, allowing readers a peek into a culture’s geography and the resources they have access to, the structure of a society and its ability to coalesce around systems like agriculture, manufacturing, transportation and commerce, or how institutions of control (such as governments) impose their authority on how food is handled and distributed. There is also language, storytelling and other forms of communication and how they revolve around eating practices, or the fact that recipes passed down from generation to generation are essentially an adaptive, edible history. Add to that celebrations, festivals and religious practices that incorporate eatables and banquets and the like.
Food is a literal feast of worldbuilding opportunities. You can present these details to readers in a subtle, piecemeal way, through the context of a character and a setting, such that they eat up this information without feeling bogged down or pulled out of the story. I utilized this approach a lot in A Murder Most Fungal, offering readers simple, throwaway details that could add to their immersion and engage their imaginations in the possibilities of this world: “If Adrian describes the main character preparing a meal of fungalfin tuna, what does that mean about other animals in this world? Are they also merged with mushrooms?!” That layering—both by the author and the reader—makes a world feel so much more believable.
So, with that in mind, I will never take the worldbuilding potential of food for granted again—hopefully you won’t either.
Kitchens are a perfect setting for high-stakes drama
Another thing I was hesitant about with A Murder Most Fungal was the narrative potential of a restaurant setting. It’s a pretty confined environment without a lot of space to work with, so would there be enough tension and drama, or opportunities for character and relationship development? But once I started writing the story, my worries were quickly swept away like a crumbs on a kitchen floor. Why? Because I discovered that kitchens are actually an ideal breeding ground for storytelling possibilities!
I look at it this way: kitchens are the modern-day equivalent of a pirate ship. You throw a bunch of random people together, each of whom has a unique background, temperament, skillset, et cetera, and you push them to produce high quality products in a high-stress environment (plus, that environment is filled with things that can burn and stab you). It’s a narrative goldmine! Add to that the interpersonal developments, where intense camaraderie is formed in an almost trauma-bonded kind of way. Or even more complicated if sexual tensions or in-fighting evolve between employees.
So, during the drafting of A Murder Most Fungal, I thought deeply about this particular kind of setting and what it could provide and accomplish. I also spent a good amount of time going back and watching movies, shows and documentaries that I’d seen in the past, sort of as a refresher on how kitchen drama can be done well. There’s the comedic approach of Pixar’s animated masterpiece Ratatouille (chef’s kiss, such a good film!), or the foul-mouthed, fiery approach of Gordon Ramsay cooking shows like Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. But there’s also a lot to draw from a documentary like Jiro Dreams of Sushi, where the tension stems from an obsessive master chef with high expectations doling out subtle criticisms to his sons and his chefs, in a way that reflects his desire for perfection. And then there’s a show like The Bear, which delivers these anxiety-inducing family struggles and arguments, or coworkers who are at odds, or a business that is falling apart—it’s a shit show, but in the best way possible because you can’t look away. This is trainwreck-style drama, and the restaurant setting is so well suited to it.
Suffice to say, my early doubts were absurd, because restaurants are a perfect scenario for high-stakes drama. After all, a kitchen is bound to get messy at some point, and that mess makes for great stories.
I’m obsessed with fungal body horror
There’s something weirdly captivating about body horror. It’s visceral and unsettling, especially seeing something as familiar as the human body being deformed and altered in ways both subtle and overt. But when it comes to fungi specifically, I love how these organisms can infect the body, making changes from the inside out, until suddenly it becomes this grotesque eruption of mold and mushrooms manipulating flesh and bone.
Looking back, there are two properties that really instilled this fascination in me. One is The Last of Us video games and TV show, which did an incredible job of showing how spores and mycelia creep into hosts, then convert them into freakish fungal zombies with mushrooms blooming from their faces, or bloated bodies that ripple with fruiting bodies and spore-filled pustules. It’s so gross and terrifying, but I always found myself wanting more—even when I was scared shitless. The other property is Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy (Annihilation, Authority and Acceptance). Those books took a different approach to The Last of Us, instead delving more deeply into the psychological and philosophical aspects of being infected and having your mind taken over by an alien entity. Both are creepy as hell in their respective ways, but the result was that I became a massive fan of how fungi can change a host, both in mind and body.
Now that I write my own fungalpunk fiction, it was inevitable that body horror would play a part in it. And while I dabbled with fungal horror a fair bit in Mushroom Blues, it’s nothing compared to A Murder Most Fungal. This obsession I have took a disturbing turn in the latest book simply because of the story’s focus on food. While planning out the climax, I thought to myself, How could food and fungi come together to create a truly fucked up body horror extravaganza? Well, you’ll just have to read A Murder Most Fungal to find out.
Adrian M. Gibson is an award-winning Canadian SFF author, podcaster, book designer, illustrator and tattoo artist. He is the creator of the SFF Addicts podcast, which he co-hosts with fellow authors M. J. Kuhn and Greta Kelly. The three host in-depth interviews with an array of science fiction and fantasy authors, as well as writing masterclasses. He is also the Publishing Project Manager at Grimdark Magazine, heading up their line of fantasy and science fiction novellas. He lives in Quito, Ecuador with his family.
Adrian M. Gibson: Website | Instagram | SFF Addicts Podcast | YouTube
A Murder Most Fungal: Amazon | The Broken Binding
