Spores

Spores will keep you up too late

I thought I wouldn’t enjoy this much, but I grabbed it while it was free and thought I’d nothing to lose. How wrong I was! I’ve lost several hours of sleep in the last few nights by staying awake way too late, unable to put it down! There’s definitely a feel of Stephen King to this, mostly the compulsive ‘I-need-to-keep-reading-just-a-bit-longer-to-see-what-happens’ aspect.

Most of the book happens around one isolated location with a small number of characters, which adds a claustrophobic intensity to the story that contributes to the suspense.

If you’re looking for a good distraction that’s overall pretty well written (and reasonably well edited, bar a few mistakes here and there) and engrossing, go for it!

Update 2025: Five years after reading Spores, I realise that it has permanently influenced the way I think about fungi, just like Hitchcock’s The Birds permanently twisted my view of birds. That’s what a good book (or movie) can do! 😉

See my reviews of more Ike Hamill novels: Extinct, Accidental Evil, Kill Cycle