INTRODUCTION

John Brosnan and I wrote The Fungus in 1985, the year that John was best man at Kathleen’s and my wedding. (His wedding present of a plaster bust of Prince Charles and Princess Diana marked “Roy and Kathleen” in black felt pen is still in our loft.) The Fungus was based on an idea by Kathleen who (thinking there was actually a level to which John and I wouldn’t sink) asked if anyone had ever written a novel based on a compost heap. It was, inevitably, about a genetically engineered fungus and things went terribly wrong. As you’ll see, my own very limited experiences with athlete’s foot form part of the opening sequence—though the other thorough research involved me actually buying a textbook called Fungus—and a lot of it is too horrible to summarise. More of The Fungus was written by me than some of our other collaborations, though there was a part of the draft I gave to John which he said that even he couldn’t pass on to a publisher. Thank God.

The Fungus was our second novel together, after Slimer in 1983, though John had used the Harry Adam Knight pseudonym to write Carnosaur on his own in 1984. It was our most successful and genuinely well thought of horror novel, despite what seems to be much of the print run of the first British edition (which had a terrible cover) still lurking in the loft. Like all our horror books, it was published abroad—France (L’immonde invasion), Italy (Il Fungo), Poland (Fungus—who knew?)—but, most surprisingly, the U.S.A. And in hardback. This was entirely down to Charles Platt, who was working for Franklin Watts, perhaps on a freelance basis, and for some reason thought the book was worth their publishing. It also went on to a U.S. paperback sale (Death Spore) and another British edition with Gollancz, but with an even worse cover than the first. At least by then it had had the chance to accumulate through its various editions some cover quotes assiduously collected by the authors from their mates: Clive Barker—“I had a damned good time with this book”; Brian Aldiss—“I loved it and you will find it will grow on you”; every book cover’s friend, Kirkus Reviews—“Loud, scary sick fun. You will never again go near mushroom soup” and Ramsey Campbell, who actually appears to have read it—“A spectacularly gruesome nasty, written with inventiveness, grisly wit, and considerably more intelligence than almost all its competitors”. And, of course, “the new Stephen King” credited to Starburst Magazine where John had a column in which he carefully avoided mentioning his own involvement.

On the website Vault of Evil, there is a page (as there is a page devoted to most horror books, I guess) on which a few people write enthusiastically about The Fungus in such terms as “The Fungus is a great read” and “at times little short of genius”. Modesty, on behalf of both John and myself, prevents me from quoting any of this, of course. No, wait.

Both Slimer and Carnosaur went on to be made into movies—Proteus (1995) and Carnosaur (1993) (with two sequels). The Fungus was never made into a movie, but on a recent trip to Louisville, Kentucky, Kathleen and I were sitting having coffee listening to a street musician near the Seelbach Hotel, which had a ballroom that inspired a young Scott Fitzgerald into setting scenes in a similar hotel in The Great Gatsby, when I got an email. From Hollywood. From a producer interested in The Fungus. Not a famous or particularly successful Hollywood producer, but then it wasn’t a famous or particularly successful book, but, hey, maybe it would pay for our holiday or, at worst, the cup of coffee. And to think that we were sitting only a few yards from where Fitzgerald had got his inspiration. There must be something about great writers and Louisville. However, nothing came of it, but in any event this new edition would still be the best way to experience John’s and my work.

John died in 2005. He’d been a close friend for 35 years. We had a lot of fun together, and I hope that you think we put some of it in The Fungus.

 

Roy Kettle

October 2013