The Genius Plague by David Walton was awesome. It was so good, I was sad I had to do a review because I just wanted to devour it instead of slowing down to gather material for a complete review.
The premise was so unique, too, dealing with the spread of a fungal infection that heightened peoples’ levels of intelligence, and drove them to insane terrorist-level lengths to ensure the fungi’s survival.
The story is told from the first-person perspective of Neil Johns, a clever young man applying for a job at the NSA. Despite his cleverness, he can be a little feather-headed, too, but in a good and goofy way, which makes for some funny moments to offset the underlying seriousness of a plague which can turn even the most average human being into a brilliant strategist.
Although there are a lot of violent moments, it never went over the top. This is definitely a book that has me checking to see what else the author has written. An A+ story, with A+ characters, and an A+ plot! I highly recommend this novel.
This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Pyr
Content Analysis:
Profanity/Language: 2 derogatory comments; 5 anatomical terms.
Violence/Gore: Many instances of violence, including but not limited to: A character feels threatened by police on a boat; a character is shot in the head, with some description of gore; characters are fired upon with automatic rifles; characters see a newsreel about violence in the Amazon; a character has a fit where he coughs up blood and faints; a character is diagnosed with a fungal infection; characters occasionally face the threat of arrest and/or imprisonment; the leaders of two countries are assassinated; characters frequently discuss terrorist attacks and intricate codes; there is a report of a spreading epidemic; characters witness explosions; characters are implicated in violence involving death/murders; a character is accused of betraying her country; characters are sometimes threatened with violence and/or death; characters face the threat of biological warfare; a character admits to having psychotic episodes with thoughts of killing someone; characters discuss the correlation of an epidemic with uprising terrorist activity; a man attacks a woman with a knife, with some description of injuries; a planeload of soldiers mutinies to take back control of the aircraft; a character warns that a country’s leader is in danger; there are frequent reports of uprisings occurring throughout the world; characters are trapped with rising temperatures and germinating fungal spores; characters use a new strain of fungal disease that causes mind-control in subjects; a character is ambushed and infected with a disease; a character connects to mycelium via hyphae growing out of his hair; a character is tasked with a suicide mission to prevent the spread of a mind-controlling disease; a male character shoots a female character; in an extended scene, masses of people are infected with a mind-control agent, a man manipulates a person infected with the agent to gain access to a secure facility, a man gives a gun to a woman in case she needs to shoot him; a character faces the leader of a terrorist group in an attempt to convince him not to use nukes to create radioactive debris to spread Kingdom Fungi; a character drugs someone to take over command of a facility; in an extended scene, characters are ambushed and a character is shot and killed by gunfire, while other characters are captured, and a terrorist escapes to a facility lower levels in an effort to initiate the plan for detonating all the nukes in the building; a character is reported to be dead.
Sex/Nudity: A female character discusses her love life with a man; a character describes how fungus has sex; a female character puts her hand on a man’s arm; a male and female character sit back to back for warmth; a character is described as being separated from her husband; characters discuss someone’s parents’ separation; a male character is said to be dating a girl; characters discuss fungus reproduction in humans; a male character mentions girls in bikinis; a character remembers a man’s reputation used to be that he liked kissing girls; a character says someone doesn’t have the balls to get a job done; a character is said to be flirting with the nursing staff; a characters says she won’t take advantage of someone if he sleeps at her house; a character briefly mentions how a drug could force girls to become sex slaves; a male character invites a female character out for drinks; a woman calls up a man after their meeting in a hospital.
Mature Subject Matter:
Mental disorder, murder, disease, infection, death, war, drugs, drug-trafficking, epidemic, spousal separation, assassination, terrorist activity.
Alcohol / Drug Use:
Characters are said to take drugs; characters sometimes have drinks; characters sometimes receive injections; characters are occasionally given medications; a character is said to have been admitted to the hospital for a drug overdose.
