Neil Johns is eager to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the NSA, but his lack of strong academic credentials and his reliance on unorthodox techniques make it a long shot. Seeing his promise, the agency gives him a chance, but Neil’s success feels bittersweet. Suffering from early-onset Alzheimers, Neil’s father can’t recognize his son’s accomplishments or be there to help him navigate the challenges that accompany them. Neil’s developing, tenuous professional life also becomes further complicated by other family matters. His mycologist brother Paul returns from a trip to the Amazon that ended by surviving a guerilla terrorist attack and Paul’s subsequent escape through the jungle. Paul arrives home in the US troubled by missing memories of just how he managed to survive to return to human civilization. Before even leaving the airport Paul collapses in front of Neil from what is soon diagnosed as fungal pneumonia. Neil soon begins to suspect that his brother’s condition is something much more than a common infection, something that may be spreading into a global pandemic with frightening sociopolitical implications that relate to current threats that he is analyzing with the NSA.
David Walton is an established SF writer whose work has appeared in Analog and whose debut novel, Terminal Mind, won the 2008 Philip K. Dick award for best paperback original. With The Genius Plague he combines a science fiction premise with the cyber thriller genre into a formula that recalls many works by Michael Crichton or more recently Petroplague by Amy Rogers, who runs a website devoted to this Science Thriller mashup genre.
I eagerly pounced on the chance to read The Genius Plague not because of its political thriller elements, but because of the microbiology. So, a caveat: as a microbiologist I admit to being a pretty demanding reviewer/critic for this kind of book. Ideally, I would like something that has an accurate scientific background with speculation that I can allow to stretch credibility a bit. But I look for that balanced with great literary elements such as writing style and characterization. Finally, as a thriller, it should be a fun, relatively straightforward read.
But I recognize that readers might enjoy, or not enjoy, a science thriller for very different reasons depending on personal expectations/priorities for those combined elements of science, literary, and entertainment value. It is rare to find a work that excels at all three. The Genius Plague has a fascinating scientific premise, and though the speculations of its plot aren’t realistic, I’d say that Walton does the microbiology justice. Where he falters most is the characterization and its impact on the plot. Though the novel begins from Paul’s point of view as a mycologist and ultimately becomes about a fungus’ evolutionary drive for reproductive success, Neil becomes the protagonist and his activities at the NSA take dominance. While the supporting cast loses focus, Neil becomes an uber-hero, succeeding with nary a fault, driving the plot forward as if an exercise in authorial wish fulfillment. Dire challenges certainly appear, culminating in events that dig Neil into a situation where it becomes difficult to see how he could get out without betraying belief or the science in question. When Neil inevitably does get through, it seems unsatisfying and too lucky. Yet, despite this imperfect end and nigh-invulnerable protagonist, I ended up enjoying The Genius Plague because it remained fun and lively, never falling to wooden dialogue or a lack of unexpected twists.
A particularly unexpected aspect of the novel relates to its title. Survivors of the fungal pathogen develop increased intelligence. This outcome is highlighted in Neil & Paul’s father, whose eventual infection results in reversal of his Alzheimer’s and restoration of cognition. From the title I expected the novel to primarily deal with this kind of outcome and its implications for human society. These obviously would have benefits, but like any change would also be accompanied by some difficulties either directly or indirectly. The human-fungal symbiotic relationship of The Genius Plague turns out to be not mutualistic, however. Faced with a new environment within a human host, the fungus adapts. Mutations arise that allow the fungus to alter human behavior, and increased human intelligence is just one byproduct accompanying this arrangement. The others are less ‘beneficial’. Humans begin making decisions based on safeguarding the fungus’ native environment and home, with that as priority over any human concerns, even human genetic fitness. The story thus ends up turning more on the threat of this inadvertent disregard of human welfare that the fungus engenders in its host, rather than the potential benefits brought by a ‘plague’ of geniuses in society.
This kind of parasitic symbiotic relationship where one organism’s fitness for reproduction (here that of the fungus) is augmented at the expense of decreased fitness for another (here the human host) is not unfamiliar to anyone who has studied biology or followed stories from nature programs/publications (e.g. zombie ants). Walton does a phenomenal job of translating that reality to an imagination of how it could similarly occur in humans. The rapidity and versatility of the fungus’ effects on humans in the novel stretch probability and possibility, but then again so much is still unknown about the functioning of the human mind that one can easily swallow it all with trepidation and think, well maybe.
The Genius Plague thus also has a bit of horror to it because fungal infections are in reality very scary, not least because they prove so difficult to treat, with lots of side effects arising from how evolutionary close they are to animals. (Yes, we are more like yeast than most bacteria are to one another.) Readers who like speculative thrillers that have a strong sense of ‘something like this could very well happen’ will probably find themselves pulled into the fast-paced action of the novel, and ultimately will enjoy the trip through its pages as long as willing to look past the Gary Stu protagonist or a potentially disappointing ending. I had enough entertainment and microbiology to focus my brain on to forgive those shortcomings and still savor The Genius Plague.
