Author Interview: Mushroom Blues by Adrian M. Gibson
- Fiction Fans
- Mar 6, 2024
- 35 min read
Episode 130
Release Date: March 6, 2024
Your hosts enter the Fungalverse as they speak with Adrian M. Gibson about his upcoming novel "Mushroom Blues." This episode gives a sneak peek of the fungalpunk detective novel that features an older female main character, noir inspiration, and cultural fusions. They discuss Adrian's writing process, literary influences, and most of all, mushrooms.
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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:
- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris” - Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
Episode Transcript*
*this transcript is AI generated, please excuse the mess.
Lilly: 0:02
Hello and welcome to fiction fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lilly.
Sara: 0:09
And I'm Sarah, and I am delighted to welcome Adrian M. Gibson onto the podcast, not as a reviewer this time, but as an author.
Adrian: 0:18
Thank you. Yeah, I really, no, it's like kind of crazy because we've known each other for years and we've guested on each other's shows and now it's like the roles, well they haven't been reversed. It's just for me,
Sara: 0:30
But it's, it's different.
Adrian: 0:32
yeah,
Lilly: 0:33
You're not a guest, you're an author interview. Does it feel different?
Adrian: 0:38
No, with you two it feels the same.
Lilly: 0:40
Yeah,
Adrian: 0:40
lovely.
Lilly: 0:41
good.
Adrian: 0:43
But thank you for having me. I appreciate being back.
Sara: 0:45
Of course.
Lilly: 0:46
Our pleasure.
Sara: 0:47
You're always podcast.
Lilly: 0:49
Before we start talking about Mushroom Blues, first, what's something great that happened recently?
Sara: 0:55
I was gonna think about this, and then I didn't.
Adrian: 1:00
I actually thought about it like half an hour ago because I remember that you two do that. It was my, my youngest son's first birthday. A couple of weeks
Lilly: 1:07
Oh, happy birthday.
Adrian: 1:09
which is super cute. And he's just like a hungry little boy. He has a voracious appetite. And so we did the theme of the very hungry Caterpillar.
Sara: 1:19
That's
Adrian: 1:20
Yeah. And we even made him like a cake that was like the very hungry Caterpillar and he didn't want to eat it. I was like, he ate everything else. Except for his goddamn cake. You know, my wife even made him like a smash cake, which is like a term that is basically like You have the main cake and then you have a little cake on the side for your kid to basically just like smash their face or their fists or whatever into so they can just like Purposefully destroy this and he didn't want it and we have picture proof Of his face reaction, and he looks like, just fucking revolted. And I'm like, dude, this cake is delicious, what happened?
Lilly: 1:59
So this wasn't like he loved them so much. He didn't want to destroy them. He was just uninterested entirely.
Adrian: 2:06
No, but I think, like, we gave him a little bit of the icing, which was raspberry. He was just like, no, I don't want it.
Sara: 2:13
Maybe he's just not a cake person.
Adrian: 2:16
Or, no, I think it's, he's not a raspberry person. Yeah, cause he tried that, and he was like, fuck this, the whole thing's off. I'm not gonna smash anything. I'm gonna smash your hopes and dreams. Rather than this cake So it was a very fun birthday, yeah
Lilly: 2:34
I love the chaos of a 1-year-old. Even like when you expect them to destroy something and they don't, just to keep you on your toes.
Adrian: 2:41
Yeah, and then the thing that they do destroy is like come on man like that's your thing now or his thing right now is Like I'm just gonna climb on everything and like bang on the window and stuff And I'm like, can you please get off the couch? You're literally can't walk yet But he can climb he can sure as hell climb
Lilly: 3:01
delightful. Sarah how about you?
Sara: 3:03
My good thing is that I Yeah, I don't know. It's not that I don't have any good things, I guess. I just can't call them to mind.
Lilly: 3:14
I'll go next and you can think for a minute. I have one locked and loaded.
Sara: 3:18
please, please give me more time.
Lilly: 3:21
We found the Szechuan hot bean paste!
Sara: 3:24
Was it missing?
Lilly: 3:26
It was
Adrian: 3:27
I do not understand the context, but where was this session on being paced?
Lilly: 3:31
a different grocery store. Daniel makes an incredible Mapo Tofu.
Adrian: 3:35
Okay.
Lilly: 3:36
Not super authentic, because we add, like, vegetables and shit to it, but, like, absolutely delicious. And the most important ingredient is a very specific Szechuan bean paste. It has to be the right brand. When the brand that we like disappeared, we tried other ones, not as good. Very hard to Google, because the can is in Chinese.
Adrian: 3:58
So you have to go to like a specific Chinese market to get it.
Lilly: 4:02
I mean, we have been. The problem is that the Chinese market that we were going to stopped carrying that brand.
Adrian: 4:08
Damn.
Lilly: 4:09
Luckily, like, we're in Seattle, so there's quite a few Asian grocery stores, so we've been trying, like, a new one every weekend.
Adrian: 4:15
How long does this bean paste last? Like the expiration date from opening to when it starts to go bad.
Lilly: 4:22
Like, after you've opened it, it lasts a couple weeks in the fridge.
Adrian: 4:26
But if you haven't opened it, it probably like last years.
Lilly: 4:28
Oh yeah, the expiration date is for years, and then we have used several years out of date being pasted. It was fine, so.
Adrian: 4:35
Risky. You should just, if you found it again, just stock up, get like 15 of them.
Lilly: 4:41
We did. We had to ask ourselves, like, how much can we take before it's rude?
Adrian: 4:47
I don't think anyone cares about that at a grocery store in the sense that like you're a paying customer. They're probably not going to be like, Hey, don't take all of them. There are other people who want bean paste in Seattle.
Lilly: 4:57
What if they did? Anyway. I've already wrapped one to give to my mother in law, because it's her recipe. And then she always gives them to us for Christmas presents. It's a highly sought after bean paste, so my good thing is our source is restored.
Adrian: 5:13
It's back. That's very good news.
Sara: 5:16
pleased for you. My good thing is that I'm still running. I haven't given it up.
Lilly: 5:23
You haven't given it up, that's awesome.
Sara: 5:25
Yeah, I'm pleased with myself.
Adrian: 5:27
How long is your running streak going?
Sara: 5:28
So I don't run every day, but I run maybe like four or five days a week?
Lilly: 5:32
That's basically every day.
Sara: 5:34
it's often enough that I'll count it as an uninterrupted streak.
Lilly: 5:39
That's every day compared to how often I exercise, how's that? That
Sara: 5:44
Right now I'm going 2. 3 miles because I'm supposed to do a 3k in April, which is like 1. 8 miles, but I wanted to have that little bit of extra because I don't want to die while I'm doing the 3k. And so if I practice something that's a little longer, it'll be easier in April.
Adrian: 6:04
Yeah, it'll feel like less than what you're used to.
Sara: 6:06
Yeah, exactly.
Adrian: 6:08
Yeah, are you listening to, like, audiobooks or music, or what are you listening to while you read? Are you, or while you run? Are you just, like, enjoying the ambience of San Francisco?
Sara: 6:16
Well, I'm listening to the music of the BART trains.
Lilly: 6:23
hipster
Adrian: 6:23
that hot soundtrack.
Sara: 6:26
Yeah, you know, it's the latest fad in the Bay Area. No, I don't listen to anything because, like, earbud headphones just, they fall out of my ears. So I can't run with them. Yeah, they're terrible.
Adrian: 6:40
It only falls out of one ear, so the other one's, like, normal, and the other's too large. I don't know what the fuck happened, but
Lilly: 6:46
I got a pair that have the, like, over the ear hook. Those stay on pretty well.
Sara: 6:51
I have those and it doesn't help for me.
Adrian: 6:54
Damn.
Sara: 6:55
Yeah. So I just have weird ears, I guess.
Adrian: 6:58
just get to enjoy the magic of the urban
Sara: 7:02
Bart. Yeah. Because I'm, I'm running underneath the Bart tracks, so when it goes by, you know, it's very loud.
Adrian: 7:11
Yeah.
Lilly: 7:12
What's everyone drinking today?
Sara: 7:14
I realized too late that mushroom wine is a thing, so I'm not drinking mushroom wine, but possibly I will be next time we talk about this book.
Adrian: 7:25
we can do the spoiler cast with mushroom wine.
Sara: 7:27
Yes.
Lilly: 7:30
I also have a story about how I was going to drink something interesting and am not.
Adrian: 7:36
I'm just drinking water, so it's like, you know, I always come on this podcast and bring the non alcoholic beverages. So
Lilly: 7:43
That's alright. I'm also on the, uh, water train today.
Sara: 7:47
I mean, I have a glass of water here, too.
Lilly: 7:49
Yeah, make you feel left out for not just drinking water.
Adrian: 7:54
just keep me hydrated while I drink alcohol. Come on.
Lilly: 7:57
Yeah. And Has anyone read any good books lately?
Sara: 8:02
Crickets.
Lilly: 8:04
stares across the board. All right, let's get started. Ha ha ha
Adrian: 8:07
I can talk about the truth of the Aleke by Moses Osei Utomi. MJ and I had him on the podcast and his episodes will be out early March. So like around the time this episode comes out. And it's just a fantastic novella. It's like 120 pages and it's the sequel to a novella, The Lies of the Adjungo, which is 90 pages. So it's really nice to be like, I had a really terrible reading slump for like two months. And then I was like, novellas sound like a lovely idea. And they were. They were a lovely idea. But it's very cool. It's like a sort of like Nigerian inspired world with very, very tight storytelling. Yeah. And he really plays with notions of, like, lies and truth. Obviously, they're in the names of the books. But the ways in which that kind of intersects with storytelling and history, and sort of, like, the struggles that the people are going through in this world, and it just makes for, like, really compelling, but very tight and short story. And the action is fantastic, and the character building is fantastic, and the world is surprisingly rich for how short those books are. So, it was cool to be able to talk to him about it, and at the same time I was like, These books are actually like, so Cause sometimes you're like, a little bit like middling, or whatever, and it's just nice to like, really be into the book that an author wrote, and then be able to chat with them more about it.
Sara: 9:39
Absolutely. I'd heard of the first book. I didn't realize that there was a sequel novella out.
Adrian: 9:44
And then the third one's gonna be out next year, so it's like a trilogy. Yeah, I highly recommend that.
Lilly: 9:48
I love shorter form stories. Sometimes I get tired of epic fantasy that are like, How long can I make this book before the spine falls apart? Ha
Adrian: 9:57
Ryan Cahill,
Lilly: 9:58
Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.
Adrian: 10:01
I actually had a conversation with him about like him struggling to find like, I think he had to switch from KDP, like Amazon's publishing printer to Ingram spark, because Ingram can print more pages in less spine width, just based on like a particular paper that they use. And so he was like, struggling to figure that out. And I'm like, dude, you wrote like a fucking 1200 page book, so what do you expect?
Lilly: 10:33
Well, we're here today to talk about Mushroom Blues. Sarah and I got a little bit of a sneak peek. I've read about the first four chapters and I can't wait for the full release. I'm so excited. I have a lot of questions.
Adrian: 10:46
Hehehehe Hehehehe,
Lilly: 10:50
because the answer to all of them will be just read the fucking book, so.
Adrian: 10:56
but I'm still excited to talk about it.
Lilly: 10:57
Good. Would you start by giving our listeners just like a little elevator pitch for what this book is?
Adrian: 11:04
Yeah, so, Mushroom Blues, I kind of sum it up with some comparisons, but it's like Blade Runner, True Detective, and District 9. meld with the weird worlds of Jeff VanderMeer, Philip K. Dick, and China Mieville. And so, jumping off of that, it's like, it's a police procedural murder mystery, but it's very much about genre blending, where there are elements of sci fi, and even some fantastical elements. That come into play, and obviously by the title, a lot of it involves mushrooms and fungi. But the main story is a police detective, a homicide detective, Henrietta Hoffman, is investigating the murder and mysterious disappearances of fungal and half breed children in the city of Neo Konoko. And so she has to begrudgingly team up with a mushroom headed beat cop, Koji Nameko, in order to traverse the city and its sort of sociopolitical landscape and its physical landscape in order to figure out who murdered these kids or who kidnapped them and why.
Lilly: 12:08
All right.
Sara: 12:10
I love it. Am I correct in remembering that you have described it as fungal punk? Yeah?
Adrian: 12:16
so fungal punk is kind of like the terminology that I came up with, half as a joke and half because I just think like punkisms are fun. Even though some people are like super snooty about it, and I don't really understand that, because yeah, of course, like some of them are bullshit, but then, you know, I think cyberpunk Just kind of laid this groundwork that a lot of sort of subgenres try to riff off of, but don't necessarily capture the essence of what made that punk. And so for me, coming from a background in like music journalism, where I was actually like listening to a lot of punk and interviewing punk musicians and tattooing, where tattooing is a very punk industry, it can be kind of egotistical and more Sort of like catering to certain crowds and stuff, but the kind of tattooing that I worked in and sort of the spaces that I existed in were also very punk. And so with fungal punk, it's like, yeah, it's another punk thing. It's like that, that's just kind of like the fun, the joke of it. But on the other hand, I wanted to highlight fungi in such a way where the experimental attitude of punk was very much integrated into how I approached it. And the ways in which fungi are infused into the world building and the storytelling and the characters and all of that is very much rooted in this essence of punk being about experimentation and about representing parts of society. In various different strata, and how they kind of interact with one another. Hahaha.
Lilly: 13:56
entire question in my head about genres and punk versus core, and when is something something punk versus when is something something core.
Adrian: 14:04
Like, emocore? Heavy punk? Like, I don't fucking know anymore. Like, I think that's more of a music thing. Like, I don't, I don't know if I've ever
Lilly: 14:11
Oh, there's also a lot of aesthetics as well, like cottagecore, goblincore,
Adrian: 14:15
That's true.
Sara: 14:16
but I, I feel like, like, core is not a literary term.
Adrian: 14:20
Yeah, it feels like more music for me.
Lilly: 14:22
But should it be? Would it be a useful one, though, if we stole it?
Sara: 14:27
I mean, isn't cottagecore basically just, like, cozy fantasy?
Lilly: 14:31
This is off topic, I'm sorry, but I
Adrian: 14:32
totally okay. Hehehe.
Lilly: 14:35
So, mushrooms. Where, uh,
Adrian: 14:39
Yes.
Lilly: 14:40
what? Explain. I mean, they're very cool. You're
Adrian: 14:44
are very cool, yeah. for me it's been a lifelong fascination. It's just like something that I used to find in my parents backyard. Like I would spend a lot of time there growing up on the West coast of British Columbia, which is very lush and it's a temperate rainforest. And both of you understand that being on the West coast. It's like, I think that, that sort of like temperate rainforest extends from like Alaska all the way down to probably like San Francisco area, although it changed, it changes along the way, but there are areas around San Francisco that do have. Sort of that like lush forest kind of ecology, but in British Columbia, like very much like Washington state is just like so much rain and mushrooms love rain. And so I would just find fungi everywhere. Like my friends and I would play out in the, in the forest and just like hit each other with sticks and have pine cone fights and stuff. And at the same time, like I would be turning over logs and like looking at bugs and. Exploring that environment, and so often we would just stumble across weird mushrooms and slimy stuff and it always fascinated me, but I never understood at that point that there was so much more going on underneath the ground that the mushroom itself is kind of like, not to downplay them or anything, but it's like the most. Minuscule part of the whole process. It's basically like, you're going to go up there and you're going to pop out and you're just going to release some spores and you're going to die. And that's pretty much like what the mushrooms exist for, but there's so much more going on underneath the ground. And I learned all of that as I got older and the internet just opened that up to me where I would just go down rabbit holes on Wikipedia and like learn about mushrooms and all the different. Sort of intricacies of these organisms and coming across different figures in like the mycological world whether it's, you know, like Paul Stamets, who's sort of like an amateur mycologist who has actually become a very popular figure in the world of mycology in terms of, I think, popularizing fungi on a more popularized model. Broad stage, like he did like a TED talk on, on mushrooms that was huge, but then I also started to dabble more in psychedelics and getting into the readings of people like Terrence McKenna, John M. Allegro, and the ways in which psychedelics kind of interact with anthropology and with sort of the development of, of religions and civilizations. And so I just started going down all these different rabbit holes while also experimenting with psychedelics myself. And that fascination just, like, continued to grow and the person I am today is a direct sort of descendant of, like, me at 19, like, trying Silas Ibn Mushrooms for the first time and, like, having my consciousness just, like, awaken. And my whole life changing as a result of that.
Sara: 17:55
So, do you have a favorite mushroom or fungi?
Adrian: 18:00
Ah, that's difficult. There is, okay, so there's one that I really love, both because it's, it's like strangely beautiful, but also because it's one of the most delicious mushrooms that exists. Um, and it's called a morel. And it looks like a weird sort of, it looks like, like an alien brain, pretty much, is like the best way that I can describe it. But, the great thing about that mushroom is that, It has like a symbiotic relationship with very specific trees and so if you can find a spot where morel mushrooms grow, you can be guaranteed that you can come back each year and that'll be like your spot and they will just like continue to flourish because the mycelium is underneath the ground interacting with the trees and that tree system and the mushrooms will just continue to flourish there if that relationship continues. And the best way to cook them is literally just like garlic, butter, salt, and it is so, so damn good. But then there's just a ton of weird, weird ass mushrooms that are like, they look straight up like alien organisms. And that's another thing that I love about mushrooms is they're so uncanny. And that they, they exist in our world, but they feel like they come from somewhere else.
Lilly: 19:19
Did you have to do a lot of specific research for this book? Or was it just, like, you've been learning about mushrooms for so long and you were able to sort of use your gut instinct for stuff?
Adrian: 19:30
There was, yeah, it's kind of like I just accrued a lot of information over a long period of time. But, at the same time, I used very specific information for like, certain details, like There are the fungal people, like the mushroom headed people in this world, and some of them it was like, key details that I would give to them in terms of like, this person smells like cinnamon, because the mushroom on top of their head is like Matsutake, which is like, A type of mushroom that is very, very common in Japan and is used a lot in Japanese culinary dishes and it just has like an aroma of cinnamon. So those are like cool little details that I could just like pick up on and stuff. I even early on in like the process of creating the fungal verse, which is like the shared universe where this story and a bunch of my future books are going to take place. I had conversations with a mycologist post grad at a A university of Wisconsin. So we were talking about like the ways in which spores propagate and the sort of nature of, of fungal biology and how that could be sort of twisted in such a way where it can symbiotically like merge with distant humans, like humans in the distant past, such that they become sort of like intertwined. In their environment and then grow fungal heads and just kind of become these fungal people. So a lot of those conversations happened with, with him and I did do just a lot of sort of twisting of the truth for the sake of, of fiction. But my goal is not to be like super scientifically accurate with this book. It's more, this is a fascination of mine and I want to. Introduce aspects of it to people through a fictional story where it's not beating them overhead. It's kind of like little details that might trigger them to go out and do their own research or find out more about mushrooms. It's more, that's more my, my intention as opposed to like, I'm going to get super, super detailed about this part of fungal biology, et cetera, et cetera. I was like, no. That doesn't necessarily make for an interesting story, that is kind of, like, the type of exposition that bogs down a story more than benefits it.
Sara: 21:55
And I think that one of the joys of having that deep breadth of knowledge is that you can then just like play with it, like, I think it's evident in a story when an author knows the subject, but also knows when not to go into it, right? Because that just adds that layer of belief to like the world building.
Adrian: 22:15
Yeah, and for me, I was able to go into so much detail in my head that doesn't necessarily make it onto the page, but it, it helped me in the writing and the world building to have this information there that I could, like, draw upon when I needed to. Like the fungal people have sort of an ability to they're kind of like empaths where they can connect with each other almost like telepathically, but it's not necessarily like I'm going to read your mind or anything like that. It's more empathic and rooted in emotion and intentions and things like that. So the fact that mycelium and mycelial networks have this Ability to pass information along through chemical processes, I was able to kind of like take that concept and give it to the fungal people where they're using sort of like an interconnected mycelial network of just them and the place that they exist in, in order to have this form of communication with one another, where they're able to sense each other. But it's not necessarily like I'm going into so much detail talking about like the chemicals that are involved in this sort of process or it's just like an interesting story device that is rooted in the realities of what fungi and mycelium are able to do. Not necessarily like mycelium would be able to tell us. That this thing is happening, but it's like they can communicate with each other. They can communicate with trees and pass nutrients and information along, but we're just not able to comprehend that interaction. But in the case of this story, the fungal people are, you know, living beings and they're able to speak their language and also speak the language of humans. And what would it be like for them to be able to have this networking sort of ingrained in their biology and their society?
Sara: 24:16
Talking about the mushroom people and their language, at the beginning of the book you include a short like primer containing some phrases and words that make up their language. How did you go about constructing that?
Adrian: 24:31
That wasn't too, too complicated. It was kind of like, I just took Japanese and Chinese and Korean and was kind of playing around with the structures of each of those languages. And since this society is so deeply rooted in, in Japan as like an inspiration, I just kind of wanted to play on ways in which sort of like Japanese language structure, uh, occurs, but then also looking at how Chinese and Korean. They kind of share a lot of similarities in terms of those three languages, but just kind of like taking some inspiration for how, you know, slang works and stuff like that, or how the ways in which like something as simple as like good morning or good evening would be phrased in each language and kind of coming up with something. That is based in that, but feels a little bit unique. So it's mostly those three languages that I, that I pulled upon just to kind of like come up with something that adds a little bit more because there's sort of like Hapanese common phrases and words that they use, but then there's also slang that the humans use towards the fungal people in terms of like slurs and, and stuff like that. So it's like sporsak is a, is a slur that like a human would say to be like you fucking sporsak kind of thing towards the fungal people and then just kind of like enriching the world with that kind of, that kind of language has always been something that I enjoy. In, in fiction, so I wanted it to be a part of this because it is a culture that is unfamiliar in a lot of ways. And because there are people in the book that are speaking two different languages, I kind of wanted to emphasize that a bit more with dedicated words that the Fungal people use.
Lilly: 26:21
You talk about the fungal people and mycelia and all of this with so much joy and excitement. I was shocked when I started this book and the main character hates them.
Adrian: 26:32
Yeah, yeah, she's microphobic, but it's kind of like the main crux of this book is Henrietta Hoffman and her awakening. And so it's like very much like the awakening that I had through psychedelics. Henrietta goes through this process where she It starts out just like hating mushrooms and being disgusted by the fungal people and hating the fact that she's in this city, and it's expressed early on why she's there, that she's basically been exiled to this city, given quite a shitty Ultimatum, uh, a la Sophie's choice, but the things that she experiences in Neo Konoko build up to the point where she starts to realize how much of her perceptions and her sense of truth. Was culturally programmed by the government of the country that she comes from and the ways in which they fooled their populace into justifying a war, justifying an invasion, justifying an occupation of a foreign country. And so I was very much drawing upon the ways in which the United States, but also the West in general, was kind of indoctrinated. Through governments and through media to accept the fact that like the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war were justified. And obviously in hindsight, like we can look back on that and think like, what the fuck happened? You know what I mean? But 9 11 was kind of used as a symbol to carry out these unjust wars. And so it's been like a very present thing in my mind of how easy It is to manipulate a population's idea of truth through the narratives that are put out or the narratives that are concealed as well. And so Henrietta is just kind of like brainwashed in this sense of thinking of the fungal people as lesser than, of thinking of the humans for being justified in what they did. But over the course of this story and the fungals that she meets and, and working directly with Koji. The reality is that the fungal people are kind of more human and more empathetic than the actual humans themselves. And so Henrietta's sense of truth breaks down. And building towards the climax where she has this combination of acceptance and awakening to the things that she has done wrong in her life and the ways in which she's misjudged things. And so I was very, very conscious on my part to present her in this way in the beginning. In order to give the most satisfying impact later on when she realizes that so much of what she believed was bullshit.
Sara: 29:36
Continuing to talk about Henrietta for a moment. Can you tell us a little bit about your decision to make her an older woman? Because she is, you know, an older female protagonist, which I feel like is becoming more prevalent in fantasy and sci fi, but it's still not that, you know, there's still not parody there, I think.
Adrian: 29:55
Yeah, definitely not. Yeah, I actually talked to Chris Panettiere about this because he wrote like a grandma in his book, The Phlebotomist, which is fantastic. But Henrietta, I went through like a long journey with her. Koji was much more concrete in my head because I, like, you too can see him right here. Like I, he was like one of the first illustrations that I, that I created for the Fungalverse, like one of the first characters that I ever created. But Henrietta started out as And once I started like writing more seriously, I realized that it just was not working. It was third person originally. And she was a man. And I just started playing around with it. And once I changed him to her, and he was already like a middle aged man, so I just kept her as a middle aged woman, I realized like the voice really started to click a lot more. And when I switched to first person is when everything just really fell together in this like beautiful way where I was able to kind of like internalize her character in a much more meaningful and impactful way. And now it's kind of like, I adore Henrietta, whereas at the beginning, I was just kind of like, I fucking hate this character, you know, it's just like another crotchety, middle aged man in a genre like Murder Mysteries, noir, police procedurals that are just full of that shit. And it just felt a little bit more trite, like water that has already been tread kind of thing, and it didn't feel unique to me and unique to my voice. And once I made that shift, and once I made the shift to first person, everything just started flowing much, much better. To the point where this book originally started out as a novella, and then once I found that Henrietta was like the right voice and the right character, I expanded it to a full novel, and now I already have mapped out three books in like a complete four book series. So she was like, I just like fell in love with her and Koji as like, as like a duo.
Lilly: 32:10
It sounds like this story changed quite a bit over the process of writing it.
Adrian: 32:14
Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, this isn't even the first book in the fungal verse that I've written. There was one that I wrote before. And it's not, like, amazing or anything like that, but there's so much in it that I adore and I'm going to rework it into my next book, which is the beginning of another trilogy set in the Fungalverse. But that was, like, a necessary experiment for me to be able to understand, like, what goes into writing a novel and how goddamn difficult it is, but also the fact that, like, I love this world. That I created so much so that it's like I have multiple series and like 10 books planned for it. Over the next years and Mushroom Blues is like, yeah, it started out as my idea was going to be like, that's going to be the freebie giveaway with like a newsletter sign up for the other book, but then I realized like, no, this is actually really good and it works as an introduction to the fungal verse just as like, in a sense that it takes place earlier in the timeline than that other book, but also Henrietta as a character is just like, so out of place in this world. That I feel like she's kind of a better introduction to the strangeness of Neo Konoko and the Fungalverse and kind of like allowing for readers to experience that immersion at the same time as her, as opposed to the other one, which is like the characters are much more ingrained in the society and the strangeness might not necessarily be as explicable in the sense that Henrietta doesn't know what the fuck is happening in certain cases, and it helps her and the reader to be able to absorb that information at the same time. So yeah, so it's like a lot changed over the course of the Fungalverse, but also like Mushroom Blues on its own.
Sara: 34:13
So it sounds to me like you plan out quite a bit. I mean, you said that you have a plan for the next three books and then you have this other series, but then your characters kind of decide to do their own thing a little bit.
Adrian: 34:27
All the time. All the time. Yeah, it's like, uh, My co host on SFF Addicts podcast, MJ Kuhn, and I like talk a lot about this and we've had guests where we've talked about different approaches for writing, whether it's like discovery writing or plotting and, you know, it's like, there's so many different terms for it, like pantsing, plotting, architect, gardener, all that shit. But for me, it's like the outline process is very much my. Necessary foundation that I need in order to build something atop. If I don't have that, then I feel like I meander too much and eventually just like lose track of whatever's going on. So to have that like loose foundation where I'm, I'm actually going through a lot of pantsing while I'm outlining to just kind of like feel things out and figure out like what's an interesting path, but also leaving a lot of room for spontaneity and flexibility in there. And what that ends up doing is, like, the characters will start to choose their own path along the way a lot of the time. In which case, like, I can rework stuff or I can just, like, cut out something entirely because it's, like, this other thing that the, you know, character came up with through my own, like, subconscious creativity. That is actually, like, a much more interesting path to go down. And so It's a really fascinating thing that is happening in terms of the brain acting of its own accord, and the characters being a reflection of that, and I think it's just a matter of like, absorbing so much over the course of a lifetime, that some little trigger In your subconscious memory will spontaneously evolve into like the coolest thing ever. Sometimes it evolves into something that is like totally absurd and it doesn't work at all, but more often than not, it's like, this is. 10 times better than whatever I came up with in the outline. And so for me, it's like, it's worth it to go down those exploratory paths in order to figure out, is this thing worth it? And more often than not, it is worth it to do because it gives the character more life and. Ultimately, it feels more consistent with them and their personalities and their characteristics as opposed to trying to, like, force them down a specific path that might end up contradicting things that you've established earlier on, just because you have to get them to this place at this point in the book. But then it's like, if you're forcing them into that position, then it comes off the page like that feels unnatural. And, and if it feels unnatural for the character and it feels unnatural for the author, then it's going to feel unnatural for the reader too. In which case, like, give your characters that, that freedom. And give yourself that freedom to explore the story through your characters.
Lilly: 37:42
Is there a moment, oh wow, is there a moment that you can share without spoiling something terrible that, uh, where your characters really surprised you?
Adrian: 37:53
Okay, um, yeah, I'm trying to think of this without spoiling anything.
Lilly: 38:00
and then
Adrian: 38:01
Like, multiple times. Multiple times. For
Sara: 38:04
You can save the explanation for our follow up
Adrian: 38:07
the spoiler cast, yeah, yeah, for sure. Multiple times. Like, both Henrietta and Koji had times where they just, like, floored me. And even while drafting the book and finishing the ending, it's like, it's a very emotional thing because it's like you finish a book, but it wasn't even like the end end. It was like one of the final chapters. Leading up towards like the finale and then the epilogue where it's just like these decisions came out through Henrietta where I just like legit cried and I was like, I don't know what the fuck is going on But it's a beautiful thing at the same time. So yeah, there's just a ton of moments where I was surprised and like blown away by What these characters were capable of because it's like having like a little creative child And seeing them, like, grow up and flourish and everything like that, and you're like, I didn't know you could do that. And then they do.
Lilly: 39:09
And refuse to smash the
Adrian: 39:11
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, yeah. Henrietta and Koji just, like, they chose not to smash the cake and do something else instead, but that other thing was just way better.
Sara: 39:24
Well, I look forward to, uh, reading the book and getting to that point. So this is a question that normally Lily asks me. I think you're the first author that we've made answer this question, but who should read this book?
Adrian: 39:40
Ooh. Okay, so, this is, like, there are multiple people that this could appeal to. If you're really into mushrooms, obviously, like that's the obvious answer. If you're really into fungi, then I think you'll, you'll really dig it. But also people who are very into police procedurals and sort of the tropes and expectations that they have within that genre, I think we'll be very happy kind of like immersing themselves in this world and getting those familiar beats. While also indulging in some really weird shit at the same time. And kind of like, that goes for sort of crime thriller type things as well, like, you know, if you're like, True Detective and Seven, or like anything that David Fincher does basically, where there's a lot of mood and criminality and, and sort of like, the ways in which institutions of law and order interact with Institute or not institutions, but like parts of society that are like chaotic, then this book will definitely be up your alley. But there's also just a lot of references to like history in there as well. References to Japanese history to world war II and the allied American occupation of Japan after world war II and sort of commentary on imperialism and colonialism and that kind of thing. So there's a lot of stuff for. A lot of different people, but I think the main draws will be those genres that I'm blending together, which is like murder mystery and noir and police procedural, but also people who are into like the really weird kind of stuff like Jeff Vandermeer or China Mieville, like Pretty District Station or Jeff Vandermeer's Ambergris Trilogy or Annihilation and those kinds of things.
Lilly: 41:39
Awesome. I cannot wait for this book. Would you remind me when it will actually be available?
Adrian: 41:44
Yeah, so March 19th is when the paperback and e book are coming out, and then I'll be releasing the hardcover on April 2nd, and then the audiobook, which I'm narrating myself, will be out on April 16th. So yeah, you can uh, enjoy. My voice as I, as I narrate this, this, this jaunt,
Lilly: 42:06
Heh
Sara: 42:08
narration process? I'm
Adrian: 42:10
it's interesting. Yeah. It's been, I mean, I'm glad I started podcasting as like a way to set myself up for being comfortable with indulging in my own voice that much, but it feels more indulgent than podcasting because podcasting is very much a conversational thing, whereas. Audiobook narration feels much more kind of fabricated in a lot of ways where it's like I have to evoke a certain thing at a certain point, or I have to project my voice in such a way that it tells the story in an engaging manner and at the same time not be like overly like overacted or anything like that and also kind of like figuring out ways to differentiate the characters And learning how to control my breath much more. So there's just a lot of intricacy in audiobook narration, but I'm also very lucky in that one of my best friends here in Quito is a sound engineer. And so he is doing a lot of the work in terms of, I send him like my raw vocals. And he's cleaning it up and at the same time incorporating music from the Mushroom Blue soundtrack into the audio book itself. And there's even like a section where there's a character in like an underground like moldy jazz club who is singing and my sister in law is a really good singer so she actually like sings a part in there as well. So it's really nice to be able to like collaborate with different people. For this as well.
Sara: 43:55
audiobook person, generally, but like, I want to listen to that.
Adrian: 44:01
Yeah. I mean, I'll be putting it by the time this episode goes out. I think the audio book sample will be up on the YouTube channel and SFF addicts as well. So I'm going to put like chapter one and two. Just as a free sample for anyone who wants to to listen and check it out and See if that's their jam kind of thing. But yeah, it was a lot of fun it's it's been a lot of fun to record that and it's also helpful that I just like kind of accrued this equipment for podcasting and so it's very easy for me to set up like a home studio kind of thing and Be able to send Samples to my friend and for him to say like, this is good quality and we can work with this kind of thing as opposed to like, I've heard a lot of audio books where the, the, not necessarily the narrator is shit, but the quality of the recording is not optimal, which is really surprising for me. Just as someone who is quite nerdy about this kind of stuff, about like, about sound, and, and sound design, and all that kind of stuff, it surprised me that there are books by like, big authors, and their audiobook is narrated by someone who does a good job performance wise. But the quality of that recording is just, like, mediocre. And I'm like, how did this get through? You know what I mean? It's like, how many different passes did I have to go through in order to get the thumbs up for release? And still it happened. And I just don't understand it. So at the very least, like, I'm just gonna put everything into it that I, that I know I can, based on, like, my sort of, like, Neurotic perfectionism kind of approach. So
Lilly: 45:54
And you mentioned a YouTube channel? Which one is that exactly? And where are all the other places where people can find these things?
Adrian: 46:01
that's the fan fiatic YouTube channel. I manage it basically. So it's like, I was like, I don't want to start my own YouTube channel.
Sara: 46:08
it's actually the Adrian channel.
Lilly: 46:10
Yeah. Heh
Adrian: 46:12
where all the episodes of SFF addicts are released. If you want to watch them in video, they're also available on Spotify and video, and then you can find audio of the podcast pretty much like on every platform. And. Yeah, so it's like you can check out like author interviews on, on the YouTube channel and, and some other sort of like more specific content. You can also find me on pretty much every social media platform at adrianmgibson. Although there are some where I'm like far less active than others, but for me the main ones are Twitter and Instagram. And then you can also check out my website adrianmgibson. com And I have an online store over there where you can get merch that I designed.
Sara: 46:53
Which, I still mean, I still mean to buy a t shirt from you. I haven't yet, because I have so many t shirts. But like, I love your designs, they're so great. I do want that t shirt.
Adrian: 47:03
There's no pressure. It is all print on demand through a company called Printful, which very efficiently just like integrates directly with like my website host. So I've done quality checks and the quality checks are actually like really, really solid. And that is available in like various, various countries around the world. So you can just go check that out and see like what the options are for shipping and everything. And you can also sign up for my newsletter to get some, some updates from me every month. And yeah, I think that's, I think that's about it. I don't know where else you can find me. Yeah. I'm not
Sara: 47:39
I
Lilly: 47:39
Here, occasionally.
Adrian: 47:40
here on Fiction Fans. Yeah.
Sara: 47:43
You can add the book on Goodreads.
Adrian: 47:45
Yes, yeah. It is not available for pre order, because there's just like, I'm just doing a lot of shit. And, pre order I think as like a debut indie author isn't necessarily like, the most important thing, because pre order is more of like, it's more Important for traditionally published authors is the publishers determine a lot of things based on pre order numbers, but for indie authors, it's more like, what are your own personal expectations and what does a pre order do for you? So it will be available on the 19th in paperback and ebook, and then you can check it out in hardcover two weeks after that. And then two weeks after that is when the audio book drops.
Lilly: 48:25
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for coming on to talk about this with us. I can't wait for March 19th. And I can't wait to have you back to talk about all of the secrets that we weren't allowed to talk about today.
Adrian: 48:39
Yeah, I'm so excited. I mean, thank you. Thank you both as always for having me on. And for indulging me and, and like these things that I'm super nerdy about and have never been able to talk about until I started doing this book tour and these different podcast interviews and stuff, I'm just like, holy shit. I actually have like a wealth of information that I never talk about anybody too. It's like, especially mushrooms. There's just like so much I know about mushrooms and most people are not like, Hey, let's talk about mushrooms today.
Sara: 49:10
I'm gonna be honest, I was really impressed when you started talking about all of the research that you've done about mushrooms. I was like, I didn't know that you had done such a deep dive into it. So that's really cool.
Adrian: 49:22
I mean, I, I have right here on my desk. Actually, there's one. This is the Complete Mushroom Hunter, which this one is mostly about foraging and harvesting. But it's also very useful in terms of learning specific things about specific mushrooms. I also have like, tons of books, like a, like a Mycology Field Guide, which is basically just like an encyclopedia of mushrooms. And yeah, like I just, I just like learning about them. They're fascinating. And documentaries in particular are a very fun way to learn about mushrooms because they are just full of time lapses and mushroom and mold time lapses are just the best. They're so good.
Lilly: 50:10
I was gonna say, mushroom time lapses are my favorite.
Adrian: 50:15
Like just being able to see the ways in which mold spreads or that. A mushroom sprouts from the ground and just like goes through all its different stages of maturation and then like explodes in a burst of spores is just a beautiful thing to watch. So, yeah, like Fantastic Fungi is a really good one. There's a new documentary that is, I think it's more in theaters, but I don't know when it's getting like a wide release or anything like that. But with, uh, Bjork as the narrator and Bjork is like the perfect person to narrate a documentary about fungi because she is like the most alien human being that I've ever come across. And there's also a really good book by Merlin Sheldrake called Entangled Life, which is, yeah,
Sara: 51:06
turned it into mushrooms at one point. That's the only, that's the only knowledge I have about him. is that he did a video where he created mushrooms off of his book and it was really cool.
Adrian: 51:19
I'm going to attempt that after the book is out. I already have they're called spore plugs, but it's basically just like a little plug of like compressed spores and it's like you they're like pellets basically, but it's like you sprinkle that between the pages after. Submerging the book in boiling water to disinfect it. And then you just like sprinkle them between the pages and then you put it in a very specific environment that's conducive for the mushrooms to grow. And then you just like, wait for that to happen. Like there are specific mushrooms, like oyster mushrooms, which. are sort of genetically geared towards processing wood pulp. So they're usually the types of mushrooms that you'd find on, like, dead logs and stuff like that. And the ways in which they, like, decompose that. Books are just wood pulp. And so it's like they will actually feed off of that and then grow at the sides as, like, probably it's not good to eat them because of, like, the ink and stuff in the book.
Sara: 52:20
I'm pretty sure that he eats his.
Adrian: 52:22
Okay. Yeah.
Sara: 52:23
could be wrong, it's been a while since I've watched the video, but I think that he, I think that he does eat
Adrian: 52:28
I mean, that is probably
Lilly: 52:29
it a good idea.
Sara: 52:31
Okay, fair.
Adrian: 52:32
but I think because of the amount of like ink that they're consuming, I don't know how, how healthy that is, but it does make for a very, very satisfying climax to that kind of video. So anyways, I'm going to, I'm going to try and attempt it with one of my copies after the book is out. So,
Sara: 52:47
A, that sounds awesome. B, I hope you take lots of pictures and post them. And C, I think you should do a time lapse video of that as
Adrian: 52:56
I'm going to try, yeah, it's going to be like a, it's going to be like my post launch project is like, how can I grow mushrooms out of this book and capture it in like the most satisfying way possible, but hopefully we'll figure it out, Sarah.
Sara: 53:10
I cannot wait.
Adrian: 53:11
Yeah. But at the very least, I'll have like cool pictures of like, I know it's possible. It's more so the capturing of the process as opposed to the actual process itself, which I know won't be that difficult. It's mostly like. Have the right environment for the mushrooms to, to grow. And it just kind of does it on its own. Like I don't have to do anything, capturing that as like a time lapse. I really want to, and I'm going to try and get it, get it in order. So
Sara: 53:43
I believe in you.
Adrian: 53:44
thank you. I appreciate that, sir.
Lilly: 53:52
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.
Sara: 53:56
Come disagree with us. We are on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at FictionFansPod at gmail. com.
Lilly: 54:07
If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.
Sara: 54:16
We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find our show notes and a lot of other nonsense.
Lilly: 54:22
again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!
Sara: 54:28
Bye!
