Galactic Mushrooms: Agents of Dreamland

I’m still not sure what to make of this cover.

I’ve been on a bit of a cosmic folk horror bender later. Also novellas. So I was hoping Caitlin R. Kiernan’s Agents of Dreamland would scratch that itch. While it had the potential to be folksy, that ended up not being the case. It remained an enjoyable, quick read.

Here’s another question I’ve been trying to puzzle out: When did mushrooms become a thing in horror? Because here we have some alien fungus promising to take over the world, with no real options to stop it. Only delay.

I can easily rattle off several horror properties predicated on mushrooms being a danger: The Last of Us, Mexican Gothic, Annihilation, The Girl with All the Gifts, and of course this one. What strikes me is there are almost exclusively two variations on this mushroom theme: the zombification of humans, or alien terror. So kudos to Mexican Gothic for following neither of those tracks.

This dual track model of fungal horror most likely has its roots in polar opposite places: H.P. Lovecraft (here we go again…) and science. Lovecraft’s expansive mythos has alien/eldritch/whatever fungal terrors, so that gives us the cosmic basis. The other is the very real zombie-ant fungus, which does exactly what its name suggests: makes ants into zombies. This is where we find the zombie connection for the second track of mushroom horrors.

Agents of Dreamland rides the cosmic alien fungi train to the end of the line. But it also doesn’t shy away from the zombie side, either. It tries to straddle that line. For one, it has a lengthy description of the zombie-ant fungus. Though it’s unclear if that’s the end-game for its own mushrooms. Yes, they’re doing something to the infected people, but it’s never laid out if everyone becomes zombified. Not a la The Last of Us or The Girl with All the Gifts. 

At times I wondered if the fungus was linking all of its infected together into some kind of hive-mind. It’s doing something with that idea, but it’s never fully fleshed out into a satisfying explanation. Which is fair for a cosmic horror. The whole point is to be unknowable; to lack a satisfying explanation.

There’s also some more timey-wimey fuckery going on here. One of our protagonists seems to exist outside of time, or at leasts slips in and out of the past, present, and future. Again, no explanation given.

These two co-existing truths live in an odd tension. The time-skipping allows for some exposition that can be directly experienced by our characters. It also builds upon the initial dread, as it reveals that this is both not the beginning, and not the end. It allows for the tracing of the thread, but never ties itself into a bow.

Here’s the thing. I can’t say if I liked this novella. It wasn’t what I was hoping it would be, but that’s not its fault. I had a difficult time keeping active hold of all its threads, but the fuzzy tapestry it was weaving was both satisfying and dreadful. I want to believe that this out-of-focus experience I had with it was intentional.

I’m still thinking about it, though, almost three weeks later. So in that regard, it’s a success.