The only reason I picked up Spore by John Skipp and Cody Goodfellow was my fondness of the Splatterpunk literary movement of the 80s and 90s, of which Skipp was a major influential participant, and based on that expectation alone, Spore did not disappoint.

Spore bears a striking resemblance to Skipp’s previous work The Bridge – written at the height of Skipp’s writing relationship with coauthor Craig Spector – which was about chemical waste and pollution overtaking nature and the planet with an almost sentient malevolence. While Spore’s titular enemy doesn’t have the same origins, the hive-mind fungus invader’s very presence makes the novel seem like a logical spinoff of The Bridge’s environmentalist-based tone and imagery. Combine that with the book’s warts-and-all love affair with California – very reminiscent of fellow Splatterpunk author David J. Schow’s work – and Spore begins to feel like a callback to the old days of chunk-blowers and underground horror fandom.

Spore feels (at least, to me) a little more lighthearted than some might expect, but maybe that’s just another throwback to a horror genre that was more about being entertainingly gruesome than darkly foreboding. The zombie-plague aspect and far from nihilistic ending are somewhat formulaic, but if you aren’t obsessed with every book you read being a groundbreaking experience, that should keep you from enjoying this shameless attempt appeasing the gore-hound in your soul. ( )