New Book Spotlight

Song of Spores

A mini-interview with Bogi Takács

Tell us about your new book?

It’s called Song of Spores and it’s published by Broken Eye Books. It was originally a webserial with novelette-length chapters they ran on their Patreon a few years ago, and now it is available in a revised, expanded version as a print book. It’s a fun, freewheeling space opera story that’s also at the same time politically aware. There is plenty of shapeshifting, groupminds, total chaos, and being eaten by an enormous fungal sentience.

What aspect of the book was the most fun to write?

At one point there is an art competition. When I was working on that chapter, so much was terribly grim in the world around me — so I thought I would write something more lighthearted, but still with some amount of stakes. Admittedly, the stakes mostly involve embarrassing yourself in public on a planet you’ve never visited before!

If there is one emotion or theme that you would hope that the reader connects with, what would that be?

Hope that even when everything seems upside down and askew in five hundred different ways, the situation will eventually improve if we all try to do something about it; and that collaboration is good even when it is hard going. These themes have only become more timely since I originally wrote Song of Spores, so hopefully the book will resonate.