Hey bookworm friends! This will be my second Friday joining in Tammy’s Summer of Horror Cover Friday. The theme of her list today is Pink covers in Horror so make sure you check it out! I don’t think I have enough horror books in my TBR to go by colour themes so I’m coming up with my own topic this week. I want to showcase books from a horror sub-genre that I’m intrigued by and think I might like: Sporror. Not Sports Horror, as it seems that’s also the term for a subgenre of horror movies (strange, I know)🤔. But Spore Horror. Where the mushrooms are scary. Now that that’s cleared up, here are the covers!
Sporror Book Covers
I don’t really have much to say this time around because I’ve only read Mexican Gothic. I loved it but I also deeply regretted reading it before bed 😂. The rest are all on my TBR and there are a couple of titles at the end that might not be outright horror but rather horror-adjacent*. They’re more Sci-Fi or Mystery with Horror elements from what I’ve heard but they fit the theme so I’m including them 🍄!
1. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Read
2. What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher
3. Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
4. The Ghost Woods by C. J. Cooke
5. Human Scars on Planet Skin by Effie Joe Stock & Nathaniel Luscombe – ARC
6. Creatures of Want and Ruin by Molly Tanzer
7. City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandermeer
8. Semiosis by Sue Burke *
9. Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky *
10. The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach *
ICYM my last Summer of Horror Cover Friday post, you can see it here:
🌈Category Is…Queer Horror
Let’s chat in the comments!
Have you read any of these? Or, how do you feel about mushrooms in food or in stories?
I love mushroom horror! Great idea for a list. I absolutely love the cover of Creatures of Want and Ruin, and I’ve never seen that particular cover of the Jeff VanderMeer book. Awesome post!
Amazing, I’m so glad you love this sub-genre and thank you 🙂 I also adore that Creatures of Want and Ruin cover, it’s a gothic maximalist’s dream! lol And I saw that edition of VanderMeer’s book on Youtube and thought it’s so pretty and cool, he’s definitely an author I’m curious about!
I always love the covers of those Jeff Vandermeer books.
Me too, they are so awesome-looking with those drippy mushrooms! 😍😍
I feel like I’ve seen a few spore horror novels around (although I haven’t tried any) but I didn’t realise they had their own subgenre. Although to be fair I also didn’t realise sport horror was a thing 🙈
Mexican Gothic is the only one that I’ve read from your list too and I was surprised when the mushrooms appeared 😅 I adored that book and can’t wait to try more by the author.
The cover for What Moves The Dead has always grossed me out 😂 that’s probably why it’s one of the few books by the author that I haven’t added to my TBR yet. The Ghost Woods is on my TBR for the event. I think a few of the others are on my more general one too although I also need to look up a couple of the others as they’re new to me. Particularly Creatures Of Want & Ruin as the figures giving me gothic vibes.
My favourite covers Mexican Gothic because it’s pretty 😂 The Ghost Woods is my second favourite and I love the colour scheme of Alien Clay.
I guess it’s not surprising that spores feature in horror sometimes. I saw a fungi on a dog walk that looked like an alien lifeform once 😂 but I love actual edible mushrooms (if I’d seen that fungi when I was younger I probably wouldn’t 😂)
Haha I feel like I only noticed it was a sub-genre when I started noticing mushroom themes in various stories I was interested in & Since you’ve read Mexican Gothic you technically have read Sporror, since that one comes up in most lists when you look it up 😀 ! I loved it too and I agree the mushrooms surprised me (which is likely why it’s so memorable to me) & I want to read more by the author too! I also never in a million years wouldn’t have known sport horror was a thing either I just stumbled upon the term while looking stuff up for this and I can’t say I’d ever want to watch a sport horror movie 🫤.
That’s super fair, but luckily Kinfisher is so prolific you don’t ever have to read that one if you don’t want! & It kind of grosses me out too but in like a compelling way where I’m drawn to it. 😂 I love that we both have Ghost Woods on our tbr! lol I don’t know which one is my favourite cover but I like your choices and agree the Alien Clay colour scheme is glorious!
Ahaha totally, some of them look SO strange and they are so interesting and weird at the same time. I love any meal that involves mushrooms too, yum but haha thank goodness, yeah the way some of them look can put me off eating for sureeeee 😂
That makes sense. A lot of them are fairly new titles too so maybe it’s a more recent trend 🤔 it could be linked to The Last Of Us, I believe (but I’m not 100%) that that was mushroom related.
Yes true 😂 I wrote that paragraph without thinking it through 🙈 have you tried any of her other books? It was so creative, disturbing and atmospheric. No sports horror doesn’t appeal to me either. I wouldn’t even know what to expect from it 😂
I may cave and read it eventually. I can’t actually remember the premise to be fair. But I’m starting off with A Sorceress Comes To Call. I hope you enjoy it. And I get how some covers can simultaneously intrigue and disturb you.
It’s nice to know we had some crossover. It is hard to pick.
I do always find them fascinating to spot too. It’s crazy how many varieties there are out there. Yay I’m glad you love them too. I always find it disheartening how many people seem to dislike them
Yeah, I think you’re right in that it’s relatively new AND that it’s linked to The Last of Us because when I was looking it up a lot of the lists mentioned The Last of Us so you are very perceptive :D! I’ve never played it nor seen the adaptation though now maybe I’m wondering if I should!
Hehe that’s okay I gotchu 🙂 & also that’s happened to me too!
The only other book by her I’ve read is Gods of Jade and Shadow but it’s not horror at all.
Ahaha right? Like the ball is going to be haunted or something? lol
Ahh okay I’d love to know what you think of A Sorceress Comes to Call, that’s not one I’ve tried.
For sure it’s hard I agree!
Yeah I definitely know lots of people who don’t like to eat them and I just don’t get it haha. And I don’t get to see too many varieties in the wild near me sadly.
Oh wow good guess on my part then 😂😂 I haven’t either tbh. I’ve seen snippets if I was on the room when my dad had it on. And I did get the game secondhand but I got stuck, then the file lost its save and I kind of gave up. I’ll have to try again sometime though.
That one was everywhere for a while so I’m not surprised to hear you’ve read it. She does seem to cover a lot of different genres. I have no clue. I imagine it’ll be a slasher tbh with some maniac targeting the teams 🤔
Trust me sometimes not seeing them in the wild is a good thing. It can occasionally be rather off putting 😂😂
Yeah, extremely good guess on your part! 🙂 Oh nooo that sucks I’m sorry you had to give up on the game but oh well these things happen. If you do try it again let me know how it goes.
Yes she is prolific and varied in her styles, I really appreciate that. Though because of that there are a few in her catalog that don’t appeal to me lol.
Haha fair enough I can understand that lol. 🙂
To be fair I wasn’t that far into it anyway, the bit I got stuck on happened fairly early on 🙈 although I feel like I’ve got more used to the controls on games now (I hadn’t tried a newer console back when I tried that one) so maybe I’ll get on better whenever I try again 🤞 will do 😊
Same here, I love when an author has books within various genres for you to try out. Ah makes sense, I’m not sure it’s that’s true for me too or not 🤔 I know the ones I’m most eager to get to and I guess I’ll figure the rest out from there.
Mushrooms can be terrifying!!
And there are so many books going with this theme! I haven’t read any of the books you posted, but I have the Kingfisher’s one and Alien Clay on my TBR so… I hope to get to them, sooner or later. The only book that had mushrooms in it that I read (and it was fiction) is Mushroom Blues. It’s not really horror, but it is still creepy!!
That said, I love all the covers you posted!!
They really can be!! I love that there are so many with this theme because I find it can go in so many different directions and I hope you can get to the ones on your TBR soon! The only reason I didn’t add Mushroom Blues on here is because it’s not horror but it’s definitely on my TBR and I feel like there’s gonna be some creepy body horror in there! Thank you, I’m glad you like these covers 🍄!
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