The Shrooms of Benares

By Robert Jeschonek

Benares: planet of fungi on the far frontier. Mushrooms grow taller than trees, fungal creatures roam the landscape...and a terrible new spore turns humans into the walking dead. The one man left alive, a genetically modified super space priest named Father Obregon, sets out to confront this threat and save the woman he loves. But the deadly fungal spore has other plans in store, plans that will push Father Obregon to his limits and test whether his faith can sustain him in the darkest corner of deep space among soulless aliens who have no capacity for mercy. Don't miss this exciting tale by award-winning Star Trek and Doctor Who author Robert T. Jeschonek, a master of unique and unexpected science fiction that really packs a punch.

Contents
Story plus novel preview

Reviews

"THE SHROOMS OF BENARES is fascinating, exotic and admirably told..." – Stanley Schmidt, Analog

"...Robert Jeschonek is a towering talent..." – Mike Resnick, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author

"Jeschonek ́s stories are delightfully insane, a pleasure to read..." – Fabio Fernandes, Fantasy Book Critic

"Robert Jeschonek is the literary love child of Tim Burton and Neil Gaiman—his fiction is cutting edge, original, and pulsing with dark and fantastical life. His stories suck me in and refuse to let me go until the last page..." – Adrian Phoenix, critically acclaimed author of The Maker's Song series and Black Dust Mambo

About the Author

Robert T. Jeschonek is an award-winning writer whose fiction, comics, essays, articles, and podcasts have been published around the world. DC Comics, Simon & Schuster, and DAW have published his work. Robert was nominated for the British Fantasy Award for his story, "Fear of Rain." His young adult urban fantasy novel, My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, is now available from Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and was named one of Booklist’s Top Ten First Novels for Youth. Visit him online at www.thefictioneer.com. You can also find him on Facebook and follow him as @TheFictioneer on Twitter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Jeschonek
• Release date: Dec 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466022003

Book preview

Shrooms of Benares

Shrooms of Benares

A SCIENCE FICTION TALE

ROBERT JESCHONEK

Blastoff Books

Contents

Also by Robert Jeschonek

Shrooms of Benares

About the Author

Special Preview: Six Scifi Stories Volume Four

SHROOMS OF BENARES

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Jeschonek

www.thefictioneer.com

Cover Art Copyright © 2023 by Ben Baldwin

www.benbaldwin.co.uk

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved by the author.

Published by Blastoff Books

An Imprint of Pie Press

411 Chancellor Street

Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904

www.piepresspublishing.com

Also by Robert Jeschonek

Battlenaut Crucible

Scifi Motherlode

Six Scifi Stories Volume One

Six Scifi Stories Volume Two

Six Scifi Stories Volume Three

Six Scifi Stories Volume Four

Sticks and Stones: A Trek Novel

Shrooms of Benares

Father Gavín Obregón lifted the hem of his black shirt, peeled back a flap of skin just below his bottom left rib, and drew out three fresh-baked wafers of communion host from the cavity there, still warm from his flesh.

The body of Christ, given up for you.  Father Obregón said the words softly as he held up one of the round white wafers between his thumb and forefinger.

Piotr Punzak, a squat farmer with shaggy brown hair and beard, stood before him in the dusty farmyard.  To one side, the gleaming silver domes of his farmhouse and barn sprawled in the mid-morning light...light cast not from a sun, but from huge fungal sun-blooms drifting across the sky.

In the other direction, the rolling hills were carpeted with fields of morel, boletus, oyster, and matsutake mushrooms, ready for harvest.  The fruits of planet Benares, like all native life on the frontier planet, were fungus through and through. In all the world, only the human settlers could claim non-fungal origins.

As a rough breeze shivered the nearby morels and matsutakes, farmer Piotr tipped his head back.  Amen. Just as he opened his mouth for the host, one of the nube oveja--the self-propelled fungal cloud sheep herding in the sky overhead--slid away, allowing the light from the nearest sun-bloom to cast his face bright gold.

Father Obregón placed the host on Piotr's tongue.  Piotr closed his mouth and bowed his head.

Then, it was time for the wine.  Father Obregón turned over his right arm and popped the tiny cartilage pour-spout free from his wrist.  "Blood of Christ,