Clancy Carlile - Spore 7

[blackmonk]

Spore 7
Clancy Carlile
Sphere
1980



No one knew where the spores came from. Or what had activated them, But they carried the most horrific, virulent disease ever to threaten the world: Spore 7.
It started in a sleepy town. A peaceful law-abiding citizen suddenly became a raging maniac, attacking everyone in his path. Within hours he’d become a savage, slime-secreting mutant of ferocious strength… and monstrous appetites. And by the time a medical team realised the spore infection was highly contagious – and incurable – the deadly fungoid had spread faster than wildfire.

It starts with a minor road accident when a driver collides with what he though was a naked man scuttling across a darkened road – a dented bumper and slimy residue the only evidence that he hit anything. Shortly after reporting the accident to the sheriff the driver has transformed in to an eye-bulging, slime-secreting, deranged maniac. He is one of the first to be contaminated by the spore. The origin of the spore is unknown but after investigation there seems to be three favoured possible sources: a Russian biological attack, an accidental release from an American experimental weapons base, or a contaminant from a meteor. The town priest, however, believes it to be of demonic origin, exuded from the pits of hell, because the infected show all the signs of being possessed – something which he shockingly demonstrates during a sermon! The town becomes quarantined, extermination camps are set up for the infected, doctors and scientists work frantically on a cure, naked mutants prowl the town and the government and military proceed toward the only foreseeable means of preventing further spread.

What a cracking read this was! Thoroughly engrossing, scary and gripping. The characters and dialogue are realistic and the plot very plausible. The science, too, is quite fascinating and the doctors try to understand the frightening fungoid based metamorphic disease that threatens them all.

Seems to be the only horror Carlile wrote.

[dem bones]

hey, blackmonk, good to hear from you again! amazed that Spore 7 hasn't featured on here before as, from your synopsis, it sounds like it crawled from the same swamp as 'Harry Adam Knight's The Fungus - so, in other words, very much a Vault novel.

And yet another goes on the wants list ...

[blackmonk]

Nov 14, 2010 11:32:50 GMT dem bones said:

hey, blackmonk, good to hear from you again!

thanks, demonik. I've never been far away. Just never got round to re-registering until now.