The Devil's Fingers by Hunter Shea
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is probably one of my most favorite Shea horrors yet. :) Simple in plot and execution, it still hits all the right spots in my gross-out factor. Better yet, I'm constantly rooting for the new deaths. The more horrible, the better. :)

It's a walk on the wild side. There's a fungus among us! :)

*munches down on a mushroom* Yum! ... oh wait, they must think the same thing about us.

:)

Total B-Movie Madness! And it's a pure delight.

I may have said this before, but it bears repeating. I will always read Hunter Shea. I doesn't matter what he puts his hand to. As long as it's these corny monsters ripping apart dipshits and assholes, I don't think I'm ever going to complain.

Except...

My mental waistline is getting fat. It's too good! I don't even want to stray from any other high fat-salt stories! :)

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Blood for the blood god!

This third story that I can only describe as a creature feature, introduces a killer fungus. In the tradition of any horror movie, a group of friends camps far away from civilisation when they stumble upon an Australian fungus. Unfortunately for them, it's not the usual fungus - something's altered it. Could it be chemtrails, a mad experiment by man or is that just a tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory and it's simply Mother Nature flipping us the bird so to speak?

In any case, there is a lot of anatomical as well as emotional horror along with gruesome handicaps and death death death. A wonderful feast for anyone enjoying people dying horribly.

Like I said when reviewing other books by this author: why hasn't anyone made movies out of these stories yet?

Rounding out Hunter Shea's trilogy of One Size Eats All novellas is The Devil's Fingers, a story of fungus getting freaky in wonderfully grotesque ways. The primary theme of this trilogy has been mankind struggling to survive against some particularly vicious assaults from Mother Nature, and Shea goes all out in this third entry with some wild and gory set pieces.

Native to Australia, Clathrus archeri, aka the devil's fingers, is a highly exotic fungus that looks like something out of H.P. Lovecraft's wet dreams. Upon reaching maturation, bright red tentacles burst out of an egg, covered in dark green slime. They smell like a rotting corpse, the perfect odor to lure in flies to carry off fungal spores so that the devil's fingers can reach ever and ever farther.

When a group of hikers stumbles across a mutant strain of Clathrus archeri deep in the woods of Washington, the plan to spread the ashes of one of their companion's recently deceased father becomes an insane battle for survival.

Shea wastes no time getting straight to the creepy point as the hikers become infected and rapidly fall victim to the devil's fingers, pushing each of them to the brink of both mental and physical collapse, straining their bonds, and driving them ever deeper into a hellacious nightmare scenario.

The Devil's Fingers gorgeous cover immediately sets one's expectations for the story within, and Shea delivers an almost pitch-perfect round of craziness, and the strongest entry in the One Size Eats All series. The plot and characters are a bit flimsy, and there are maybe one or two more names bandied about than there needs to be given their thin development and the short page count, but it's an minor complaint since most of these people exist solely to become fungus fodder. And sweet, stinky, glorious fodder they are!

Take another look at this book's cover because what you see is what you get. If you like that image of ornery tentacles bursting out of some rando's torso, then you're gonna love this one. Me, I'm a sucker for this type of story. A group stuck in the woods, cut off from civilization, stumbling upon their own brutal, insane deaths? Count me in! Make their means of destruction something natural, like a plant or fungus, and you've got me by my wallet for sure. Hunter Shea is one of the most consistently reliable writers of fun creature-feature horror, and he delivered exactly what I wanted in The Devil's Fingers - ruthless natural horror, a high body count that never skimps on the gore, and an overriding sense of hopelessness balanced against man's indomitable fight for survival no matter the odds. Lean and mean, The Devil's Fingers held me tight in its grip the whole way through.

[Note: I received an advanced reading copy of this title from the publisher, Kensington, via NetGalley.]

I knew I was right when I didn't want to go camping. I thought the worst thing that I would have to deal with was a bear, not the Devil's Fingers. Seth asks some of his friends to go with him to spread his father's ashes where they camped and fished. Brandon, Latrell, Carrie, Autumn, Dan and Tina are all part of the group. They all notice that there are strange chemtrails in the sky above them. While there, they find something that almost looks like an octopus but smells like death. Autumn, a botany major recognizes that they are a fungus called the Devil's Fingers. Nothing to worry about. Carrie and Dan go out into the woods for some privacy and when they come back the next morning, there are big blister like growths on them and they act like zombies. The growths have something wiggling in them. When Autumn punctures one of the blisters on Dan, they are the arms from the fungus. The blisters are appearing on everyone but Brandon. Autumn knows that no one can leave the area due to this being airborne and will spread to all areas and causing a pandemic. Since Autumn is the only one who realizes what it could mean to the world if it gets out, she takes responsibility to keep anyone from leaving. How can she do this? What about the chemtrails and why is Brandon not affected? Does Brandon know something about this? This book will give you nightmares but you won't stop reading it because you have to know what happens. I received this book from Net Galley and Kensington Books for a honest review and no compensation otherwise.

4 and 1 / 2 stars

Several friends are out camping and hiking in the Washington State wilderness. They come upon a clearing of strange fungus-like organisms which smell very bad. One of the students, a budding botanist named Autumn Winters, wants to take some of the pods home with her to show her professor.

When two of the friends go into the woods for a little privacy, they return the next morning looking like zombies. In fact, they have stuff growing on them. The field of Devil’s Fingers that they noticed the day before have somehow infected them. Autumn pops one and little tentacles come out.

Dan goes berserk and starts attacking his friends. He manages to clutch two of them before they get away. As the fungus spreads throughout the group, they unaffected are frightened. Tina has a broken ankle suffered when Dan went berserk and cannot leave with the rest of them when they head to the cars. They will have to come back for her. With Dan, Carrie and now Seth infected, Tina is understandably frightened. But before they set out, their escape route is blocked by the pods that are growing everywhere now.

And then there were three…The last survivor is saved through a quirk of fate – or perhaps not.

Mr. Shea has the ability to scare the pants off the reader in his little novellas. This one did not have the level of humor that is usually exhibited in this author’s stories. This was one of his creepier stories. I was almost squirming in my seat. This story is well written and plotted linearly. One event follows another in a logical progression. I liked the characters and the story was very engrossing and interesting. What if this really happened?

I want to thank NetGalley and Kensington Books/Lyrical Underground for forwarding to me a copy of this great book to read, enjoy and review.

What to say, I love Hunter Shea books and this one did not disappoint. The story was great and was thoroughly enjoyable. I would absolutely recommend this book and all others to friends and family. I loved that the ending would allow for another book that could follow on from this. Fab read

Review: THE DEVIL'S FINGERS by Hunter Shea

NOBODY delivers cryptozoology and off-the-wall science like Hunter Shea! Nobody! In THE DEVIL'S FINGERS, Mr. Shea branches into cryptobotany, and my stars, I think that's scarier than cryptozoology! For certain, the scares here are implacable-unavoidable-deathly. End-of-the-world potentials here. Think (as does our wise protagonist, botany student Autumn Winters, in terms of global catastrophe). Think, as does born conspiracy theorist Brandon, of scientific experiments gone awry. Think of a one-session read guaranteed to frighten you senseless and leave you scared to breathe. Consider Fungi.