As an amateur mycologist who has been actively involved in community building and engagement around environmental justice and mycology, I must ask, does this book promote mycophobia or mycophillia? I have never read a T. Kingfisher book, but picked this up because I heard it had mushrooms.

I was excited when this book started off featuring a character named Eugenia Potter, implied to the fictional aunt of real mycologist and author of the Peter Rabbit children's books: Beatrix Potter. There are many aspects to real mycological concerns around things like species identification. There's also references to the important discussion of sexism within mycology.

I also do appreciate that the main character Alex (they/them in English, Ka/Kan in native fictional heritage) is one that would not typically get attention as a retired female soldier. When it comes to gender and pronouns, I am torn.

Alex is from a fictional country where soldiers gain specific pronouns which translate to a gender neutral term like they/them. In fictional history, soldiers were socially defined as male, but due to an accident a woman was able to become a soldier since there wasn't exactly paperwork with gender exclusive language being equivocated to cis men using he/him, and due to the deficiency in people to conscript, it set a precedent for more women to come. So new rights for women, closer to the rights of men, because of: war.

Pronouns are not the same as gender, period. This carries over as Alex still acknowledges themselves as a woman using occupation-based gender-neutral neopronoun variant of a formerly occupation based cis man's pronoun. I like the idea that the gender associated with pronouns can change. Yet, women are still treated has weaker to men that need to be protected (unless I suppose, they become a soldier).

Alex is often treated in a manner that equivocates soldier status not to a gender neutrality, but to overt manhood through activities and roles that are otherwise mean to exclude non-soldier women (this soldier, that is a "man", cannot be left alone with an unmarried woman), though occasionally dismissed as a woman to be patronized (is this woman really a soldier?), or maybe neither mostly out of a confusion and giving up: not overt acceptance of gender neutral presentation.

Kingfisher's use of gender-neutral pronouns does not appear to me to be an act of defining non-binary gender (as gender is not the same as pronouns), which is fine, but the fact that ultimately binary gender roles are enforced and gender-neutral presentation is still held to it is disappointing. As a transmasc person constantly having my masculinity be put into question or treated as if joining the boy's club means playing into misogynistic gender roles, I don't love Alex being treated as some kind of man-"lite".

Looking into it, there are real historical examples that this seems to be inspired by: known as the Sworn Virgins of Albania. I don't know enough about it though to say what it has to do with pronouns, especially considering Alex is from a fictional country that could have had any history written, Alex is not said to be from Albania!

Ultimately, this is a horror book that, despite Eugenia's love for mushrooms, sets a completely fictional and unfounded fear for mushrooms in our main character. Okay, we have plenty of scary mushroom stories, I'm not going to ban them. My concern is that, to write such a story with an overwhelmingly white, militant, and questionable gender representation, it is not for a person like me nor would I feel comfortable sharing it to promote an interest in mushrooms.

Thank god, it was a very short listen.