A canoe displayed during the 2019 Nebraska State Fair wasn’t made; it was grown.
Well, partially. An outer shell made of mycelium-which normally grows underground- was grown around a standard canoe skeleton and then dried. It’s both durable and waterproof and grows mushrooms after it gets wet.
What if using mushrooms as a building material was a standard?
This could create all sorts of interesting homes, ones that provide food in addition to shelter. It could be an Avatar-type fantasy world, one where the humans/humanoid creatures lived together with the world around them.
Bricks could be made of the dried mushrooms and furniture could be grown.
Mycelium is known as nature’s world wide web because of the way they can shuttle nutrients between trees. What if there was a way humans evolved to take advantage of this property to send communications with the world around them? We have the internet now, this would be an internet of physical spaces.
It reminds me of a feature of the past world in The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin. The world she created had transport vehicles that could communicate with the drivers and buildings all connected through crystals. It was fascinating and this could be sci-fi, -instead of fantasy- way to bring this world into existence.
The story itself could take the shape of two competing ideologies, similar to a struggle between Native Americans and the encroachment of their way of life by pioneers. Except in this version of history the Native Americans use their connection with the Earth to win, creating a symbiotic future for their land.
The first book in the series could be about a small family. One of the parents, maybe the father, wants to keep connected to the mushroom roots that span all their physical spaces, and the mother wants to abandon and adopt the new way of life. The two-three children find themselves torn and the story could follow their attempts to maintain a normal life while their way of life is threatened. It would end with one of the parents either dying or leaving, whichever one wanted the new way of life.
The second book could cover the family’s journey to a larger society that still believes in their connection with the Earth. Except this larger society has better abilities and can do more with their connections. They delay the onslaught.
The third book could be one of the children becoming a leader of maintaining their way of life and another child could be pushing for radical measures, like taking the fight to the enemy. They come together when their third sibling dies, making an alliance that comes to a tenuous agreement with the encroaching pioneers.
If the three books did well, up to five books could be a part of the series.
