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Fiction Fungus among us THE GENIUS PLAGUE By David Walton 384 pp. Prometheus Books Reviewed by Eric Petersen Sci-fi/horror master David Walton is back with his third novel. Like his previous novels Superposition and Supersymmetry , (also reviewed on this site) it features the common theme of humanity facing a potentially catastrophic alien threat. Unlike the novels that preceded it, which deal with an alien threat spawned by experiments in quantum physics, the alien threat in The Genius Plague shares our planet with us. In fact, it’s been here for millions of years. The story begins in the jungles of the Amazon rainforest, with Paul Johns, an American mycologist, ready to return to civilization after spending nearly a week on his own collecting samples of fungi. On his way to catch a riverboat, he runs into a fellow American named Maisie – a bored rich girl in search of adventure. The two strike up a friendship as they wait with some tourists for their boat, which picks up its passen...