ABSTRACT
The fungal city of Ambergris, imagined by Jeff VanderMeer, is a placed of entangled, subversive, and competing biologies. The conflict between the human inhabitants and the nonhuman gray caps is rooted in biological difference, but this perceived difference is based on the understanding of the human individual as an individual. This is an inaccurate perception. Increasing research into microbiomes more accurately reflects the human body as a colony rather than an individual—a colony that includes fungal micro-organisms. The gray caps, then, are a challenging mirror that reflects the transformation of human biology from apparent to actual.
