Ghostlands
Report an issue
Tell us what's wrong and we'll take a look.
Thanks – we got it. We'll review and follow up if needed.
Mushrooming Time
Francesco Helios, a groundskeeper in New Shining Capital, runs a “mower,” a seventy-ton leveling machine that keeps the Lawn free of the bloom of mushrooming monuments. Like an unruly yard, structures shove their way up through the turf: the obelisk of the Washerman Monument, the temple of “Old Frog Face,” and a thousand other stubborn relics from a half-recollected past that refuse to stay mowed down.
While Francesco is mowing, a ghostly woman appears on the Lawn. Unlike other human ghosts reborn from the past, the woman recognizes Francesco. She calls him by a name he doesn’t recognize, but that resonates. Timebreaker.
Soon Francecso is catapulted to dockyards cluttered with mushrooming battleships and across the country to plains of ghostly buffalo, all with a madman on his trail who seeks to transform Francesco into a “grubber,” dedicated to the eradication of CAHSPEI—Chronologically Anomalous Human-Seeming Phenomenon (Emergent-Insubstantial)—that is, to the murder of human ghosts from the past.
Yet if the Timebreaker is real—and he is the one— then maybe even a lowly groundskeeper can save his family from ruin, himself from oblivion—and, in the process, wrench humanity from the suicidal rubber room of rebounding time his mushroom-haunted world has become.
Winner of the 2026 Ark Prize for best novel.
Andrew Fox
Andrew J Fox was born in 1958 at Chelsea Hospital Victoria, Australia and grew up in suburbia.
His father worked for car maker Holden at the Dandenong plant, as well as being the licensee at the local Workers Club. His mother stayed at home to raise him and his two brothers.
Young Andrew grew up surrounded by books, so many to choose from which he fell in love with mysteries as soon as he read Agatha Christie books.
He still didn't quite know what he wanted to write about until he wrote his first essay, "Concessions."
Andrew struggled at school because of a medical condition which wasn't diagnosed until many years later. Then he left school at 15 and his father got him a job doing construction work at the local Abattoir, which lasted 12 months.
Then he was washing cattle at the same local Abattoir until they let him go 6 months later. Eventually getting work in the meat section. As the months ticked by, he started writing short stories.
Andrew used his time whilst he was employed to travel around Australia and popular destinations around the world. It wasn't until 1979 that his medical condition was diagnosed which was both a shock and a relief to finally understand what ailed him.
In 2008 he was inspired by an article in the local newspaper to which he invested in his writing 2013 and was first published in 2016.
His latest book to be published should be released in 2023, "Murder on Craven Street."
More by Andrew Fox
Why Readwise Books?
Readwise Books is an ebook & audiobook platform that automatically logs how much you and your friends read, making it fun and easy to read more. Learn more →