Jellyfish attacks!
Rise of the Jellies
by Brian Wilford
Altona: Friesen Press, 2025
$28.49 / 9781038322364
Reviewed by Kenna Clifford
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In the sleepy Vancouver Island town of Qualicum Beach, not much concerns the townsfolk beyond the usual WASP-y retiree fixations: grumbling about city infrastructure, expensive hobbies, and getting in other peoples’ personal business. That is, until something comes bubbling from the ocean deep…
If this description brings up visions of John Carpenter films and creatures from the Black Lagoon, you’re not far off from envisioning Brian Wilford’s Rise of the Jellies, either. Focussed on a town that finds itself amid a flying jellyfish infestation, the debut novel pays homage to that same pulpy science fiction horror genre, which has ignited the imaginations of unsupervised children for generations. With a flair for the ecological (though it’s not like the genre didn’t already have that) and a fascination with the real science of jellyfish habitats, Rise of the Jellies implores the reader—with a heavy hand—to ask if the monsters in question might have just been the humans all along.
Jellies follows a whole host of characters, but focuses mainly on Emma Tooney, an eco-gardener and one of the first victims of jellyfish attack, Paul Ip, a former science writer now working for the CIA, and Honey Purcell, a marine biologist with a specialization in jellyfish. (I appreciated the campy nods to the genre in these main characters and the Canadiana in a name like Tooney; an American operative stuck in Canada worked as effective homage.) As the three attempt to understand and manage this evolutionary jump from water to sky, they must also manage the paranoia of the under-informed townsfolk, the host of media outlets attempting to get coverage of the event, and the self-interested businesses (shades of Jaws) that attempt to profit off the town’s newfound fame.
Jellies does a good job of capturing the slow-moving bureaucratic processes that plague decisions in a small town. Nothing ever really gets done and no one truly has a voice because everyone has something to say. Wilford‘s characterization also dogs the trio, who are flat and lacking in real delineation. Purcell, Ip, and Tooney come across as functional, as figures that propel the greater narrative; they never find much of a personal arc or arrive at much sense of self. With the facile individuation in a large cast of characters, I struggled to keep track of names, faces, and backstories, especially towards the middle and end portion of the book.
Jellies thrives with its fascination with jellyfish as Lovecraftian horror subjects. Wilford figuratively slathers the narrative in viscous goo. Early on, especially, the novel revels in the otherworldly strangeness of the jellies.
Jellyfish exemplify the alien-slime-horror trope very well; they are deeply un-human, ectoplasmic, and unfeeling to the untrained eye. Wilford paints them with the texture of xenomorphic angels, describing their bodies as undulating, glowing, and colourful; they’re beyond human understanding as they rise into the air, the clouds. Accordingly, Emma experiences the human-jelly interactions with a near-reverence: “Seeing the jelly shimmering in the sun, against the blue-grey ocean and the bright blue sky, Toonie could feel tears welling up in her eyes.”
This sentiment is common with townsfolk, too. That is, until they start to eat people’s pets.
With that said, the novel never takes its own subversiveness very seriously. There are very few moments of gore during the novel; and few casualties who aren’t deserving of their fate (such the caricatured group of Gen Zers who die when they participate in a jelly-related trend) or who the reader has comes to know and value. Because of this, the jellies never truly make a lasting mark as necessarily violent—let alone a concern of international proportions. Perhaps that’s the plot’s intention. Honey suggests throughout the novel that these creatures are to be treated like other ecological pests, a problem that could be managed easily by focusing on creating a balanced ecosystem and being well-informed. This sentiment doesn’t make for a particularly action-packed or high stakes narrative, and often leads to long paragraphs of expository material describing the species of jelly and related biological facts.
Rise of the Jellies ultimately finds itself getting caught in the weeds of its own genre. In many of the early 1980s—and earlier—examples of sci-fi horror, we can view the more culturally insensitive characteristics as belonging to a bygone era. In other words, we contextualize the Orientalist fixations, sexism, off-colour jokes, and loose-at-best understanding of geopolitical events as products of a historically remote time and culture.
I had hoped that as a book produced just this last year, by a Canadian author, and with a general slant towards the left, Jellies would have left some of the dated stereotypes of the genre out of the narrative. Reading, it felt hard not to notice—and address—some of the jokes as generally insensitive or under-researched. For example, Honey compares Paul Ip, a Filipino character, “…an Asian Jesus. You turn rice into sushi and water into sake.” In another instance, when crabs voraciously rip apart a salmon carcass, the scene is described as “like watching refugees at a U.N. truck.” Throughout the second half of the story, Ip often flirts with Purcell by mentioning all the CIA spyware he can use to gawk under her clothing. The ‘humour’ made him hard to relate to, to say the least.
I simply couldn’t write a review about the novel without mentioning the many lines of a similar tone or subject, as they profoundly affected not only my enjoyment of the novel, but also the relatability and realism of the characters’ dialogue. When it comes to bygone attitudes, I think some of them are better left in the past.
*
Kenna Clifford is a writer and filmmaker based in so-called “Vancouver, B.C.” They are the founder and editor-in-chief of Semipermeable Press. Kenna’s creative nonfiction and reviews are published by RANGE, The Dry River (Crybaby Press), Inkyard Press and SAD Online, as well as on the blog Speculative Fiction. Kenna likes to write about desire, culture, art, and memory—and especially the places where all those things touch. [Editor’s note: Kenna reviewed Mirielle Gagńe‘s recent novel for BCR.]
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors: Trevor Marc Hughes (nonfiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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