The Evil Bread

by William Hatchett

164 pages, Paperback

Published May 7, 2026

Reviews

[Phil Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

SPOILERS ALERT!

Vampires, werewolves, hybrids, mummies, zombies and scientifically reanimated monsters …. the basic forms of the ‘classic’ horror fiends are fairly limited in number. In ‘The Evil Bread’ author William Hatchett has not only created a new one – the Breadman – but it may be sufficiently adjacent to its symbolic meaning and appropriately timely in its eco-cultural relevance to have the ‘legs’ to achieve something like the literary afterlife of the ‘greats’.
By ‘adjacent, I partly mean that the Breadman’s origins are in something real; in the model of the ‘Humungous Fungus’, a single honey mushroom (located in an area of the National Forest in Oregon, USA) that is nearly four square miles in size and has sufficient intelligence to organise the routing of nutrients, can sense and extract information from environmental changes and shares signals between its various parts to coordinate their collective defence and growth efficiency. Far ahead of AI. Stick that in your Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, and smoke it….
It second adjacency is that the Breadman is, on the crusty face of it, a cannibalistic hybrid, a ‘Homo panis’. Humans are attacked by intelligent yeast. The initial identity of the Breadmen, as an apocalyptic threat to human society, is developed perversely by ‘The Evil Bread’ so that the violent energy of its their predations become forces for ecological renewal (at best) and (at worst for humans) an existential questioning of why humans are here.
The ‘Bezos’ of ‘The Evil Bread’ is a Swiss molecular geneticist called Severin Vogel who takes yeast (a fungus) and turns it into ‘Homo-panis’, a “biological mechanism to destroy meat-eating humans” as part of an overarching accelerationist plan to eradicate humans and establish fungus as the dominant lifeform. While the initial means of bringing the Breadmen into contact with their potential prey is a familiar one – through the retail sector, similar to the narrative roll out of Larry Cohen’s classic movie ‘The Stuff’ (1985), to which ‘The Evil Bread’ has some passing resemblance – Willliam Hatchett focuses, unusually, on the higher echelons of power and corruption more than on those consumers, local public health officials and factory workers who usually face these threats. Hatchett produces a pack of hideous cabinet ministers, corporate executives, celebrities and their agents, Secret Service deputy directors and factory managers to facilitate a conspiracy that exceeds their capacities for organisation and control.
Despite its gory horrors, with Breadmen out to suck the blood of all meat-eating humans (and with some humans ready to help them), the safety afforded vegans and vegetarians creates a rupture in the usual ‘universal’ rollout of such apocalypses. This is also reflected in the timeline of ‘The Evil Bread’, which jumps four years and then a further nine. Prior to these time leaps, the narrative seems to be moving towards an allegory for migration, with the “brown bodies” of the Breadmen (and their human supporters) meeting with violence from unofficial and state vigilantes. But the most significant schisms that appear in British society following the Breadmen attacks, are ranged along surprising lines. Conflicts arise around diet, the importance of locality, the best means of defence against the Breadmen, and the politics of land ownership and farming methods; these overlay, and in some cases supersede, longstanding prejudices.
In the end, powerful horror stories are less about the logic of their circumstances (of which ‘The Evil Bread’ has plenty) and more about the illogical and desirous forces that burst through almost autonomously, with authors having little more control of their effects than the conspirators of ‘The Evil Bread’ have over their yeast-based monsters. Here the novel delivers. In the throes of conflict and something close to civil war, the landscape – geographical and cultural – transforms itself. The yeasty energy of the Breadmen obliquely enthuses the wider ecology. Giant wealds return as trees reclaim land left over following the abandonment of a grazing-based agriculture. Socially, there is fragmentation too; in some places self-sufficient communities prosper but sink back into warlordism, while the cities “are haunts of subterranean cannibals who hunt in packs at night”. The social, cultural and biological boundaries between humans and other animals blur, both negatively and creatively.
While all the time the Breadmen persist, some beginning to find some harmony with those humans who do not eat meat, but still capable of manifesting in terrifying packs of long-tongued carnivores with crusty loaf-like skins, communicating their diffused brainless intelligence through hisses that sound like the whistles of kettles. Devoid of a skeleton, made of gluten covered with an epidermal crust, the Breadmen hide out, first, in garden centres, predating on football fans, later in barns and caves, they eventually evolve wings to help them bring down military helicopters and descend upon the unwary from the skies.
I doubt if this is the last we shall hear of the Breadmen…

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

In The Evil Bread a scientist with an extreme ideology has invented a bread which turns into ‘breadmen’ whose diet consists of meat eating humans. This is almost a tale of two halves with the first appearing to be an allegory for immigration, racism and how these topics are pervasive in current discourse in the UK, by referring to the first sighting of a breadman as a ‘brown man’ and featuring a power-hungry anti-immigration cabinet member character. I found that this theme fell to the wayside however in the second half where the dominant narrative seemed to broaden to examine extreme ideologies across the spectrum.

I loved the sections diving into the biology and anthropology of the breadmen, particularly seeing how their behavioural plasticity allowed them to adapt to human-dominated landscapes. I would have loved more breadmen visibility though, perhaps more kills, gore and depictions of the threat they posed to humans in a more visceral way. This element was very light, and instead the focus was overwhelmingly on how humans responded to the threat and the socio-cultural ramifications.

In regard to the writing, there were a lot of scenes that were hilariously mundane, reminiscent of Bob Mortimer’s style. The juxtaposition of this style with the bizzaro concept of breadmen works really well and the author has managed here to produce an innovative, creature-feature that also explores complex themes relevant to the UK today.

I received an eARC from Booksprout and I am voluntarily leaving this review.

[Zigo · Rating 5 out of 5]

As you might suspect from the playful title, The Evil Bread is a decidedly tongue-in-cheek affair: an enjoyably bonkers horror satire built around one fun idea. What if bread fought back?

A Frankenstein experiment introduces human DNA into bread yeast and results in carnivorous fungal creatures out for vengeance. Beginning in a Manchester supermarket, the killer loaves multiply at alarming speed before launching a bloody assault on humanity. Soon, supersized flying breadmen are darkening our skies.

This fast-moving, multi-plot narrative introduces a cast of larger-than-life characters, including ‘jumped-up yob’ and celebrity baker Gary Toon; evil genius Dr Severin Voegel, mastermind of a new world order in which yeast-based creatures will rise to the top; right-wing demagogue Evie Green and her Yellow Shirts; and the good guys - expendable boffin Barry and Jenny Treasure, food correspondent for The Guardian, working to stop the apocalypse.

A mash-up of outrageous B-movie science fiction and splatter horror, the book nevertheless makes some serious points about environmental irresponsibility, technological hubris and humanity’s propensity to make a mess of things. In the blurb, author Will Hatchett cites H. P. Lovecraft as an inspiration. For me, though, the book brought to mind the gleefully inventive science fiction of Colin Wilson, particularly The Mind Parasites.

A strange, funny and hugely entertaining contribution to the killer-food genre. It would make a great film. Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) — listen up!

[The Literary Chimera · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title and cover gave me hopes for a cheesy 80s B movie style Attack of the Killer Tomatoes meets The Evil Dead but with bread vibe. However, it isn't campy at all. It's horrific, post apocalyptic at points, and quite good. It bounces a bit in the time line, but it is otherwise an easy read. I rated it as four stars as it needs a bit of proofreading/editing for errors.

[Vilian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Evil Bread is one of those books that quietly pulls you in and keeps you thinking long after you've finished it. William Hatchett does an excellent job of building suspense from the very beginning, allowing the mystery to unfold at a steady pace instead of relying on cheap surprises.