The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter

by Brent Hayward

The city is crumbling. Clouds over Nowy Solum have not parted in a hundred years. Gods have deserted their temples. In the last days of a dying city, the decadent chatelaine chooses a forbidden lover, separating twin outcasts and setting them on independent trajectories that might finally bring down the palace. Then, screaming from the skies, a lone god reappears and a limbless prophet is carried through South Gate, into Nowy Solum, with a message for beyond the city, something ancient and monumental has come awake.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Canada, Speculative Fiction

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Author of the novels Filaria ('08), The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter ('11), and Head Full of Mountains ('14), and of several shorter fictions, collected in Broken Sun, Broken Moon ('19).

UK born, raised in Montreal, lived in LA for a spell and as an expat in Poland. Currently resides in Toronto.

Check out http://brenthayward.com for more info about the novels, reviews, etc. CZP's gone belly up; copies are not so easy to find anymore.

Retired from the aerospace world.

"Hayward's debut [Filaria] is a powerful, beautifully-written dystopian tale concerning four inhabitants of a gigantic but dying artificial habitat... With well-developed characters and four strong plotlines told through alternating chapters, Hayward delivers a fulfilling read.
– Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[Brent Hayward]'s second novel [The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter] combines elegant writing with moral ambiguity and an impressive array of grotesque characters."
- Locus

"Toronto’s Brent Hayward has a knack for creating incredibly lush alternative worlds and mythologies, and Head Full of Mountains may be his most complex and demanding work yet. . . . [O]ne of the more different and difficult SF novels of the year, but also one of the most rewarding."
- The Toronto Star

"A masterpiece of construction and technique... I stand in awe of the premise so much so that I am lost in the concept and can’t seem to step back far enough to figure out what sort of metaphor or allegory this be... Point is I think Hayward is as good as Ballard or damn near. Certainly one of the most interesting and original writers I have ever read... The virtuosity of the writing [in Broken Sun, Broken Moon] and the power of the imagery will linger in your mind."
- Amazing Stories

Reviews

[Tijana]

Ovo je dekadentno bizarni (bizarno dekadentni?) roman od one sorte koju je izuzetno teško "izvući" kako treba - SF ali smešten u takvo okruženje/vremensku udaljenost/štagod da deluje kao epska fantastika. Vidi Knjigu Novog sunca. Osim što je ovo mnogo bizarno dekadentnije. Odnosno, negde od početka pa do kraja mi se u glavi vrtela priča Vonde Mekintajer, Mala lica, i *njena* vizija simbiotskih svemirskih brodova (i ovo je otprilike jedino što ću da kažem o radnji jer se to saznaje na prve dve strane) jer je samo ona jednako bizarno koncipirana - ali dobro, nisam baš toliko upućena u materiju.
Hejvord piše dobro (mada povremeno malo odviše cvetno za moj ukus + posle dužeg vremena naišla sam na ne baš sjajno lektorisano strano izdanje), tera čitaoca da upotrebi mozak (uvek dobro!), nije iznad lukavih vašarskih trikova (mislim prevashodno na imena bogova), koristi u nove svrhe staru podelu na četiri temperamenta (ali revidiranu. flegmatici su mi najviše nedostajali i samo što nisam počela da navijam kad su pomenuti negde pred kraj) i sasvim je autentično frojdovski opsednut matericama (Fekund. i sve ostalo. Ali Fekund pre svega. da je ovo ozbiljan tekst ona bi dobila bar dve strane). Ima nekih klimavosti u zapletu, ali šarenilo i pre svega maštovitost u osmišljavanju različitih (a nekako svih jednako klaustrofobičnih) zajednica na ivici haosa vuče na onu ludačku žicu fantastike - Mervin Pik možda, Džek Vans svakako, od novijih, ne znam, možda Mijevil, ali Mijevil uvek sve ubije racionalizacijom? A to vas ovde svakako ne čeka.

[Angi]

If David Lynch and Sheri S. Tepper had a son together, he might write like Brent Hayward. I am loving this beautiful, strange story so, so very much.

Science fiction at it's best. This was an enthralling story, written almost poetically. I can't wait to read more of Mr. Hayward's books.

[TheBookSmugglers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally reviewed on The Book Smugglers: http://thebooksmugglers.com/2011/06/b...

The clouds over (the once great) city of Nowy Solum have not parted in a hundred years, ever since the Gods have left or died. Within its great castle, the chatelaine spends her days in drunken orgies; her father, the castellan, retired from the decision-making process, indulges in disturbing biological research. On the streets outside, social divide slowly corrupts and destroys its citizens while on the underground, the imprisoned Fecund gives birth to horrors dreamed by her captors.

Above the clouds, three female astronauts come across a Mother and one of the Gods briefly reappears in the skies; across the desert, a limbless, hitherto witless child awakens to prophesize the return of an ancient creature, just as the chatelaine picks a forbidden lover with melancholy running in her veins, inadvertently setting in motion the beginning of the end.

Ah. New Weird. We have such a troubled relationship. The idea of blending Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror with weird components is really interesting and attractive in theory but many times I have found the execution of those stories to be disappointing. And in the majority of these cases, the disappointment comes from noticing that many times the “weird” in the equation is there just because – random objects throw in, without any relevancy to the story.

I am pleased to say that this is not the case with The Fecund’s Melancholy Daughter: the weird aspects of the story are definitely present but they never feel like they are artificial, isolated objects within the story. Quite the contrary, they are an intrinsic part of a surreal, puzzling world. For example: the chatelaine collects pets, all of them birthed by the Fecund based on the chatelaine’s dreams. Amongst them a cherub, a baby with wings whose eventual kidnapping is central to the main storyline. The collection itself has a reason (as disturbing as it sounds) and so does the very existence of the Fecund – a grotesque monster, who has been imprisoned for centuries.

Another instance of the weird is how the people in Nowy Solum are either “hemo” or “kholic”. The first have regular, red blood running through their veins. The latter bleed black fluid, or melancholy, both a physiological condition and a psychological state. The implication of how melancholy affects people by making them less human in their presumed lack of emotion is partly the reason behind the social divide and their outcast status. The “kholics” do all the menial work and are terribly ostracized. Here the “weird” is basis from which to explore racism, artificial social stratification and what happens to a society in which the majority of its people live in terrible conditions. One of the best sequences in the book is this very short yet moving portrayal of a young desperate mother whose son is about to undergo the ceremony that establishes what kind of fluid he has in his veins. The fact that she is an impoverished “hemo” with a hard life only serves to reveal how this world is coming apart at its seams.

One could even possibly describe the storytelling as weird itself: reading the novel feels like putting together the scattered pieces of a puzzle without having any idea of what the main picture looks like. From its opening sequence, the story progresses by alternating between several characters’ points of view with a little bit of an intruding omniscient narrator added to the proceedings. It is a multi-tiered world (below clouds, above clouds, beyond clouds) and it is also a multi-tiered narrative. Sometimes this proves to be a bit confusing because of how fragmentary the narrative is.

But in the end, when it becomes clear how well constructed the story truly is, when all different threads converge into a whole, it is easy to see the brilliance behind the plotting and how well developed it truly is. However, I have to say that I appreciate this brilliance in a distant, detached, purely intellectual way. Although I think the storytelling is successful, even though I appreciate the themes that are explored here, I found myself not really invested or engaged with the people, or the city, or the setting. Perhaps, the very nature of the book, the way that the story and characters are scattered around are responsible for that. I felt that the characterisation suffered because of it and was only skin-deep. Not to mention that I had problems with the portrayal of a couple of characters.

The chatelaine for example: the woman in charge of running the city and who spends her nights in drunken orgies. Those “drunken orgies” are not presented in a neutral way at all and are loaded with negative connotations. It is generally accepted by everybody (including herself) that she is a bad chatelaine and it is heavily implied (by the text, and other characters) that the main the reason why she is a bad chatelaine is because she is “decadent” as she indulges in orgies with a S&M bent. I am uncomfortable with this depiction as it reeks of slut shaming. Yes, the character does indulge in drunken orgies, yes the character does use “devices” when having sex, but she does so with willing and consenting partners and as far as I am aware it is no one’s business what she does inside her own rooms. This, to me, cannot be a measure of her qualification as a chatelaine. She is a bad chatelaine because she is an incompetent, absent chatelaine. Period.

Another thing that gave me pause when reading the novel was how, after the chatelaine and her new female lover had sex, the chatelaine walked around for hours with – and this was repeated a few times – “juices” trickling down their thighs. First of all: Ew. TMI that was not really necessary to the execution of the plot. Second: and please forgive me the crassness of my ensuing statement but even though some women can ejaculate when orgasming, we lack the instrument to ejaculate inside another women’s body to the point where this other woman will be walking around with juices trickling down her thighs!! Seriously, this is Biology 101.

That both aspects that made me most uncomfortable about the novel involved the depiction of female characters is quite troubling and somewhat diminished the positive impact that other aspects of the novel had.

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for the narrative, 4 stars for its emotional impact on me

My reading habits seem to be evolving. Again. I'm veering away from most fantasy and immersing myself more in science fiction. I'm increasingly restless, requiring books that command my full attention. I've become quite the masochistic reader-- reveling in narratives that make my brain hurt, expanding it beyond familiar and comfortable limits. Perhaps the brain is like the stomach, increasing brain food intake results in a gain in brain capacity.

Like FILARIA, this tale exists in a multilevel world, functioning independently but ultimately interconnected. The perceived gods reside beyond the clouds and have not made an appearance for many years. The tree dwellers reside above the clouds, thinking the worst of whatever exists below. The city of Nowy Solum is a world beneath the clouds. The narrative shifts back and forth between levels through key residents. There are also a few time shifts.

Nowy Solum is ruled by the chatelaine, though she really has little interest in ruling and more zeal for the pursuit of debauched pleasures. She rules only because her father passed on the responsibility preferring, instead, isolation and freedom to conduct his atrocious experiments. Nowy Solum society is divided between the red-blooded hemos and the black-blooded kholics, the latter group tattooed at birth, ostracized and relegated to perform the dirtiest, menial tasks, a type of untouchables. Nahid and Octavia are noteworthy kholics, not entirely suited for their station in life but victims of it nonetheless.

Path is severely disabled, incapable of most simple tasks, until a vision caused him to start evolving into something new and urged him to leave everything familiar, ending in Nowy Solum with little left of who he was.

The people of the tree settlement are faithful people, with established rituals and strict rules for living. Padre hornblower is a man of stature, a religious elder chosen by one of his gods for an impossible task. Pan Renik was exiled by the tree dwellers, forced to scrounge a meager existence, forever lamenting his misfortunes, until the day an opportunity literally landed in front of him. His spontaneous action sets events in motion that will change not just his corner of the world.

The gods who have not been seen for many years and consequently reduced to mythological figures are suddenly making their presence felt, heralding their likely reappearance. They may just give the people a glimpse of their true nature.

There is so much eloquence in this book. I constantly had to resist highlighting or I'd have ended up with more highlighted text than not. There is a lyrical quality to the way Brent Hayward describes places and time and thought processes. He is a poet, a philosopher, a sophist.

I won't pretend this is an easy book to read, a book you can speed through or skim. Even reading carefully, I often had to pause to discern and digest what I just read. This science fiction offering with definite fantasy and new weird elements deals with social inequality, discrimination, the excesses of the powerful, the whims of the gods, the deification of the unfamiliar, the dangers of divining the desires of gods. It explores identity, how people are often defined by the gratuitous nature of birth and how it limits the possibility of self-determination. Some boundaries are more fluid than others. Some actions really do reverberate throughout existence.

I appreciate how Hayward uncompromisingly writes the book he wants to write. He creates his own comprehensive mythology. I cannot imagine he's unaware of the challenging nature of his books. It likely makes them less accessible but also more rewarding the moment the blueprint he has carefully laid out for you becomes visible. He is a reserved storyteller, withholding the nexus until the very last moment. He jumps back and forth between settings and characters with unwavering trust in your ability to keep abreast. Each thread of the story is unique and fascinating though seemingly disparate and unconnected. When all the moving parts have been independently introduced, Hayward assembles them into a cohesive, fully functioning mechanism.

I cannot deny the masterful writing. It didn't, however, have the emotional impact of FILARIA. For the most part, I admired the story as if from a distance, an almost sterilized or clinical appreciation. Right about the sixty percent mark though, I started to feel more of an emotional connection to the characters, engendering sympathy. There was a revelation that sparked emotional involvement. The ending had a poignant finality but it also left much room to ponder the future of the characters as well as their world. The weighty societal issues and matters of faith that permeate this story are certainly conducive to further reflection.

Considering the foregoing, there really isn't much more anyone can demand from a story. I am looking forward to the next challenging Brent Hayward book. My brain needs to recover in the meantime.

[Eatpraymunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this book, I just made an account to give it a good review after reading the unfair "Oh I read ten pages, it was confusing" reviews on here.

This book intentionally throws you into the midst of vibrant, fully formed non-earth world. It doesn't hold your little hand and tell you how this universe works. But the scenes are set beautifully, and all you have to do is quiet your inner voice saying "wtf?" and just go along for a scenic ride - you are given all the information you need to understand the story. It all comes together by the end, organically and in a satisfying way, and you got to skip the dull chapters of world-setting you slog through in most sci-fi books.

The world and the characters in it are fantastic, if you give it a chance you'll find yourself reading it again immediately!

[Dreadlocksmile · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in June of 2011, Canadian author Brent Hayward’s second novel entitled ‘The Fecund’s Melancholy Daughter’ found itself within ideal company with ChiZine Publications.

DLS Synopsis:
The once great city of Nowy Solum is slowly decaying from the inside out. After the Gods deserted the city, the citizens of Nowy Solum took to a new, more bitter and self-involved way of life. Within the confines of her great castle, the city’s chatelaine spends her days and nights partaking in drunken orgies. Her father, the castellan, having been moved to the castle’s dungeons long ago, now spends his time dissecting and modifying the local creatures for what could only be a questionable goal.

Outside the walls of the castle the people are made up of mostly poor and hardworking folk, as well as a large proportion of kholics, whose outcast status has led them to performing the most hideous and unwanted of jobs. For they are not like the hemos. Instead their blood is as black as coal, and their faces heavily tattoo from soon after birth.

When the chatelaine spots a beautiful kholic girl with her twin brother, she is instantly besotted by the kholic girl’s unquestionable beauty. Taking the girl – Octavia - away, the chatelaine dotes heaviy on her; slowly but surely working on a new forbidden relationship. But her twin Nahid won’t let his sister be simply snapped up just like that. Not even if it was by the chatelaine herself. Together with his hemo girlfriend, Name of the Sun, they succeed in a drug-induced revenge by removing one of the chatelaine’s prized pets from her chamber – her cherub.

With the chatelaine’s life quickly falling apart, news of a giant God making its way to the city gates is yet further misery to be bundled upon her. And sightings of the three women Gods (bless them) flying over the city is bringing its limited days to a final point. Finally, a limbless child by the name of path makes his way to the city in a sling over his father’s shoulder. A child whose destiny is etched in the city’s final days.

Gods will do battle. The heavens are open. The mighty will undoubtedly fall. Debauchery and corruption are losing their stangelehold on the once great Nowy Solum. And in the depths of the castle’s dungeons, the great monster known as the Fecund is labouring over more life. There may be no hope left in the world. Only time will tell…

DLS Review:
Hayward’s tale launches head-first into the puzzling dark fantasy world that he has so intrinsically created here. Like a Salvador Dalí masterpiece transposed into words; the re-jigged and imaginatively formed world draws vague similarities to some of our own by-gone eras. The city of Nowy Solum echoes of the early life of cities such as Edinburgh – with its manic and grimy streets, a vast underbelly which is home to the poorer from its society, and ultimately the cramped, oppressive and claustrophobic nature of the city’s construction. Indeed, the world that Hayward has elaborately created is not too dissimilar in feel and essence from that of Stephen King’s epic fantasy world of the ‘Dark Tower’ series.

For the novel’s construction, Hayward plays with a whole host of seemingly chaotic threads of storyline; intertwining, overlapping and masterfully dancing them around each other. Ultimately, these threads and subplots will of course converge into one. However, along the way, the reader is thrust about this haphazard and dauntingly surreal storyline with almost reckless abandonment.

Barley a page goes by without the reader having to decipher and ponder upon the novel’s contents and its current direction. The great strength and clinging enjoyment of the tale is in its puzzling and wildly elaborate nature. Hayward’s imagination is truly let loose throughout the length of the tale. The result is a living, breathing, and constantly shifting story that alternates between its many threads, mesmerising the reader with the constant outlandish acceptance of its own dreamlike premise.

Characterisation is staggered and more suggestive than carefully developed. This doesn’t underplay the progression or involvement of the story in any way, but instead, leaves the reader to fill in the gaps and play around with the mystery of the characters to a larger extent.

The creation of the so-called ‘Gods’ is a magnificent jest on religion and a clever social commentary on the misguided conception of the idols man (hemos in this case) establishes, and the whole madness behind the tradition of worship. Intentional or not, the smugness behind the reality of the Gods is certainly well deserved.

The ending is as manically chaotic as the rest of the novel had been. The tale finales quite spectacularly in its own way; although there are a few loose threads that seem to have been swept aside to make way for the more dramatic and audacious storyline to come to its final fruition.

The novel runs for a total of 244 pages.

[Suki St Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5☆

[Codi Boone-murphy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not too sure what happened.

[Tom II · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good classic style science fiction book, not predictable, easy to read, and detailed enough to pull you into this world without getting lost in a seemingly alien world.

[J.S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the setting, the writing and the characters. Brent Hayward has such a wonderful imagination! But I found the ending dissatisfying. Darn.

[Hal Bodner · Rating 1 out of 5]

I believe in full disclosure when assigning a two-or-less star review to a book. Therefore, I want to confess up front that I was unable to finish this book. I gamely gave it a hundred pages, just shy of half way, before giving up.

In fairness,the book was well written. Unfortunately, there is no star rating equivalent to "Nice work even though I disliked it intensely."

Is the book pretentious? I cannot say for sure. It certainly seems to be, at first blush. Yet there is a genuine quality to the writing that seems to belie pretense.

By the same token, the author seems to have intentionally written a book which takes a great deal of effort to read and, for my part, I simply do not want to have to work that hard. While I'm sure this novel has some kind of cohesion, it was far too difficult of a task to piece it together. Frankly, if I wanted to struggle THAT MUCH with a novel, I'd re-read Stanislaus Lem or perhaps even Hermann Hesse.

But THE FECUND'S MELANCHOLY DAUGHTER struck me as a novel that only the kinds of people who relish slogging through something like THE LOWER DEPTHS would appreciate or, perhaps, someone looking for a doctoral subject. It was far too convoluted, disjointed, and bewildering for my taste. Moreover, Hayward demands a great deal of his readers in the way of deciphering it.

No, this book for all the adroitness the literary craft, was not to my taste at all.

[Kat K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel was an interesting read. The way the "chapters" bounce back and forth without introduction makes it a bit difficult to keep up with the changes, but somehow it held my interest. The world that Hayward creates is also a bit removed from anything I can really relate to, which I believe is the point, but it also makes it difficult to latch onto the story line until I was able to kind of pick up a knowledge base within the world. I didn't necessarily find this read compelling, but it was interesting and I wanted to see how the different storylines would meet up, if ever. Overall, I'd say it was an interesting, yet difficult read.

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book felt really too all over the place for me. I often couldn't figure out what was happening or where it was happening, and sometimes the plot threads were too far apart for me to be able to realize that they were the same plot line. While it did eventually come together, not everything the story brought up was explained. When did the gods die?! It seemed like the sisters were doing pretty good...and what was the fecund's baby? WAS it a miscarriage??
Also, I think the story was maybe just a bit to weird for me.

[Marsha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hayward's turn of phrase is very unique and very descriptive, and this is probably why I hung in and finished this book, even though it is really very confusing. Most of the book I felt kind of baffled, thinking that I might have missed something that made it clearer, and at the end, I felt like I must have many incomplete threads. It's refreshing, however, to read something really rather unique in the science fiction realm.

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Super confusing. Still didn't understand what was going on after ten pages.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting book with unusual concepts; very confusing ending (to me at least).

[Karl]

This is copy 3 of 35 signed numbered copies.