The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter

Book excerpt: “Beautifully written and morally ambivalent, this complex tale will appeal to readers of Gene Wolfe and China Miéville.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review 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 all: Beyond the city, something ancient and monumental has come awake. “A breathtaking success of a fantasy story. Find yourself a copy, brew some strong coffee, and allow your mind to be blown.” —The Arcanist “Reading it is like waking up in the wrong bed, in the wrong apartment, under the wrong sun. The strangest part is the insidious way the strangeness of Hayward’s world becomes familiar as the story progresses . . . By turns surreal, macabre and stunningly violent, The Fecund’s Melancholy Daughter is dreamlike in its strangeness and complexity. Like a dream, it is difficult to define and difficult to shake.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto)