by Brent Hayward
ChiZine Publications
ISBN: 978-1926851136
Review by: Rob Walter
Review posted 05/02/2011
The Fecund’s Melancholy Daughter is the newest novel from the mind of Brent Hayward and is the second book he has published. Chizine Press also published his first novel, Filaria, in 2009. This Sci-Fi Fantasy story is approximately 235 pages.
The story begins with three women in space entering a space craft called “mother” with rockets on their wrists and ankles. Except for all of the dead crew inside, the ship resembles a human body. Then we jump to the Kholics cleaning up trash and waste flowing from the great city of Nowy Solum. Being outcasts, the Kholics are perfect for this kind of work. Then there is path, laying in the garden under the rain waiting for his father to sleep off the spiritus binge he had been on. This path is unique in that he wiggles his stumps, but can’t escape the sling his father carries him in. The story moves in fits and starts as it continues to jump around back and forth between the different strands of the stories.
Part of the difficulty I had with the book lay in the fact that there weren’t really any chapters or headings in it. Only pictures to show some of the breaks. Some transitions between the parts of the story happened from one paragraph to the next. This made reading it more work as I often had to pause to think/re-read portions to maintain what understanding I had of the book. I was impressed that after my confusion of most of the story everything did tie together and come to a somewhat coherent conclusion.
