Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “Faunes” as Want to Read:
Faunes
by
À une époque où la nature a été entièrement cataloguée, colonisée ou assujettie, on peut encore découvrir quelques espaces insoupçonnés à la lisière de la civilisation : des chemins effacés par la neige, des villages mauvais. Il faut rester à l’affût pour les débusquer.
Sinon il suffit de suivre Laura sur les routes menant à la brumeuse cité de Shivering Heights ou vers le ...more
Sinon il suffit de suivre Laura sur les routes menant à la brumeuse cité de Shivering Heights ou vers le ...more
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Reader Q&A
To ask other readers questions about
Faunes,
please sign up.
Be the first to ask a question about Faunes
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
Showing 1-30
Start your review of Faunes
Such a short book (only 129 pages) but what a wallop it packs! This book reads like a dream or more accurately, like a nightmare. The setting is Shivering Heights. The timing is during the last days of the human race. This is eco-fiction at its most frightening. Most highly recommended.
I really enjoyed this! So many beautiful written parts, and I loved the running connectors between the different parts. A fantastic book to sneak in on Halloween! Environmental horror is definitely a genre to add to the radar.
This book was... hauntingly beautiful? I went into it with no expectations or knowledge of the plot. I just saw a pretty cover and some intriguing reviews. Then it turned into the weirdest book, with humans changing and animals going wild and poetic writing... that didn't seem to follow just one story. I don't even know how I would explain this book, just that I did really love the concept and the visuals and aesthetics were gorgeous. Trigger warning for a bit of sexual assault in the beginning,
...more
This strange and atmospheric little novella offers a quiet musing on the end of the world, and how it continues on after that.
While the plot remains somewhat opaque throughout, the writing is filled with a sense of tingling dread, of always awaiting the next thing to go wrong, to go horribly wrong. I did wish I could have sunk my teeth more deeply into what was actually occurring, but I was borne away on the wings of this story nevertheless.
A horror-adjacent read steeped in body horror, this one ...more
While the plot remains somewhat opaque throughout, the writing is filled with a sense of tingling dread, of always awaiting the next thing to go wrong, to go horribly wrong. I did wish I could have sunk my teeth more deeply into what was actually occurring, but I was borne away on the wings of this story nevertheless.
A horror-adjacent read steeped in body horror, this one ...more
“Time passes. No sea monster has deigned to nip at the feet he dangles underwater. When the clouds begin their descent, a bearded giant with arms thick as lifebuoys disrupts Thomas’s solitude to heave garbage bags into the lake. Thomas would like nothing better than to be a ballast for these sacks of trash, to dive in among the roiling waste as it makes its way slowly to the bottom of the lake. He wants only to decompose with this garbage. But this garbage will endure for centuries, as Laura wou
...more
"In the dying embers of the night, there is a changing of the guard. Some living creatures fade into silence; other spark to life. While certain souls finally coil up and rest inside their skulls, cut off from the visible words of prey, and other guardians of the night--the colour of suns in the darkness. These beings have no name in the forest."
•
Thoughts~
I haven't read a lot of eco-fiction but after reading Christiane Vadnais's Fauna I want to read more!
This eerie, surreal, atmospheric read ta ...more
•
Thoughts~
I haven't read a lot of eco-fiction but after reading Christiane Vadnais's Fauna I want to read more!
This eerie, surreal, atmospheric read ta ...more
Fauna consists of a series of short stories that illustrate the consequences our lack of regard for the environment will have for us in the near future. The topic is interesting and the book itself is a quick read but unfortunately, those were the only positive points for me. The stories themselves are poorly structured. There are many dramatic time skips and most of the stories have no obvious connection to each other, making it hard to follow. Furthermore, I have no idea what kind of message t
...more
my biggest issue with this book is that it felt eco-fascist to me. there's one particular chunk where it says that humans colonized the earth and the animals were there first. yikes! in addition to that, it begins with a graphic rape scene that is never dealt with again. bad. you can't just throw rape in hoping it'll start things off with a bang without dealing with it. setting my idealogical problems with this book aside, i did not care about the characters and don't think they grew or changed.
...more
Maybe I am just not smart enough for this book... because what the fuck did I just read?
I spent most of it going "what the heck is even happening right now?" I almost DNF'd in the first chapter because it was kind of gross, but I was also intrigued so I kept reading. And then the blurb said the stories were interconnected so I kept reading to see HOW. And sure, some of them were, but I never did figure out how that first one tied into the rest... This was just too bizarre for me, not a fan. ...more
I spent most of it going "what the heck is even happening right now?" I almost DNF'd in the first chapter because it was kind of gross, but I was also intrigued so I kept reading. And then the blurb said the stories were interconnected so I kept reading to see HOW. And sure, some of them were, but I never did figure out how that first one tied into the rest... This was just too bizarre for me, not a fan. ...more
Is this a collection of interlocked short stories, or a novella? Surreal, set in a dystopian landscape in the not-too-distant future mostly in a place called Shivering Heights--a town? A city? An area? The weather is extreme: fog or rain and the inhabitants metamorphose into different life forms, fish or bird, so this takes us back to life's early evolution, but a new world is being reborn phoenix-like out of the old. A mesmerizing work. The prose was absolutely exquisite; each setting was very
...more
This horror story will live on in me for some time to come. This brief novella paints a vivid picture of climate change where the endangered species is homo sapiens--human beings--me! I had to read it slowly, let the toxicity of the world that Vadnais presented sink into me. I do not feel safe. The prose is both excellent and poetic. Fair warning.
A strange, terrifying, lush, gorgeous telling of the end of life as we know it. The results of humans’ failure to care for Earth finally manifest themselves. This is a hard book to read because the author doesn’t tell her tale with the traditional cataclysmic end – rather her ending begins with a rainstorm and gathers strength just as the storm does. Vandais has chosen her words carefully and precisely and the result is a book told in such a sumptuous manner that her readers may become engrossed
...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
The premise of this book isn't really what it says on the back cover: "A biologist fights to understand the nature and scope of the changes transforming her own body and the world around her." It sounds so promising, doesn't it?
Well, it starts off pretty good. I was interested and hoping to see where the story went, but within the first chapter a woman gets raped by a person(?) or a force of nature(?) or a demon(?), it's really unclear and you never find out even though this person shows up mor ...more
Well, it starts off pretty good. I was interested and hoping to see where the story went, but within the first chapter a woman gets raped by a person(?) or a force of nature(?) or a demon(?), it's really unclear and you never find out even though this person shows up mor ...more
Fauna by Christiane Vadnais (translated by Pablo Strauss) is a chilling tale of the last days of the human race as we know it (as in, the last days of Homo sapiens sapiens). The stories all take place in Shivering Heights, which is drenched in water in all its forms, teeming with microbes, including one specific invader that seems to be aggressively spreading. Connected through place and time and characters, the stories follow Laura, a biologist, who's studying the particular disease, as she her
...more
This is a very short book of short stories--with lots of white space and pages between stories. The stories all revolve around the town of Shivering Heights--a rainy, misty place. Most of the stories imply climate change and a wetter climate. Not hotter, just wetter.
But the weather is not all that is changing. There are also parasites that are attacking people, making them sick and killing them. A scientist named Laura appears in several of the stories--she is researching parasites. Animals and ...more
But the weather is not all that is changing. There are also parasites that are attacking people, making them sick and killing them. A scientist named Laura appears in several of the stories--she is researching parasites. Animals and ...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Christiane Vadnais' first novel Fauna" reads very much like poetry. It was originally written and published in Canadian French and I suspect that it reads the same way to a francophone. It is the story, or a cluster of stories, of how Nature gets off script and begins turning in unexpected directions, all to the detriment of humans. Given a long enough perspective on evolution, there is nothing unusual about these changes. Stuff like this happens in Nature. The concerns are twofold: that these c
...more
What an odd little book. Enjoyable, but so unsettling. Eerie.
I'm in awe with the "universe" the author created. Its magic and mysteries. It was so vivid and the setting was its own character in the center of it all. I loved the crossovers between the stories... But there was so many disgusting details. Repulsive descriptions and negative foreshadowings. I disliked how this book made me feel. Uncomfortable and pessimistic and confuse... But, must come back once again to being in awe by the compl ...more
I'm in awe with the "universe" the author created. Its magic and mysteries. It was so vivid and the setting was its own character in the center of it all. I loved the crossovers between the stories... But there was so many disgusting details. Repulsive descriptions and negative foreshadowings. I disliked how this book made me feel. Uncomfortable and pessimistic and confuse... But, must come back once again to being in awe by the compl ...more
Dystopic, yet all too real. An interesting meditation on the ways in which climate change is going to reflect - impact - back on us, as in humanity.
While the author’s lyrical prose creates lush environments, and gives us (more than?) a glimpse into the horror that is coming - on account of the damage we are inflicting upon the planet in the present moment - the characters who inhabit this world are not as well developed as I’d like them to have been. I never really engaged with them… what kept ...more
While the author’s lyrical prose creates lush environments, and gives us (more than?) a glimpse into the horror that is coming - on account of the damage we are inflicting upon the planet in the present moment - the characters who inhabit this world are not as well developed as I’d like them to have been. I never really engaged with them… what kept ...more
I adored this collection of stories! A fantastic English translation, and Vadnais is brilliant. To imagine a world where nature has taken over and people must adapt - this adds a sort of hope in the helplessness of ecological breakdown. Vadnais reminds readers that the Earth will live on, force her inhabitants to adapt physically to this new world, and yes not many will make it, but some will adapt, and carry on. I can't stop thinking of this collection and how much I needed it. Beautiful story
...more
This was very weird and strangely beautiful. It reminded me of The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer mixed with Maja Lunde's climate crisis fiction but told through short little interconnected vignettes. I felt it was vaguely unsettling and sometimes downright ominous. As a warning there is some animal death, including a lovable dog. The whole book was disturbing but also somehow kind of lovely. I have really mixed feelings about the content but the writing was excellent and poetic. Thes
...more
This was an intriguing and poetic book, with a dreamlike feel to it, but I also felt like it sometimes used those characteristics to elude exploring some of the issues it raised. (Especially the F/F sexual assault scene in the very beginning. That's also a content notice...) I was left somewhat annoyed, but I'd still try something else from the author.
___
Source of the book: Lawrence Public Library (impulse borrow from the new shelf, because translated SFF + novella length combine to create my id ...more
___
Source of the book: Lawrence Public Library (impulse borrow from the new shelf, because translated SFF + novella length combine to create my id ...more
WTF did I just read? Um...that was the weirdest book I've ever read. I can't say there was really a plot or a storyline, it was just random bits of...something...kind of shoved all together. The premise was intriguing, climate change and evolution, but there just wasn't a story put together. The imagery was very lush and detailed, and I guess humans evolved into birds? fish? Not really sure. If it hadn't have been so short I probably wouldn't have finished. Too bad it never developed into an act
...more
Maybe this isn’t the book to add to your TBR pile during a pandemic. There’s a lot to like here - these vignettes tell some amazing speculative stories. But some don’t seem to fit in with the others, which makes the reader feel like something was missed. I did read the translation, so that could be an issue but I felt it was more of a character problem. I’ll be super interested to see what the author puts out in the future! Thank you Coach House Books for a copy to review.
"Is it true we are what we eat? Or are we rather what we breathe? The excreta and carbon dioxide and kinetic energy we pump back into nature? Were we really no more than the sum of our parts? Were we the clouds, the trees, the stones? ... how could anyone say for sure where their own being stopped and the birds began?"
This little book is all kinds of weird. A stunning translation of visceral prose. Not for the faint of heart (nor the faint of stomach). ...more
This little book is all kinds of weird. A stunning translation of visceral prose. Not for the faint of heart (nor the faint of stomach). ...more
An atmospheric, stunningly written story that plays with themes of evolution, genetic memory, and survival. If the translation is this beautiful, I can only imagine how gorgeous it was in its original language. Highly recommend for anyone desiring a thoughtful, artistic, haunting read that will keep you thinking for days to come. An absolute must reread, I'll be buying a copy to keep as I loaned it from our library. Not a happy ending, but one of grim determination and the promise of change.
...more
broh this book is straight savage broh! Makes me want to eat a chicago blue road kill deer steak and I haven’t even had breakfast yet! Really makes you think about how, like, everything is connected by the omnipresent laws of reality brooohhhh! Cool how that breeds interesting storytelling. Might be something I’ll look into more 🤔
I really did not like this book. None of the snippets seemed connected at all and that left the overall flow very choppy.
A couple of the snippets held the promise of something interesting, but because the book was so incredibly short, there was not enough fleshing out of the characters or the world.
A couple of the snippets held the promise of something interesting, but because the book was so incredibly short, there was not enough fleshing out of the characters or the world.
The concept seemed very interesting and I was very excited to read this book. Unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations. I found there wasn't enough of a story in it, it was just a bunch of situations that were described briefly. Not my kind of book, but the writing wasn't bad
...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Readers also enjoyed
News & Interviews
Ciannon Smart has been holed up in her England home since the pandemic began a year ago, but by no means has she been idle. She’s been on...
25 likes · 6 comments
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
