La Belle Fleur Sauvage: Plague of the Womb

by Caitlín R. Kiernan

Twenty-six years after murderous parasites invaded fertile women’s wombs and laid the world waste, 11 linked vignettes chart a New York wracked with oracles and statistical prophets, where hysterectomies are mandated and Carnival parades for the saint of miscarriage throw “carriers of contagion” and “would-be breeders” into the sea. Amid the ruins, the protagonists grapple with the past and learn to survive what remains.

102 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2019

About the author

Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan is an Irish-born American published paleontologist and author of science fiction and dark fantasy works, including ten novels, series of comic books, and more than two hundred and fifty published short stories, novellas, and vignettes.

Reviews

[Mark Tallen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a dark, vivid and impressive story from Kiernan. As usual, her prose is excellent and engaging. Kiernan is one of my favourite writers and I always look forward to reading her stories. I purchased the trade paperback edition from Dark Regions Press as well as the ebook. There is also a limited hardcover edition go be published too. I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy dark fantasy and horror, with some scifi mixed in to the pot.

[Strix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gross, disturbing, a collection of short scenes that vividly describe a ruined world, racing towards self-sterilization.

[Chris St.Pierre · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first time reading something by Caitlin R. Kiernan and all I can say is WOW. I highly recommend this novella and I will be ordering more from this author. 2 thumbs up!!!

[Anilea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoy Caitlin’s short stories more than her novels.
Like Patricia Highsmith, she aims for the kill; but in her own poetic, surreal flair.

Nihilistic post apocalyptic fiction is a dime a dozen; but hardly any of it comes close to the sheer brutality, insanity, and cosmic cruelty the way she does with her narrators.

The ceaseless, almost endless cynicism, the traumatizing experiences, the foulness of memories and degradation of the once was, time, and mankind, are the cruelest joke to ever been portrayed in such a vivid, absorbing decadently written prose.

I had to take my time reading it, otherwise, it would had messed up my therapy.

A short but a brutal book of impossibilities that seems nearer than ever.