Fantasy Novella Review: Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn

 



Flowers for the Sea by Zin E Rocklyn

Flowers for the Sea is the debut novella from author Zin E Rocklyn (who has done other short fiction before), and its described as "Rosemary's Baby by way of Octavia Butler" in its publishing blurb.  It's another story I saw get a lot of advance praise from authors I trust, so I reserved it early from the library despite horror not being my thing.  

And well, Flowers for the Sea still wasn't really my thing, but it's definitely interesting horror, one filled with righteous anger at injustice.  It's the story of a pregnant woman from an outcast people, whose baby might be something worse than human, as she tries to survive in a flooded world on a ship filled with people who hated and distrusted her own kind.  It's a really short novella, but it packs a lot of punch nonetheless.  

Note: If you have issues with pregnancy horror, this will not be for you.  

Quick Plot Summary:  A ship full of refugees from a flooded kingdom seems on its last legs, with flying monsters preying on the sailors at nights, and every childbirth onboard ending in failure and death.  But then there's Iraxi, the daughter of an outcast people, disliked and distrusted for who she his, with one thing that makes her special compared to the rest of the crew: her pregnancy seems viable.  And so they care for her and hope she can provide them all with a future.....

But Iraxi doesn't care about their future, or the baby within her - a parasite she knows will be all of their dooms.  She hates these people, from the nobles who persecuted her people and family,  to the people who offered her an awful choice, to the man she once loved who now denies her.  But as she remembers all of her hated past, urged on by the being within her, she will remember a truth that will change all their fates......

Thoughts:  Flowers from the Sea is told in bits and pieces in both the present and the past, as Iraxi is driven by her fetus and then the baby to remember the indignities she suffered on land - indignities towards her people at first, and then towards her personally.  She was betrayed, cast out, and made to feel like she should have been grateful for it all - and then betrayed again.  And the people on the current ship feel those same feelings of disgust and hatred, even as they claim to love her, both physically and emotionally...or just want her for her body.  

The result is a story of righteous anger, as Iraxi remembers all the indignities she suffered and makes a choice - because suicide is not something of an option for someone like her, who has so much wrath she would like to inflict upon everyone else.  And so there comes the demonic baby, who everyone else seems to see as normal, despite it having gills, the ability to speak, and eyes that are deformed....

It's a very freaky and disturbing type of story that I don't honestly really care for - but it works, and if you're okay with that kind of horror, this will work better for you, and the fury for the mistreatment Iraxi feels will obviously be relevant to today's readers, as the fury many real people feel over similar treatments today (without the global warming-esque devastation to force such people close together).