If you like Jeff's work, Tainaron is worth checking out. Tainaron is somewhat reminiscent of VanderMeer's Ambergris stories, in presenting a detailed world whose odd details shock the reader into realizing they're not in Kansas any longer. Some creatures die, others change their opinions of the writer, and with the approach of winter, most go into hibernation or build cocoons in which they will metamorphose into new beings, not quite like their past selves. Early on, there's an implication that the flowers and inhabitants have grown larger, although the opposite is just as believable.Īs time passes, the writer grows both more and less comfortable in Tainaron. Unlike a hen’s egg, its surface texture is noticeably uneven.

Buy the Book The egg of the gorgonoid is, of course, not smooth.

This story also appears in COLLECTED FICTION by Leena Krohn. The letters describe the writer's daily experiences in the city of Tainaron, a colorful, bustling town whose inhabitants (save, perhaps, for the writer) are various sorts of insects. Originally published in Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction, Cheeky Frawg Books.

I can definitely see why Jeff likes this book, which is a series of letters written from an unknown correspondent to an unknown recipient, possibly a former lover. Her novels and stories seem increasingly germane. That may change, as Tainaron was nominated for both the World Fantasy Award and the International Horror Guild Award in 2005. Throughout her prolific career, with a fluent wit that savingly infiltrates narratives that might otherwise seem didactic, Krohn has focused on work design to enforce scrutiny of ourselves as a species. Show More published in Finland in 1985, and seems to be one of the few books by Krohn to be translated into English.

Leena krohn umbra