While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters.
Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last—and best—hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much larger and more terrifying than anything she could imagine.
Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel to the rez to unravel clues from ancient legends, trade favors with tricksters, and battle dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology.
As Maggie discovers the truth behind the disappearances, she will have to confront her past—if she wants to survive.
After reading over and over online about how great this novel is, I finally decided to have a go and bought the ebook a few days ago.
I have to say, this is one of those books where the hype is close to matching the quality of the book. This one was on this year’s Hugo Award shortlist; it lost to the wonderful The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. I admit I prefer the Kowal novel, but that’s personal preference for hard SF. This is fantasy with a touch of cli-fi, with just a hint of Mad Max. It involves the gods of Native American mythology, now wandering the Navajo lands. Why they have suddenly turned up after the natural disaster, I don’t know, but this is why it’s fantasy rather than SF.
As someone who is a huge fan of Charles De Lint (and has made some bead loomed belts with Native American designs!), I am fascinated by Native American mythology and folklore.
I like character driven narrative, which this is, in the midst of the action adventure. I found myself caring very much about the heroine and those she cares about. If I hadn’t cared, the story alone wouldn’t be enough.
My only issue with it is the cliffhanger ending, which is one reason why I’m not a fan of series fiction. I will consider the sequel, which is available now, but if that ends on a cliffhanger it will lose me. There is too much chance of a series suddenly being cancelled, as has happened before, or just never finishing(cough! Legendsong by Isobelle Carmody! Cough!).
Still, well worth a read!
I bought this from Apple Books, but also available in Kindle, though the Aussie site says it’s not available till November! However, it’s available in print copy from the usual sites.
6 comments:
I'm not a fan of books that end with cliffhangers either. It's a little better if you discover the completed series after there all published, but waiting for a book to come out can be painful.
Agreed! The trouble is, if SOMEBODY doesn’t discover them as they come out, the publishers will cancel the series... catch 22, eh? 🙂
This sounds different and imaginative. Though I do not know all that much about it, Native American mythology seems fascinating. Mining science fiction ideas from Hugo short lists sounds like a very good idea.
A Hugo shortlist is indeed a good place to start, but this one has been getting enthusiastic reviews on line for months now, and I read The Calculating Stars before the Hugo shortlist was announced. Next year I get to read all the shortlisted stuff, as I’ve joined the World SF convention! They email you downloads of the shortlisted stuff.
Native American folklore and mythology is fascinating stuff, and it has its own trickster figures, such as Coyote(who appears in this novel).
Yeah, I agree completely. I don't like books that finish on a cliffhanger. You can have a series without needing to do that.
We can blame Tolkien’s publishers for that. He wrote a very long novel they had to break up into three volumes. This was the birth of the fat fantasy trilogy! ;)
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