Trail of Lightning

As someone of native descent, it has been so incredible to see indigenous authors finally getting mainstream recognition for their incredible contributions to the literary world. To see this expanding into my favorite genre is one of the most refreshing and delightful reading experiences I've ever had. With so much of our history tied up with oral traditions and lore, it seems a no brainer that it would translate well into the science fiction and fantasy genres. Rebecca Roanhorse has now more than proved that with her powerful and wonderful debut, Trail of Lightning.

It didn't take me long to read this gritty, urban fantasy because once I started I couldn't stop. The characters, the world building, the plot- everything about this book was incredible. Even if it wasn't personally relevant to me I would have loved this story. I've been shouting from the rooftop to anyone who will listen that they need to read this book because it is a story that can be easily appreciated by the masses, whether native or not. It's an accessible and wondrous tale that has the added benefit of potentially giving a new appreciation and insight into native culture for those who are not as familiar with it.

I have seen a little grumbling about a Pueblo author writing from a Dine perspective, but honestly I'm just glad it wasn't a white author appropriating Indian culture for a book gimmick. I'm Yaqui descent so I can't really say with any authority about anything she may have gotten wrong, but for me it was nice to see people similar to me and my family represented so well in a story that didn't exploit our histories or stereotypes.

Trail of Lightning breathes new life into the fantasy and dystopia genres, giving them a fantastical and gripping element that will keep you reading until the last page and leave you wanting more. Roanhorse has proven herself to be a true master of storytelling. I absolutely cannot wait to see what else she will craft for her readers.

Thank you so much to the publisher and Netgalley for a chance to read this truly superb story.

This is a fast and action packed urban fantasy placed in a dystopian world with a main character who is well trained, has scary clan powers and has just started to face her biggest challenge yet, facing her own fears and facing the trauma that brought her to this lonely place filled with monsters and a very narrow understanding of herself.

It is a story or is it a tale that discusses family and friendship, trust and mistrust, facing your own denials and distruths but mostly tells about a process of healing that starts and takes its time and then, coming out the other side, lets you find an answer that you can start to build upon.

This is the second time I read this book. And I even loved it better this second time round.

The book offers a good closure to the mystery held within the pages, but my feeling is that Rebecca Roanhorse has cast her net wide and far and we certainly are not yet at the end of the story and the mythologies involved. It has come but to a moment's pause at the end of this book.

Again, I felt excited to be back in the Sixth World and discover the world building that surrounds this dystopian Native American lands, the inside and outside it creates. And again, I just want more stories about this Sixth World, the Big Water, the Wall, and Maggie Hoskie and the people that start to group around her and the Immortals that also have their hands in the game.

I got the copy this time from the publisher here in the UK via Netgalley, as, Yes, this book gets its own UK edition and I am so very pleased about this.

This book was above and beyond my already high expectations considering my friends had all raved about it. They were all correct. Roanhorse gives us this lush and amazing world and background and history and magic and character development and lore, well, you get the point. This was a SUPERB read and I can't believe I hadn't read it before today. I would say that Mags is a completely complex and full protagonist, with wonderful flaws and an amazing spirit. The sub-characters were just as great, and though I did adore Kai, I think perhaps Tah was my favorite.

It's high time I read a book where the focus was on Native Americans blended into this scifi/dystopia and magic to bring around a flawless first book in The Sixth World.

There were so many things that drew me about this book. Post-climate apocalypse fantasy based around Native American folklore and culture, it sounded like nothing I’d ever read before. The fact that it had a female lead was just the icing on top of the fictional cake. I understand this book has been out in the USA for a while, but it’s not released in the UK until 26th November. For anyone who’s not picked it up, I absolutely cannot recommend it enough.

First, however, some trigger warnings. It gets violent, and the violence is brutal. It isn’t glossed over, and some of it is horrific. There’s torture, cannibalism, and the death of children. These aren’t long sections for the most part, but they’re there, and Roanhorse’s writing is so vivid that they can be difficult. It opens with Maggie being hired to find a young girl who has been kidnapped by a monster, and the narrative starts hard, dropping you directly into the action to give you a sense of the worst of things in this futuristic world.

Climate change has meant the world has flooded, while simultaneously being scorched. Most of the USA is underwater, but Dinétah, walled off from the rest of the country, is a scorched desert but has been protected from the worst of the damage as an already self-sufficient nation. But the climate disaster brought with it an awakening of old gods and monsters, and Maggie has been trained to hunt them, to kill them. Unfortunately she also comes with her own traumas and issues and struggles to trust or find her place in the world.

I’m going to say something which may sound a little out of context here, but I have spent several years frustrated that I haven’t been able to find a book like The Dresden Files, but with a woman as the main character. I enjoy The Dresden Files, but its narrative can be frustrating. It constantly discusses the relative attractiveness of every woman who appears (they’re all hot, but different kinds of hot) and also he is apparently freakishly good at identifying exactly how much makeup women are wearing. There’s also a lot of focus on how he has to be chivalrous all the time, even if the women had explicitly told him to stop. Harry Dresden is a bit of an ass.

This book gives me what I’ve been looking for. While The Dresden Files is contemporary urban fantasy, and Trail of Lightning is post-apocalyptic fantasy, the narrative style, the story structure, the exploration of existing lore and mythology and the translation of that into a system and culture of magic… Everything about it reminded me of what I enjoyed most about The Dresden Files, but it filled the gaps that I needed. It gave me a woman’s perspective, so I didn’t get a constantly bombarded by a parade of beautiful women and ugly men – the characters felt like people, and were described in a way that didn’t seem to be assessing their sexual viability constantly. Even the love interest was mostly described in passing physically until later in the book. It’s hard to explain how a book can feel so similar but be tonally so different, but there you have it. For me, this felt like the book I’ve been looking for to improve on the problems I had with another series. I’ll still read The Dresden Files, I’ve sunk an awful lot of time into finding out how it ends, but God Trail of Lightning felt like a breath of clean air. I read it in just over a day. I couldn’t put it down.

I loved Maggie, I loved how strong and principled she was, and I love that she was allowed to be aggressive and unpleasant and unlikeable. No-one tried to make her be feminine, no-one tried to make her to be smaller or more dainty. She is a force of fury and aggression, people are scared of her because she is strong. It was empowering to read about this woman who has a physical presence like that. But she’s sympathetic too. Her struggles are internal, so the reader becomes intimately acquainted with them in a way her peers aren’t. So while we read about her companions reacting to her behaviours, we know why she’s doing them, we know that she’s trying to deal with her demons, her powers, and her PTSD.

There’s a little thing as well, but I liked that she was tall, and explicitly that she was taller than Kai, the partner she reluctantly acquires. It’s not often there are stories where the woman is the taller part of a mixed-gender team, and while it’s not even really noted except for right at the start, I enjoyed it. Maggie is allowed to be the physically large, powerful presence, while Kai is described as pretty, as delicate, and acts as the mediator. It’s an absolute reversal of traditional Western gender roles and tropes (although whether the same tropes necessarily exist within Native American culture I don’t know, this set up may be common in that context), and I just loved it.

It’s these little details, mixed with the careful, casual world building as myths and magic and monsters fit in around a world where water is scarce and the environment is as hostile and dangerous as the things which go bump in the night. I loved Roanhorse’s writing and voice, I loved the collected cast of supporting characters (Tah, the elderly medicine man, is an absolute delight). Kai and Maggie’s relationship develops fantastically, and their chemistry is almost entirely my exact jam. A soft one and a grumpy one! The soft one isn’t as simple as everyone thinks! The grumpy one has hidden softness! The perfect combo of character traits.

I adored this book and I can’t wait for the next instalment to come to the UK.

Briefly:

A fantastic fantasy that combines post climate disaster novel with Native American mythology and folklore. I adored being introduced to legends I had only a passing knowledge of before reading, and it’s made me want to learn more.
You know that scene in Wonder Woman, where she’s fighting and it goes slow-mo, and zooms in to show her snapping that rifle in half across her back and you see all her muscles and it’s just about her sheer strength? This book makes me feel the way that shot made me feel. Powerful and indestructible.
I really enjoyed seeing the characters change and develop through the book as the different perspectives made them think differently about themselves and each other. I’m looking forward to seeing that grow in the next book.
Rating: 5/5 – going against my usual rule of not giving full marks to the first book in a series, honestly this book spoke to me in unexpected ways and got under my skin.

Trail of Lightning is released in the UK on 28th November 2019.