Roanhorse, Rebecca
WORK TITLE: Trail of Lightning
WORK NOTES:
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BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://rebeccaroanhorse.com/
CITY:
STATE: NM
COUNTRY: United States
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RESEARCHER NOTES:
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| 670 | __ |a Author’s website, viewed September 11, 2017 |b (More about me: Ohkay Owingeh /African American writer; VONA/Voices ’15. Pug owner; Yale grad. Lawyer; Navajo in-law; Based in Northern New Mexico) |u https://rebeccaroanhorse.com/about/ |
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Graduated from Yale University.
ADDRESS
- Home - NM.
CAREER
Author.
AWARDS:Nebula Award, and Hugo Award finalist, both for story “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™”; finalist, John W. Campbell Award for best new writer, Theodore Sturgeon Award, and Locus Award.
WRITINGS
- Trail of Lightning (novel), Saga Press (New York, NY), 2018
- Storm of Locusts (novel), Saga Press (New York, NY), 2019
Contributor to books, including Deer Woman: An Anthology, edited by Elizabeth LaPensée and Weshoyot Alvitre, Native Realities (Albuquerque, NM) 2017.
SIDELIGHTS
Nebula Award-winning author Rebecca Roanhorse’s debut novel is the dystopian fantasy Trail of Lightning. The story is set in a period after a cataclysm has flooded much of the world, with the exception of the native Diné lands of the American southwest (roughly New Mexico, plus bits of Arizona, Colorado, and Utah). “Roanhorse,” asserted a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “unspools a fascinating narrative of colorful magic in a world made otherwise bleak by both natural and man-made circumstances.” In this world the mythic elements of the universe have reawakened, and the landscape is stalked by gods, demons, and evil-minded witches. “I wanted to be very careful about the stories I chose to use, the way that I portrayed people and places and everything that went into the world-building,” Ronhorse told Megan Crouse in an interview on the Den of Geek website. “I tried to be very conscious that this was going to be a lot of people’s first introduction to Navajo culture, and that I’d have a lot of Navajo readers. I didn’t want to let them down. I didn’t want to get it wrong. I wanted to create somewhere where they could see themselves in genre fiction, because that would have meant the world to me as a kid.”
Roanhorse’s protagonist is Maggie Hoskie, a young woman raised on Diné land by her grandmother. Maggie is the inheritor of clan powers, a set of abilities that give her the power to fight and kill the monsters that plague the post-catastrophe world in which she lives. Maggie has been mentored in using her powers by the god Neizghani, who rescued her from a witch after Maggie’s grandmother was murdered. By the time Trail of Lightning opens, however, Neizghani has moved on and Maggie (who had an unhealthy relationship with the god) is left on her own. “I wanted to tell a story that followed familiar Urban Fantasy tropes,” Roanhorse told Sarah Waites in an interview for the Illustrated Page, “but even more I wanted to tell a story about how an act of violence impacts a person’s life. How it can lead you to make poor decisions, often self-destructive decisions, and alienate you from the very people you want to be close to. Maggie is a survivor of trauma and she makes decisions and acts and reacts like a survivor of trauma.”
Soon Maggie is joined by Kai Arviso, a young man whose history of pain and loss has unlocked powers of healing and persuasion in himself. “Roanhorse’s breezy writing and slick plotting means that the pages fly by at a lightning pace,” said Andrew Liptak on the Verge website. “The novel is propelled by Maggie and Kai’s efforts to discover the origins of the monsters. They’re aided by tantalizing clues from the trickster Coyote, and their back-and-forth relationship crackles with romantic tension and good-natured banter. Their story races forward with each new revelation, coming to a cinematic conclusion that left me longing for the next installment. It’s the perfect book to pack for the beach or on a summer trip.”
Many reviewers praised Trail of Lightning for its depiction of Maggie, a strong and combative character. Maggie, declared Alex Brown in a review on the Tor website, is “one of my all-time favorite leads, both in that sub-genre [of urban fantasy] and out. She’s tougher than Buffy Summers, more emotionally damaged than Harry Dresden, and more stubborn than Sierra Santiago. Wherever Maggie goes, trouble follows. She is as physically fierce as she is emotionally fragile. That fragility is one of the things that sets her apart from most urban/rural fantasy heroes. Rebecca Roanhorse takes the time to show the repercussions of Maggie’s experiences. What grounds her, what makes her a relatable character isn’t just what she goes through, but how she faces it and how it haunts her anyway.” “She’s the monster-hunter, the main character in the story,” Roanhorse explained in her interview with Crause. “When you meet her she’s been in isolation. She’s just gotten dumped, basically, by her mentor, who she was also in love with. She had a very complicated relationship with him. It’s a hot mess! So she’s trying to figure out her next step in who she is. She’s very isolated in a community where connection is everything. She’s unliked, and that’s fair, because I don’t think she likes herself very much at the beginning of the story. She has to learn how to talk to people, generally!”
Critics also enjoyed Trail of Lightning for its world-building and its depiction of the relationship between the main characters. “The characters were so lovely, and despite all the violence, I loved the growth between Maggie and Kai,” stated a reviewer for the Smart Bitches Trashy Books website. “Maggie has lost many loved ones and feels that the way she is scared away the only man she ever loved, an immortal no less. If you can frighten away an immortal, what does that say about you? But Kai fights for Maggie’s trust and her friendship. Aside from all the ass-kicking, this was my favorite aspect of the book. I guarantee you’re going to fall in love with Kai.” Roanhorse “has given us a sharp, wonderfully dreamy, action-driven novel,” wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor. “Here’s hoping that the next two in this trilogy will deliver more heart-racing, heart-rending prose.” “Trail of Lightning has set a new standard for speculative fiction,” concluded a BookPage reviewer. “Roanhorse has dazzled with this first installment into the Sixth World series, introducing readers to a world that will leave them eager to learn what else lies within the walls of Dinétah—and outside of them.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2018, review of Trail of Lightning.
Locus, June 29, 2018, Liz Bourke, review of Trail of Lightning.
Publishers Weekly, April 30, 2018, review of Trail of Lightning, p. 44.
ONLINE
BookPage, https://bookpage.com/ (June 26, 2018), review of Trail of Lightning.
Den of Geek, http://www.denofgeek.com/ (June 29, 2018), Megan Crouse, “Trail of Lightning: Rebecca Roanhorse Brings Indigenous Futurism to Urban Fantasy.”
Illustrated Page, https://theillustratedpage.wordpress.com/ (June 12, 2018), Sarah Waites, review of Trail of Lightning; (June 25, 2018), Sarah Waites, “Author Interview: Rebecca Roanhorse on Trail of Lightning.“
Rebecca Roanhorse website, https://rebeccaroanhorse.com (September 5, 2018), author profile.
Smart Bitches Trashy Books, http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/ (July 16, 2018), review of Trail of Lightning.
Tor, https://www.tor.com/ (June 28, 2018), Alex Brown, “Gods, Monsters, and Wicked Men: Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse.”
Verge, https://www.theverge.com/ (June 26, 2018), Andrew Liptak, review of Trail of Lightning.
- Trail of Lightning ( novel) Saga Press (New York, NY), 2018
- Storm of Locusts ( novel) Saga Press (New York, NY), 2019
- Rebecca Roanhorse - https://rebeccaroanhorse.com/about/
More About Me + Contact Info
headshot
email me: inquiry at rebeccaroanhorse dot com
SFF writer. Nebula winner. Hugo, Sturgeon and Locus Award Finalist. Campbell Award Finalist. Pug owner. Yale grad. Lawyer. Ohkay Owingeh /Black. Navajo in-law. Based in Northern New Mexico.
Fiction & Non-Fiction HERE.
BOOK AGENT: Represented by Sara Megibow at KT Literary.
For FILM AND TELEVISION RIGHTS, please contact:
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https://rebeccaroanhorse.com/about/
Roanhorse, Rebecca: TRAIL OF LIGHTNING
Kirkus Reviews.
(July 1, 2018): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Roanhorse, Rebecca TRAIL OF LIGHTNING Saga/Simon & Schuster (Adult Fiction) $16.99 6, 26 ISBN: 978-1-5344-1350-4
After the Big Water, Maggie Hoskie's monster-slaying clan powers have woken up. She's going to need them on a journey culminating in the kind of battle fantasy readers will relish.
In Roanhorse's hard-hitting debut novel, most of the world has perished, and Dinetah (the Navajo Nation) has risen. A wall has been built to keep the Dine safe from what remains, but little can keep them safe from the monsters that have woken up inside those borders and the witches who work to destroy what life is left. Little except Maggie, whose grandmother was murdered in front of her, who was abandoned by the god Neizghani, who'd saved her. Maggie has been left to hunt monsters alone, hoping for the return of the god she loved like a father and wanted as a lover. In walks the troublingly sexy Kai, whom she reluctantly takes along to hunt monsters and who has medicine big enough to perhaps heal the Earth from the Big Water. As her quest grows, Maggie and Kai battle immortals and mortals alike, and Maggie ends up wondering whom to trust. Propelled by the Coyote god Ma'ii, Maggie confronts her past, her love, and her own power in a war where the stakes are higher than she ever imagined.
Roanhorse, the first Indigenous American to win a Nebula and a finalist for a Hugo, has given us a sharp, wonderfully dreamy, action-driven novel. Here's hoping that the next two in this trilogy will deliver more heart-racing, heart-rending prose.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Roanhorse, Rebecca: TRAIL OF LIGHTNING." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2018. Book Review
Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A544638131/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=eebba708. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
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Trail of Lightning
Publishers Weekly.
265.18 (Apr. 30, 2018): p44. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Trail of Lightning
Rebecca Roanhorse. Saga, $16.99 trade paper (304p) ISBN 978-1-5344-1350-4
Roanhorse vividly depicts Navajo land, legends, and culture in her marvelous fantasy debut, which launches the Sixth World series. After a cataclysm flooded much of the earth, the Dinetah--the homeland of the Navajo, or Dine--was one of the few remaining areas where people could survive. Legendary powers have risen among the Dine, and Maggie Hoskie is one of those who wield them. She was trained by a supernatural mentor to hunt monsters, and after vicious creatures commit a series of grisly murders, she has to muster all her skills to confront the incredibly powerful witch creating them. Roanhorse unspools a fascinating narrative of colorful magic in a world made otherwise bleak by both natural and man-made circumstances. The monster-hunting plot nearly takes a back seat to Maggie's challenging journey of working through personal and cultural trauma, including the violent deaths of loved ones and an abusive relationship. Her partner, Kai, is a force for healing despite, or because of, his own history of pain. Their story is a fresh take on the tale of the emotionally and spiritually wounded hero who faces down increasing evil to make the world better. This rich tale from a strong Native American voice is recommended for all fantasy audiences. Agent: Sara Megibow, KT Literary. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Trail of Lightning." Publishers Weekly, 30 Apr. 2018, p. 44. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A537852264/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=81d24a8c. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
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- The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/26/17474566/trail-of-lightning-rebecca-roanhorse-native-american-urban-fantasy-book-review
Word count: 1108Trail of Lightning is a breathtaking Native American urban fantasy adventure
1 comment
Indigenous culture and characters don’t take a backseat to white protagonists
By Andrew Liptak@AndrewLiptak Jun 26, 2018, 10:17am EDT
Photo by Andrew Liptak / The VergeAll too often, science fiction and fantasy novels feature a world created entirely for and by white authors and readers. But in recent years, there’s been a push for greater visibility for authors of color — like Rebecca Roanhorse, whose debut novel Trail of Lightning comes out today. Trail of Lightning delivers a fast-paced urban fantasy adventure with an exciting set of characters and an enticing world that begs for further exploration.
In Trail of Lightning, civilization has faced drastic changes. Climate change has wrecked North America, creating a sea that covers most of the heartland. The resulting chaos killed millions of people and threw civilization into the Energy Wars, leaving behind a broken world rife with crime and poverty.
The book follows Maggie Hoskie, a Native American woman living in Dinétah, the traditional homeland of the Navajo tribe. Dinétah has been isolated from the rest of the chaotic world, protected by a series of vast, magical walls that roughly encompass parts of what had been New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. It’s experienced a full-blown resurgence of magical powers: ancient gods walk the earth and some individuals manifest special abilities known as clan powers.
Maggie is one of those individuals. When her grandmother was brutally attacked, she suddenly found herself imbued with strong, violent abilities that allowed her to slaughter the attackers. This attracted the attention of Naayééʼ Neizghání, a god known as “monster slayer,” who took Maggie under his wing after the attack.
Dinétah provides a safe world for its Native American inhabitants. But as Maggie points out, while they’re safe from the outside world, “sometimes the worst monsters are the ones within.”
Spoilers for the book ahead.
Image: Saga PressTrail of Lightning begins long after Maggie and Neizgháni have split up due to his concern over her bloodlust and and extreme violence. Now on her own, Maggie makes her way as a freelance monster hunter, tracking down magical creatures that threaten the relative safety of Dinétah. When something snatches a girl from a village, she sets out to kill it, only to discover that it’s a golem-like construct with an unknown creator.
As Maggie tries to trace the source of the attack, she picks up a partner named Kai Arviso, a handsome man who possesses strange powers of his own: healing and persuasion. Their hunt throws them into conflict with bands of mercenaries, corrupt police officers, and some of the gods that inhabit Dinétah. Eventually, Maggie discovers that the original attack was part of a much larger scheme, and Maggie has been unknowingly entangled in it for much of her life.
There’s a lot of information packed into Trail of Lightning, but Roanhorse’s breezy writing and slick plotting means that the pages fly by at a lightning pace. The novel is propelled by Maggie and Kai’s efforts to discover the origins of the monsters. They’re aided by tantalizing clues from the trickster Coyote, and their back-and-forth relationship crackles with romantic tension and good-natured banter. Their story races forward with each new revelation, coming to a cinematic conclusion that left me longing for the next installment. It’s the perfect book to pack for the beach or on a summer trip.
What really makes Roanhorse’s novel pop is the rich world of Dinétah. While it’s set in a relatively small geographical area, it feels vast and unexplored, with a network of towns and villages populated by a wide variety of inhabitants. A rich network of dive bars, clubs, and other establishments hint at a vivid underworld that could appear in many stories to come.
Roanhorse told The Barnes and Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog earlier this year that she didn’t see a lot of Native American representation in genre books, and she wanted to write a novel “where the landscape was filled with the places and the people that I knew from living on the rez,” and “where the gods and heroes were of North American Indigenous origin.”
That contrasts sharply with some better-known depictions of indigenous people in science fiction — like an episode of Stargate: SG-1 where the team visits a planet inhabited by the descendants of Native Americans, or Leia’s dialogue as Boushh in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. (“Yáʼátʼééh, yáʼátʼééh” is Navajo.) These stories simply lift indigenous culture to create an exotic setting, ignoring the people who created it. Roanhorse’s novel tips the balance back in her own court: indigenous culture and people don’t take a backseat to the stories of white protagonists. Her novel provides a much-needed perspective to the larger canon of fantasy fiction.
While speculative fiction is full of apocalypses, Roanhorse has also pointed out that the end of the world is not just an abstract concept. Her ancestors literally faced a cataclysmic event during the colonization of North America. In the beginning of Trail of Lightning, Maggie notes that her people were prepared for the apocalypse that overtook the world: “This wasn’t our end. This was our rebirth.”
It often feels like authors of color are expected to represent their entire race and culture, creating something that’s more didactic than imaginative. But Trail of Lightning is what I’d call a durable fantasy novel. It’s focused closely on the lives and decisions of its characters, not just the universe they inhabit. It’s intensely focused on delivering a fast, entertaining adventure, and it absolutely takes readers along for a fun ride. Fortunately, a sequel, Storm of Locusts, is due next April, picking up the adventures of Maggie and her allies as they work to save Dinétah.
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https://www.tor.com/2018/06/26/book-reviews-trail-of-lightning-by-rebecca-roanhorse/
Word count: 1189Gods, Monsters, and Wicked Men: Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
Alex Brown
Tue Jun 26, 2018 2:00pm 4 comments 1 Favorite [+]When the sea levels rose and the world was flooded, the Diné built a wall around what once was the Navajo reservation, now called Dinétah. As the Fifth World was drowned by the Big Water and the Sixth World rose up, so too did creatures from Diné legend. That wall keeps enemies out, but monsters in. Which is where Maggie Hoskie comes in. She takes on the monsters terrorizing her people using her clan powers, the speed of Honágháahnii (“one walks around”) and the killing prowess of K’aahanáanii (“living arrow”). When we first meet Maggie, she’s stuck in stasis. Abandoned by the man she loved and her only family dead, she’s alone and pretending not to be lonely. She’s hired to rescue a young girl and finds instead a whole new breed of monster.
Maggie cautiously accepts the help of Kai Arviso, the grandson of Tah, the only person in the whole of Dinétah who cares for her, and the two head off to investigate. Kai is a healer and medicine man, but something else, something Maggie can’t quite put her finger on. Soon, enemies, mortal and immortal alike, are hemming in on all sides, and Maggie and Kai are dragged in over their heads. Maggie’s survival depends on great sacrifice. She must fight for her life, literally, to save a world that has shunned her.
Rebecca Roanhorse is an author to watch. She knows her stuff, how to twist the knife to make it hurt so good and how to turn the screw to make it almost too stressful to handle. I got hooked on her through her Nebula-winning, Hugo-nominated short story “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™,” which is so good I can’t even. So of course I was dying to get my greedy little hands on Trail of Lightning.
Buy it NowFirst off, we have to talk about Maggie. I’ve read a lot of urban/rural fantasy over the years, and she has to be one of my all-time favorite leads, both in that sub-genre and out. She’s tougher than Buffy Summers, more emotionally damaged than Harry Dresden, and more stubborn than Sierra Santiago. Wherever Maggie goes, trouble follows. She is as physically fierce as she is emotionally fragile. That fragility is one of the things that sets her apart from most urban/rural fantasy heroes. Rebecca Roanhorse takes the time to show the repercussions of Maggie’s experiences. What grounds her, what makes her a relatable character isn’t just what she goes through, but how she faces it and how it haunts her anyway. In the real world we can’t wave a magic wand over our pain, and neither can Maggie.
In Maggie we see the vast extent of damage trauma inflicts on survivors. She experienced a horrifying near-death experience as a child and witnessed the brutal murder of her grandmother by a sadistic witch and his posse. As a young adult, she was trapped in an abusive relationship with a partner who caused as much pain leaving her life as he did when he entered it. And as an adult she’s constantly harassed by a man who thinks police brutality and toxic masculinity are compliments. That isn’t just some tragic backstory. Subtract the magical elements and there are real issues here. Domestic abuse, sexual/verbal/physical assault, PTSD, the patriarchy, and state-sanctioned violence all make appearances but are thankfully never sugar coated or swept under the rug.
Kai isn’t quite as nuanced as Maggie, although there are plot-related reasons for that. It’s not so much that he isn’t as interesting or developed, but that withholding seems to be his dominant personality trait. Even his secrets have secrets. Getting to know someone like that can be a challenge, but by the end of the book he proves himself well worth the work. He also makes for a striking contrast to both Neizghání, the monster slayer god who trained Maggie, and Ma’ii (aka Coyote) who plays with Maggie like a cat with a mouse. They each take what they want from her regardless of whether or not she wants to give it, but only one offers her something in return. Doesn’t make his actions right or fair, but it does complicate him even further.
Trail of Lightning reminds me a bit of two other recent fantasy stories: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland and Witchmark by C.L. Polk. The three stories aren’t similar in tone or style, but each take an old trope and filter it through a diversity lens to make it shiny and new. It’s not just that Maggie is Diné, but that she lives in Dinétah with creatures from Diné legend. Her mannerisms, language, habits, interactions, relationships, and expectations are informed by her heritage as much as the novel itself is tied to Roanhorse’s. You couldn’t drop Dresden into her world and make it work. He would forever be interpreting Dinétah through a white male perspective. This book is a lot of things, but what it’s not is a colonizer’s narrative. Non-Natives are present, but this isn’t their story or their framework. Refreshingly, everything about Trail of Lightning is Diné.
I went into Trail of Lightning knowing little about Diné culture or spiritual beliefs. While Roanhorse doesn’t hold your hand through the culturally-specific bits, she does offer the reader enough context to figure it out on their own. After I finished, I spent some time researching and got even more out of the story. Not in the sense that I didn’t get stuff before, but that I understood it more after some digging. Now I’m all hyped up for the hope for an appearance by Neizghání’s twin brother Tóbájíshchíní (“child of water”). Will he turn up in future installments? Here’s hoping. Given how Trail of Lightning ends, there’s a lot of room for the twins to make Maggie’s life even worse.
What’s not to love about Trail of Lightning? It’s rural fantasy at its finest. Because I’m not Diné I’m sure there’s plenty of sociocultural context I missed. But even on a cursory level, it’s a frakking awesome novel and a fantastic prelude to what is sure to be a thrilling series.
Trail of Lightning is available from Saga Press.
Alex Brown is a YA librarian by day, local historian by night, pop culture critic/reviewer by passion, and an ace/aro Black woman all the time. Keep up with her every move on Twitter, check out her endless barrage of cute rat pics on Instagram, or follow along with her reading adventures on her blog.
- Locus
https://locusmag.com/2018/06/liz-bourke-reviews-trail-of-lightning-by-rebecca-roanhorse/
Word count: 863Liz Bourke reviews Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
June 29, 2018 Liz BourkeTrail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga Press 978-1534413498, $27.99, 304pp, hc). June 2018.
Like many of this year’s debuts, Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning has a great deal of anticipatory hype to live up to. A fantasy published by a major press that features Native American mythology, written by a Native author, Trail of Lightning carries a weight of expectations for representation that most works by (non-queer, at least) white authors never bear. As a white and Irish reader, I’m in no position to pass comment on whether or not it will speak to a Native audience – but if its reception has anything in common with that of good queer SFF among a queer SFF readership, it will likely be equal parts fraught and gleefully ecstatic. Roanhorse has been nominated for a Nebula and a Hugo for her short story ‘‘Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience’’ (Apex, 2017), and for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and we can look forward to seeing more novel-length work from her: Race to the Sun, a novel for younger readers, is due in 2019 from Rick Riordan’s new children’s imprint, and a sequel to Trail of Lightning is to be expected from Saga next year, too. So what is Trail of Lightning all about?
When the USA still existed as a country, Dinétah was known as the Navajo reservation. But the world outside Dinétah has undergone political, social, and environmental collapse thanks to a great flood. Dinétah remains. Preternatural walls surround it, and the Diné, or several individuals among them, have come into preternatural powers linked to their lineages. Dinétah is home to gods and monsters as well as humans, and its patchwork of small towns and local villages is isolated, in large part by choice, from the outside world.
Maggie Hoskie isn’t isolated by choice, but by upbringing. Her lineage powers connect her to hunting and killing, and after the brutal death of her grandmother, she was trained and raised by Naayééʼ Neizghání, a part-divine monsterslayer. Maggie is known as a monster hunter, but her mentor abandoned her, and she’s been isolated from the one person she loved and trusted ever since – even if Neizghání seems an unhealthy choice of father-figure/romantic attraction, one who kept telling her that she was pretty close to being a monster herself.
Recruited to kill a monster that’s abducted a small child, Maggie finds herself pushed into the middle of trouble. The monster is unusual, and there’s more to it than she expected: it was made by a person. She joins forces with unconventional medicine man Kai Arviso, a young man who grew up mostly outside the borders of Dinétah and who has strange friends, and she finds herself a) in the midst of violence, b) with Coyote asking her to do a job for him, and c) headed for a brutal confrontation with her past.
The post-apocalyptic-with-magic world and urban fantasy feel, combined with the socially isolated, highly murder-trained protagonist with a first-person voice reminds me a little of Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series, though Roanhorse of course doesn’t make Andrews’s use of urban fantasy staples such as vampires and werewolves, nor does she use the by-now formulaic type of romance common in urban fantasy. The use of Native American mythology makes the worldbuilding stand out from the crowd, and while Roanhorse’s characterisation at times feels a little shallow, the novel’s voice is pretty damn compelling.
Structurally, it’s not as smooth as I was hoping: on occasion it seems that incidents pile on each other without quite as much thematic and emotional linkage – or sometimes, explanatory connective tissue – as one might really prefer. But it’s tense and pacey, and, although the dialogue is rarely particularly memorable, the interplay between Maggie and Kai is frequently entertaining.
This is a fun, fast book, immensely readable and very enjoyable. It ends with tense emotion, and a cliffhanger for a sequel: I look forward to seeing how Roanhorse builds on this very promising debut. We can, I think, expect good things.
Liz Bourke is a cranky queer person who reads books. She holds a Ph.D in Classics from Trinity College, Dublin. Her first book, Sleeping With Monsters, a collection of reviews and criticism, is out now from Aqueduct Press. Find her at her blog, her Patreon, or Twitter. She supports the work of the Irish Refugee Council and the Abortion Rights Campaign.
This review and more like it in the June 2018 issue of Locus.
Locus Magazine, Science Fiction FantasyWhile you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field.
- Den of Geek
http://www.denofgeek.com/us/books/books/274577/trail-of-lightning-rebecca-roanhorse-brings-indigenous-futurism-to-urban-fantasy
Word count: 2591Trail of Lightning: Rebecca Roanhorse Brings Indigenous Futurism to Urban Fantasy
We talked to Trail of Lightning author Rebecca Roanhorse about bringing Native experiences into a speculative fiction world.
Interview Megan Crouse
Jun 29, 2018Monsters and magic are on the loose in Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse's urban fantasy novel that features Indigenous heroes and fights back against stereotypes along with the monsters. The first in a four-book series, Trail of Lightning introduces Maggie Hoskie, a struggling monster-hunter tasked with saving a community from which she isolates herself.
See related
Best New Fantasy Books in August 2018
Best New Science Fiction Books in August 2018We spoke to Roanhorse about high-octane fight scenes, the challenges and importance of writing a hero who doesn’t believe in herself, and bringing Native experiences into a science fiction world.
Den of Geek: Trail of Lightning follows monster hunter Maggie Hoskie through a post-apocalyptic world steeped in Navajo legend. What does it mean to you to write fantasy based on Indigenous heritage?
Roanhorse: It means everything. I’m a huge science fiction and fantasy fan; I’ve been reading in the genre my entire life, and I never have seen a story that I thought represented me as an Indigenous woman. I looked around and I didn’t see any stories — particularly in urban fantasy, which is a genre that I really like — where the Native American character was truly centered in their Native culture surrounded by the gods, monsters, and heroes of their culture. I thought, that’s what I wanted to read, so that’s what I decided to write!
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Powered by DailymotionI think it’s important and incredibly powerful to offer that kind of representation, not just to Native readers so that they can see themselves in the story but to non-Natives, too, so that they can expand their own imaginations and their own ideas about what Native people and Native culture are like now and into the future.
You mentioned particularly “into the future,” and have talked before about Indigenous Futurism. Is there anything you want to add about making this a science fiction, post-apocalyptic story?
Most Native American stories that you see put us in the past. It’s the 1800s and the Native Americans are dead or dying, and they’re often very limited in scope. They’re often Plains Indians, and they’re wearing buckskins, they’re riding horses, that sort of thing. Even now, in the two movies coming out (they’re not genre movies, but I’m thinking of Hostiles and Woman Walks Ahead) they’re all set in the 1800s. So we don’t seem to get a lot of play or a lot of interest from science fiction and fantasy period, much less putting us in the future.
So it was really important to me to show that Native Americans are still here, and that we will continue to be here, and that our stories can be sovereign. They can tell stories that have to do with our culture and our mythos, and they can be entertaining and exciting and adventurous. They don’t have to always be depressing death marches or stories of alcoholism and trauma. Although my story does deal with a lot of trauma! But hopefully it’s still a fun monster-hunting adventure.
Is there any particular element of Native experience, either lived or mythological, that you found especially important or especially exciting to include?
I wanted to get the food right! I thought it was really important. There’s not a ton of food in the book, but when they do eat it’s important, as is who makes the food and what kind of food they’re eating and where they’re eating it. All of these are details of the Native experience. In the book, Maggie, who is not domestically inclined, makes food for somebody, so it’s kind of a big deal. And also that she makes it for Coyote and Kai is kind of a big deal. She makes bread. And that fry bread she makes is a traditional staple in Native American culture.
It came from nothing; it came from the equivalent of being on rations. It’s the basic ingredient. So they took something that was basically starvation rations, and made something delicious. For me, that’s a great metaphor for Native American culture in general, particularly post-1492. We took the things that were meant to kill us and we made them nourishment. We make them strength.
Trail of Lightning has been described as a Mad Max-like action story. How did you approach writing fight scenes and keeping tension going?
I read a lot of other fight scenes. Actually for this book I went in and picked some of my favorite fight scenes from other authors and dissected them, line by line. I asked ‘what did they do here, what happened next, who talks next, who turns next?’ I literally took them apart to see how they did it.
With that in mind I went back to my own stories and applied my own style, which for this book at least, is really short and clipped and to-the-point. Maggie is not going to write a very pretty sentence necessarily. There’s not a lot of flourish. It’s more of a bare-knuckle boxing aesthetic than a rapier fight on cobblestones sort of thing. So I was trying to bring that into the writing in general, but specifically the fight scenes.
I wanted to make them as visceral and immediate as I could. Writing in first person present really helps put the reader right into the scenes. Quite frankly, I tried not to sugarcoat anything. If there was going to be blood or guts or something gory, I wanted to try to touch on that too. Violence is important in this story. I didn’t want to make it any softer than it was, because a lot of Maggie’s character centers around her violence and the reasons she’s so violent and her discomfort with her own violence. She’s worried about whether that makes her a monster herself.
Talk a little bit about Maggie and how she will grow and change throughout the book.
She’s the monster-hunter, the main character in the story. When you meet her she’s been in isolation. She’s just gotten dumped, basically, by her mentor, who she was also in love with. She had a very complicated relationship with him. It’s a hot mess! So she’s trying to figure out her next step in who she is. She’s very isolated in a community where connection is everything. She’s unliked, and that’s fair, because I don’t think she likes herself very much at the beginning of the story.
She has to learn how to talk to people, generally!
Part of what I liked about her was that her strength came from violence but she was also very nervous and unsettled by herself. That gave her a lot of texture.
That’s on purpose, that her greatest strength is also her greatest horror. I really wanted to play with the question "Can anything good come from trauma or suffering?'' Of course, the characters don’t agree. Kai thinks the powers they get through trauma are a blessing, and Maggie thinks they’re a curse. I try not to really answer that question, because I don’t know what the answer is. But I’m interested in the question.
When I wrote Maggie, I wanted her to stay violent. I’ve had some people ask why she hasn’t come full circle or why she hasn’t realized the things she has done are wrong. And I think that’s realistic. I’m not sure people do that. Particularly I’m not sure Maggie would do that, because I’m not sure she has enough self-awareness to do that. I think she has a much longer journey. She isn’t recovering so much from the trauma in the book as she is beginning to acknowledge it.
People have relapses. She can want for all the world not to kill people any more, but I’m not sure that’s going to work out.
And it is a four book series. Things will change, and she’ll have other challenges and emotional issues to face … I didn’t want that question very neatly answered, because I don’t think Maggie is a neat character. She’s messy. And sometimes you have to be selfish to survive. So her thoughts might feel selfish in the end, but often that’s what women have to do. Often that’s what women of color have to do if they want to survive. If you’re not for you, you’re going to have a hell of a time.
Her partner Kai is described as an “unconventional medicine man.” You’ve said in previous interviews that you wanted to place him in a very modern context. Where is he in life at the beginning of his book and what is the core of his character?
It’s twofold. I wanted to create a medicine man character, because that seemed important. But I didn’t want to fall into any of the stereotypes or conventions of what non-Natives think of when they think of medicine men. Because I know medicine men. And I know medicine men in training. Very traditional guys who are just like Kai: they’re young, they want to go to the club! They’re modern, contemporary people. But they have also this traditional side that leads them to want to train to be medicine men.
Medicine men are the healers in the community. The way that non-Natives might go to a doctor or a psychiatrist, Natives will often go to a medicine man. Often they do both. So I knew I wanted that. I knew I wanted him to be young and sort of attractive, but to have layers too. I wanted him to have secrets and his own life outside of when he meets Maggie. We’ll get more into Kai particularly in book three, when we go back to Burque, where he’s from.
I think he’s complicated in his own way. He does function as a foil to Maggie. He’s the healer, she’s the killer. He’s optimistic, she’s pessimistic. And a lot of the reason I chose to do that has to do with Navajo philosophy. Navajo philosophy is about balance, so often if there’s something wrong with you it’s because you’re out of balance. You have to bring balance back into your life somehow.
Maggie is entirely out of balance, and so Kai provides that balance for her.
What did you find most challenging about writing Trail of Lightning?
Getting the representation right was very important. I’m not Navajo; I’m Ohkay Owingeh, a tribe in northern New Mexico. I’ve lived on the Navajo reservation and I’m married to a Navajo man, but it’s not my culture.
I wanted to be very careful about the stories I chose to use, the way that I portrayed people and places and everything that went into the world-building I tried to be very conscious that this was going to be a lot of people’s first introduction to Navajo culture, and that I’d have a lot of Navajo readers. I didn’t want to let them down. I didn’t want to get it wrong.
I wanted to create somewhere where they could see themselves in genre fiction, because that would have meant the world to me as a kid. Even as an adult it’s very exciting! You’re like like, if it’s in a book it must be important, it must be real. You’re telling my story.
What are you reading currently?
Witchmark by C.L. Polk. That’s sort of the opposite of my book. It’s set in an Edwardian England-style fantasy world. It’s very proper and restrained. But it also has a murder mystery at the center of it, and witches, and interesting angel-fae type characters. I’m really digging that.
What are some books by Native authors you would recommend?
If you’re interested in a different vision of a post-apocalyptic world written by an Indigenous writer, people should check out Cherie Dimaline. She wrote a book called The Marrow Thieves. She is First Nations, which means she’s Canadian. Hers is a YA, but it’s definitely readable by anybody. Her post-apocalyptic vision is much darker I think than mine, in the sense that in my version everyone on the Navajo reservation is doing pretty ok, except for the monsters.
In her version, non-Natives have stopped dreaming. And they’re all going insane and dying because of it. The only people who can dream any more are the Native population. So these government goon squads hunt down Natives for the marrow in their bones to make a serum that’s supposed to help you dream again. Her protagonist is a young boy on the run with a ragtag group of other Indigenous people. It’s great. It’s really well written. It’s very creepy. It touches on very contemporary issues about resource exploitation and Natives being forced into boarding schools. But it comes at it through a lens of science fiction.
You’re working on other books in the Sixth World series, as well as a children’s book, Race to the Sun, from Rick Riordan’s imprint. Anything in particular you want to add about these or other upcoming publications?
The second book in the Sixth World series is called Storm of Locusts, and that will be out in April 2019. In Trail of Lightning we stay within the walls of the Navajo reservation, of Dinétah. But in Storm of Locusts we’re going on a road trip. My shorthand for Storm of Locusts is it’s a girl gang road trip down post-apocalyptic Route 66. You’ll run into all sorts of things like newborn casino gods and a cult leader with a penchant for locusts and all sorts of interesting things along the road. Maggie has to go save Kai from himself.
In 2020 I have an epic fantasy coming from Saga press, and that is an Anasazi-inspired epic fantasy, so I’m excited to try my hand at that. That’s going to be larger in scope. You’ll have these great matriarchal clan-dwelling families. It has intrigue and celestial prophecies and dark rebellion. All the things people like about epic fantasy, but in an Anasazi world.
Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse is now available to purchase (and read!) via Amazon, Simon & Schuster, or your local independent bookstore.
- Book Page
https://bookpage.com/reviews/22862-rebecca-roanhorse-trail-lightning
Word count: 575After a sudden climate apocalypse, one of the only places left intact was Dinétah, a former Navajo reservation that has become a land where gods and supernatural heroes walk among humans. Preternaturally deadly monster hunter Maggie Hoskie is one of the byproducts of the supernatural rebirth of Dinétah. When her search for a missing girl and her monstrous captor goes south, Maggie is left with questions. Who created the monster that abducted the girl, and why? Maggie’s investigation leads her to reluctantly team up with Kai Arviso, an overly charismatic young medicine man with powers of his own. The further they dig to find the truth behind the monster, the more Maggie is forced to recognize that confronting her past may be the key to solving the mystery.
Trail of Lightning, the first in the Sixth World series by debut novelist Rebecca Roanhorse, is one of those books that grabs you by the hand and makes you listen. What separates it from other monster hunter books isn’t its plot. The basic plot arc could belong to almost any book within the genre. Its characters are typical of the monster hunter genre too: not always likeable, but always loveable. Its setting is remarkable, wonderful and strange, but so too are those of many other books. What then, is it that makes Trail of Lightning an unforgettable read? Even as some of the novel follows predictable patterns, so much of it is unexpected, turning what could be a straightforward plot into something both entertaining and thoughtful.
The best example of Roanhorse’s ability to take the standard and make it unexpected is in how she sets up conflict, particularly psychological conflict. Yes, Trail of Lightning is about a monster hunt. And yes, the fight scenes will make you hold your breath and sit on the edge of your chair. What sets the conflict apart, however, is how Roanhorse takes an action-heavy premise and makes it character-driven. On the surface, Maggie is exactly what we would expect from a monster hunter: dry, trigger happy and no-nonsense. But beneath that facade is a lot of trauma. Maggie has been taught by her former mentor to be ashamed and afraid of her gift, that it somehow makes her evil. She’s constantly questioning whether her power is turning her into the very kind of monster she’s been trained to hunt. This question dogs her at every movement, threatening to swallow her whole. In some books, this sort of constant introspection can be grating or even boring, usually because the angst it brings does nothing for the plot or characters. In Trail of Lightning, it’s what drives the plot, and it’s what makes its main character achingly human, a necessary feature for a book where the monstrous bleeds into the mundane.
Trail of Lightning has set a new standard for speculative fiction. Roanhorse has dazzled with this first installment into the Sixth World series, introducing readers to a world that will leave them eager to learn what else lies within the walls of Dinétah—and outside of them. The only downside is that we have to wait to learn what happens next.
Medium
Trail of LightningBy Rebecca Roanhorse
Saga
$16.99
ISBN 9781534413498
Published 06/26/2018Science Fiction & Fantasy / Science Fiction / Dystopian Fiction
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Word count: 1360Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
by Amanda · Jul 16, 2018 at 3:00 am · View all 10 comments
Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
Trail of Lightningby Rebecca Roanhorse
June 26, 2018 · Saga Press
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BGenre: Urban Fantasy
Theme: Mythology
Archetype: Diverse Protagonists
Trail of Lightning was preordered around two months in advance and I would have waited triple that amount for this book if I had to. It’s steeped in Native American (namely Navajo) mythology, badassery, and lots and lots of violence. If you’re sensitive to graphic, gritty details, this book is not for you.
It was rather early on that I knew this book was going to be amazing.
And by early, I meant page two:
But I’m no hero. I’m more of a last resort, a scorched-earth policy. I’m the person you hire when the heroes have already come home in body bags.
Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter. She’s been trained by a literal immortal, a “man” who became her mentor after an unspeakable tragedy. It’s been nine months since he left her and Maggie is every sense a broken woman. It also complicates matters that she was totally in love with him.
Maggie has some difficult internalization. She believes she’s a monster; her clan powers are triggered by violence and bloodlust, turning her into a killing machine. We’ve seen this a lot when it comes to romance heroes, where they think they’re horrible because of past deeds and unworthy of love. Personally, I want more tortured, prickly heroines, please. More Maggies!
In the opening of the book, she takes a job and discovers a monster she’s never encountered before. That’s never a good sign. She brings the head of the slain monster to a local medicine man and surrogate father figure named Tah. This is where we meet Kai Arviso, Tah’s grandson, who is a beautiful, loving, cinnamon roll. He has some knowledge about this monster and from there, the scene is set.
An angry heroine and a man, who is a very charming healer, are off on an adventure!
That’s the basis for the book. Fill in the rest with trickster gods, cataclysmic histories, and more viscera than you can shake a stick at. It’s a whole lot of fun.
While the reading experience was an enjoyable rollercoaster of roundhouse kicks to everyone’s faces, I also learned something about myself. Something not particularly nice. I made a racist move and had inadvertently othered the characters and their language.
A lot of the vocabulary in the book, specifically about mythical figures and legends, is Diné. I was irritated when I read the first of many Diné words and realized there was no glossary in the back, nor definitions or list of terms I should be familiar with.
Then I realized I was being a colossal asshole because this was not a language made up for the purpose of world building. This was an actual language people used. If I had read French or Spanish in a book, I wouldn’t expect a glossary. I would use context clues or take it upon myself to do some Googling. I had expected the writing and the narrative to make it easy for me.
But this is also what I love about reading. It can put things in perspective, teach me things about myself and about things that exist outside of my privilege or bubble. It was humbling.
The characters were so lovely, and despite all the violence, I loved the growth between Maggie and Kai. Maggie has lost many loved ones and feels that the way she is scared away the only man she ever loved, an immortal no less. If you can frighten away an immortal, what does that say about you?
But Kai fights for Maggie’s trust and her friendship. Aside from all the ass-kicking, this was my favorite aspect of the book. I guarantee you’re going to fall in love with Kai.
It’s also interesting to see the way other people in the book react to Maggie. Some fear her, others openly hate her, and there are a couple who aren’t quite sure what to think. The book is written in first person, which I normally shy away from, but I liked being in Maggie’s head as she fills in the gaps of her history with people and places.
Second to Kai, in terms of favorite “secondary” characters is Grace. She’s a Black woman who runs a refuge and bar called the All American with her kids, in a sort of no man’s land.
Seriously, everyone is so great! Well…not everyone. There are bad guys. But because Roanhorse’s writing is so detailed, it’s hard not to want to know every little characteristic when a new person is introduced. I hope those who are still living by the end of Trail of Lightning will get more page time in the next book because I’m nosy and I need to know ALL THE THINGS!
As in many urban fantasy series, the first book can be a struggle as the would building and cast of recurring characters are established. I would say Trail of Lightning is no different. While there aren’t info dumps, per se, there is some whiplash when it comes to details about geography, organizations, and the like. I don’t think I fully understand how the world got to the way it is (mostly underwater and struggling for resources), but I suspect the origin story of the Big Water fiasco and Energy Wars will unfold in future books.
My biggest gripe with the book is the conflict. Normally, with urban fantasy, there’s an overall conflict – a big bad – and some smaller ones going on. The smaller issues are usually resolved within one book while propelling the main conflict forward. I didn’t get that here.
Get ready for a video game comparison.
Think of Trail of Lightning as a role-playing game. Typically, there’s a main quest line for your character and bonus side quests. The side quests don’t really affect the outcome of the game, but tend to add a deeper level of characterization and lore. A majority of the book felt like side quest after side quest. When Trail of Lightning ended, what I thought was the main quest all along…wasn’t. It felt like a bit of a bait and switch.
Though the book doesn’t necessarily end on a cliffhanger, there are still some unresolved relationships. However, there was no zombie hand bursting through a grave to signal that all is not what it seems and that some scary shit is on the horizon. I didn’t get an indication of who or what Maggie was going after next. Who is the ultimate baddie here? Who is her Thanos?! Her immortal lover who is a hottie, but clearly isn’t right for her? I’m so pleased to have spent my time with this book; I wished it were longer. However, the next installment, Storm of Locusts, just had an amazing cover reveal and comes out the day after my birthday on April 19.
If you love the Kate Daniels or Mercy Thompson series, you’re going to want to read about Maggie immediately. Just expect a lot more gore.
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- The Illustrated Page
https://theillustratedpage.wordpress.com/2018/06/25/author-interview-rebecca-roanhorse-on-trail-of-lightning/
Word count: 866Author Interview: Rebecca Roanhorse on Trail of Lightning
Posted by Sarah Waites on June 25, 2018One of my favorite books of the summer has been Rebecca Roanhorse’s highly anticipated urban fantasy debut, Trail of Lightning. I’m overjoyed to be able to bring you this interview so you can see all the reasons why you can learn a little bit more about this fantastic book.
Image result for trail of lightning bookCan you tell us about Trail of Lightning, for readers who may be unfamiliar with it?
The elevator pitch was “an Indigenous Mad Max: Fury Road”. It’s a story that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world after cataclysmic climate chance where one of the few places still intact, and doing pretty well, is the Navajo reservation, now called by its ancestral name, Dinétah. Within Dinétah the gods and heroes of Navajo legend walk the land again, but so do the monsters, and it’s up to our protagonist, Maggie Hoskie, to take on those monsters, both physical and metaphorical.
I notice that Trail of Lightning is being classified as a young adult novel by some readers, although it doesn’t seem to be marketed that way. Do you think of Trail of Lightning as young adult?
No, Trail of Lighting is adult science fiction and fantasy, although if it has crossover appeal for YA readers, that’s great. I hope as many people as possible enjoy the book.
If you could have one supernatural power from Trail of Lightning, what would it be?
Well, the magic system, and the supernatural powers that the characters have stem from trauma, so I’m going to say none. 🙂 I wanted to root the characters’ superpowers in trauma because I am interested in the question of whether strength can come from suffering, and I wanted to say something about the very thing that wounds you being the thing that gives you inhuman power. I don’t really answer that question (strength from suffering) because I don’t know the answer to that, and you’ll see the characters don’t agree, either. It’s a big part of the story.
I don’t want to give too much away, but Maggie seems to be struggling with trauma and mental health issues. Can you talk some about trauma and recovery in Trail of Lightning?
You are absolutely right, and that’s on purpose. I wanted to tell a story that followed familiar Urban Fantasy tropes, but even more I wanted to tell a story about how an act of violence impacts a person’s life. How it can lead you to make poor decisions, often self-destructive decisions, and alienate you from the very people you want to be close to. Maggie is a survivor of trauma and she makes decisions and acts and reacts like a survivor of trauma. Much of her journey, through this book and the future books in the series will be her road through that. She makes some progress towards realization (I wouldn’t even go so far as recovery) in Trail, but she has a long way to go. As a survivor of violence and trauma myself, that is what felt true to me.
What’s it been like having your debut novel published? Any big surprises?
It’s pretty cool. It’s a lot of work behind the scenes and it really does take a team – bless the editors of this world. Overall it’s been great and the reception of the novel has been largely positive, but it’s true what they say about not reading your reviews, especially on Goodreads. Reviews are there for readers. Authors beware!
What are some of your favorite science fiction and fantasy books, stories, or authors?
So many. I grew up on Epic Fantasy and will always love a lot of those farm boys on quests books, but it was Urban Fantasy that really opened up the genre for me and made me fall in love all over again. I’m a big Ilona Andrews fan, and I’ll always have a soft spot for the early Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton. More recently I loved DJ Older’s Bone Street Rhumba series.
What are you working on now? Do you have any upcoming releases we should keep an eye out for?
The second book in the Sixth World series, Storm of Locusts, drops April 2019 (apologies for the wait!), and then in 2020, I get ambitious and revisit epic fantasy, my first love. Between Earth and Sky, my Anasazi-inspired epic fantasy, finds the great matriarchal clans of a prosperous cliff-city vying for power against a backdrop of political intrigue, celestial prophecies, rising rebellion & dark magic. It should be, well, epic!
About the Author
headshotSFF writer. Nebula winner. Hugo, Sturgeon and Locus Award Finalist. Campbell Award Finalist. Pug owner. Yale grad. Lawyer. Ohkay Owingeh /Black. Navajo in-law. Based in Northern New Mexico.
- The Illustrated Page
https://theillustratedpage.wordpress.com/2018/06/12/review-of-trail-of-lightning-by-rebecca-roanhorse/
Word count: 767Review of Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
Posted by Sarah Waites on June 12, 201836373298Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse. ★★★★
TW: child death
Trail of Lightning is perhaps the most anticipated urban fantasy release of the summer, and I’m here to say that it doesn’t disappoint.
When climate change caused the oceans to rise faster than anyone expected, Dinétah (once the Navajo reservation) was reborn. It’s gods walked back into the world, but along with them came the monsters.
After Maggie Hoskie’s grandmother was killed by monsters and the witch who raised them, she was taken under the wing of a legendary hero Neizghani and trained as a warrior and monster-slayer. Only, then Neizghani left her without a word and Maggie found herself alone in the world. She isolated herself from human company and swore off the life of a monster-slayer. Of course, that changes at the start of the novel, when a town begs her to rescue a missing girl. The monster responsible is like nothing Maggie has encountered before, and it isn’t alone. Similar monsters are being reported across Dinétah. With the help of Kai Arviso, a medicine man who might just become a friend, Maggie sets out to find the witch responsible.
It took me a while to get into Trail of Lightning. In part that may be because the story has a slow start, but I think it also took me a while to figure out what this story was about and who these characters were. What makes this story different from other urban fantasy novels? Obviously, the influence of Navajo culture and mythology, but what about the characters? At first, Maggie felt like so many other urban fantasy heroines I’d encountered. Tough but standoffish. Scarred by a dark past.
But as the story went on, I realized that with Maggie Trail of Lightning was bringing something new to the table. Sure, urban fantasy heroines often have a tragic backstory, but how often do the stories really focus on the healing process and mental health ramifications? Especially in the context of someone who’s moving on from an abusive relationship, which was ultimately what I saw Maggie’s relationship with Neizghani as. There’s more I could say about this aspect of Maggie’s character. I wondered if she might have PTSD — she has a panic attack early on in the story, and weirdly enough, that’s the moment when I really connected to her.
Great world building is always something I look for in fantasy novels, and it was one of the reasons I was drawn towards Trail of Lightning. That, plus the fact that it was a story centering Native American characters, written by a Native author. Those stories aren’t usually told in science fiction and fantasy. Anyway, this is my way of saying that Trail of Lightning is offering something valuable and different. The scaffolding of the world may feel familiar, but the details are unlike anything I’ve read before.
Criticisms? Well, there is a reveal that’s really obvious (I figured it out way before Maggie), but when what you’re invested in is the personal relationships and character arcs, figuring out plot reveals doesn’t really matter. I also would have liked to see stronger relationships between the female characters, but you know me. That’s something I often complain about.
One thing confuses me about many of the other reviews for Trail of Lightning: why are people calling this young adult? Maggie is twenty, and while there is a flashback to when she’s sixteen, it’s not an extensive part of the story. Maybe people call any story without sex young adult (they must not have encountered a lot of young adult then…)? I found Trail of Lightning to be clearly adult fiction.
While it may have taken me a while to become invested in this story, by the halfway mark I was gripped to the page. Trail of Lightning is a wonderful addition to the urban fantasy genre, centering the sort of voices we need to hear more of. I can’t wait for the sequel!
I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.
4 starsARCDiversiversefantasyfemale leadinclusiveurban fantasy
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