BOOK REVIEW: Storm of Locusts by Rebecca Roanhorse

Storm of Locusts is the second book in the Sixth World series by Rebecca Roanhorse that began with the award-winning Trail of Lightning (see my review). The Sixth World is set in a future/alternate United States where more than half of the land mass has been inundated and billions of people worldwide have been killed by an apocalyptic event called The Big Water. Basically everything west of Colorado and east of Kansas is destroyed in the deluge. So the setting for our story is Dinétah, the land of the Diné (which is the word in Navajo used to describe the Native American tribe).

One of the primary features of Storm of Locusts is the pleasant feeling of reading a book with characters and world building which are new and unfamiliar. After all, the book can be classified as an action-packed, post-apocalyptic, urban fantasy with a powerful, violent woman of color protagonist. You don’t read one of those days every day!

The main character is Maggie Hoskins, a 20-something Navajo woman who is known as the Godslayer and Monsterslayer for some of the events that happened in Trail of Lightning. The sequel Storm of Locusts is both better and worse than the first book, in different aspects. There’s more action in Storm of Locusts and far less of the emotional energy is centered on the romantic tension between Maggie and the handsome stranger Kai Arviso which loomed large in Trail of Lightning. To me, these were good things. However, some of the things I was disappointed by in Storm of Locusts were the too-brief appearance of the openly gay, multiracial character from the first book and the fact its problematic pacing was repeated in the second (basically most of the primary plot points in both books are resolved apparently hastily in the concluding 10 pages). I was neutral on the addition of a new, teenaged, gender-nonconforming orphan named Ben in the second book. I liked the fact that Maggie’s emotions are most often connected to Ben and her sudden in loco parentis role as Ben’s protector. However, the story is still muddled with the inclusion of a romantic relationship between two side characters. (Other readers who are more positively disposed to romantic elements might view these aspects as pluses.)

Another strength of Storm of Locusts is the reduction in the presence of gods compared to how visible they were in Trail of Lightning. In the Sixth World, people have “clan powers” which tend to manifest themselves after an extremely traumatic or near-death experience. Maggie‘s powers include super-speed, expert facility with weapons and a killer instinct. Additionally, in the Sixth World various Navajo legends, spirits and gods are walking-about real. I understand that these books are urban fantasy but as an atheist the inclusion of creatures who are actual “goods” and not just people who have god-like powers which may just be really advanced technology always irks me. (This was part of the difficulty I initially had with Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy but I would argue the supernatural/mystical elements are handled more effectively in those works than they are in the Sixth World books so far.)

Anyway, overall I would say that on balance Storm of Locusts is about as good as Trail of Lightning, and I look forward to reading the still-untitled third book in the Sixth World series when it comes out.

Title: Storm of Locusts.
Author: Rebecca Roanhorse.
Paperback: 313  pages.
Publisher: Saga Press.
Date Published: April 23, 2019.
Date Read: July 14, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Trail of Lightning (Sixth World, #1) by Rebecca Roanhorse

I was skeptical that I would like this book because it was characterized to me as Young Adult (YA) but I was still interested, especially when Trail of Lightning became one of the rare debut novels to be nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula award.

Trail of Lightning is an interesting combination of urban fantasy, dystopian fiction, romance and Native American mythology. And it has a female protagonist and an unusual, culturally diverse cast of characters.

The main character is Maggie (Magdalena) Hoskie, who lives in Dinétah (formerly a Navajo reservation) which has survived an apocalyptic event called the Big Water which basically killed off several billion people worldwide and reduced the populated United States to the area around what used to be the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah (or the Exalted Mormon Kingdom). In this new land, the gods and spirits of the Navajo have come to life and certain people also appear to be manifesting powers that are associated with their tribal lineage.

Of course  our main character Maggie has powers (Super Speed and Ultra-Violence) that allows her to kill “monsters” that show up every now and again and prey upon the people. For this reason she is known as a monsterslayer. In fact, our introduction to the character in the very first chapter is Maggie being hired to find and rescue a little girl who has been abducted by one of these monsters. Maggie beheads the monster, and then because the girl has been infected, has to decapitate the girl as well. Clearly Maggie is "hardcore" but we also learn that she has had a VERY difficult early life and has a reputation for being “violent and antisocial” on the Rez. Later on in the story she meets Kai Arviso, an absolutely gorgeous guy who happens to be the grandson of her only friend, an ancient medicine man known as Tah. Kai and Maggie decide to go find the MacGuffin (an immortal whom they think has probably been creating monsters like the one Maggie had to kill earlier in the story) and along the way of tying to complete this task they find out more about themselves and establish a relationship.

Trail of Lightning has a very strong sense of place and both Kai and Maggie are very well-developed and interesting characters. The Native American element feels very authentic (there are lots of untranslated Navajo words used to describe various concepts and spirits). It’s also a very quick read (chapters are very short and the plot develops at a very fast clip). Another strong aspect of the book is the diversity of the characters. The main characters are Native Americans (of course)  and the supporting characters include a musclebound gay guy, an interracial (African American and red-headed) set of twins and two(!) godlike or at least near-immortal individuals. But the book revolves around Maggie, who is deadly, damaged and delightful.

Overall, I am very glad that I read Trail of Lightning. There's definitely romantic tension between Kai and Maggie (all presented in first-person from Maggie's perspective) but I would not characterize the book as YA or even romance. I’ll almost certainly read the sequel Storm of Locusts  (there's a huge cliffhanger at the end of Trail of Lightning) and the still untitled third book in what Rebecca Roanhorse is calling the Sixth World trilogy.

RATING: 4.5 STARS.

Title:  Trail of Lightning.
Author: Rebecca Roanhorse.
Paperback: 287 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: June 26, 2018.
Date Read: May 15, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

Eye Candy: Brand Will

Brand Will is a 24-year-old fitness trainer and underwear model residing in Manhattan, New York. Brand lists his vital statistics as 6'4", 220 pounds and describe his ethnicity as " mostly Czech, British, Irish, German, and American Indian."  The pictures above were taken by photographer Rick Day.

Brand Will has the distinction of being the first model to ask to have his pictures featured at MadProfessah.com. I accepted, because I have said before "hawt is hawt," even if I do generally try to focus on featuring models of color. Clearly, Brand understands social networking, since he has both a Facebook fan page and a Twitter page.

He's a big boy, eh? And he says he used to be a MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fighter with a 3-0 undefeated record. If all MMA fighters looked like him I think they would have a larger gay following!

"Two Spirits" Movie About LGBT Native Americans

One of my students alerted me to the trailer for the very interesting film about Native American "two-spirited" people, which is the word used to describe people who have both masculine and feminine traits. Generally, we think of such people as part of the LGBT community. The film is called Two Spirits and the trailer is below:


UPDATE FRI 12/18/2009 09:11AM
I heard yesterday that there will be a special screening of Two Spirits on Thursday March 18th at 7pm at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown LA by the Red Circle Project, a Native American HIV/AIDS agency run out of AIDS Project Los Angeles. I plan on attending and seeing this interesting documentary!