• Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World, Book 1)
• written by Rebecca Roanhorse
• published by Saga (June 2018)
• Next Installment: Storm of Locusts, April 2019

Listen, if you’re in fantasy for the white boy angst, Rebecca Roanhorse’s first The Sixth World novel, Trail of Lightning, probably isn’t what you’re looking for.

For the rest of us, run to your computer or your mobile app or *gasp* a bookstore and procure your copy. Now. Three days ago. Go on, you’re wasting time.

Oh, you want to know what Trail of Lightning is about. Sorry, here you go:

Maggie Hoskie is a monster hunter. She may also be a monster. Regardless, it’s her responsibility to protect the people of the Dinétah from the creatures of myth and legend, gods and immortals, who returned after an extinction level event destroys vast swaths of the United States.  

A bit urban fantasy, a bit dystopian, a bit romance, and a lot of mythology, Trail of Lightning is a very special book in a great many ways. First, and tied for most important, the writing, both stylistically and in scope/scale, is gorgeous. Roanhoarse has combined epic myth, science, politics, the practical aspects of post-apocalyptic life, and an exploration of a magical system in a way many readers haven’t had a chance to explore. It’s a reality you’ll want to inhabit, despite its dangers, because it is so full and so detailed and real.

Other first, and tied for most important: Roanhorse’s heroes (especially our point-of-view narrator, Maggie) are steeped in their own history, their own stories. They honor their culture and heritage rather than seeking to integrate into what remains of humanity. They value family, biological and found, and responsibility over wealth or political/social power. They are, unabashedly, who they wish to be, even if they are sometimes forced to question the roles into which they have been cast. Because they have such strong foundations, of which they are proud or which they struggle to maintain, even those with doubts as to the darker aspects of their souls are able to balance the need to discover who they truly are. As a friend said to me when I chided myself for getting emotional about Infinity War, “We are our stories.” Most novels that utilize native mythology do so as a device or a tool, wielded by writers who, even if their intentions are good, have appropriated rather than lived. Roanhorse’s characters were born to the Diné and live that truth. It is an aspect of their cores rather than esoterica to whip out to save the day.

We don’t need more of the latter. It’s been done, poorly, for decades. But the former? That’s beautiful and real and it should have been a more prominent feature of fantasy stories long ago. That they weren’t is more evidence of the insular, cliquish, exclusionary nature of science fiction and fantasy writing and writers, which is only now starting to change — to seek out female main characters and explorations of non-European, non-white cultures by members of those cultures rather than self-made anthropologists.

It doesn’t all have to be Medieval analogues of England, folks. Seriously. It doesn’t have to be your base culture for you to love it and enjoy it and learn something from it.

Now is an especially good time for learning something new, in fact.

And if the romance in Trail of Lightning develops a little more quickly than I often find myself preferring, well, intense circumstances breed intense emotions and a healthy fear of missed opportunity. There’s also something to be said for instinctive connections between people who intend to risk their lives with, and for, one another. Roanhorse handles the relationship between Maggie and Kai deftly, compressing the window in which it cements itself without sacrificing its development, which is no easy task.

I’ve recommended Trail of Lightning to several people already, even promised to lend my copy, which I don’t usually do with books I love because what if I don’t get it back?! But I’m of the mind that everyone I know should have a chance to partake of this book, and I very much wish the next installment, Storm of Locusts, were in my hands and entering my eyeballs right now. Alas, we must wait until April 2019 but until then, I very much suggest getting lost in Trail of Lightning. You’ll be glad you did.