Wednesday, May 29, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Storm of Locusts by Rebecca Roanhorse



Storm of Lightning is the second book in Rebecca Roanhorse's "Sixth World" series, following up on the Hugo and Nebula nominated "Trail of Lightning" (reviewed here).  Roanhorse, who won the Campbell Award for best new SciFi/Fantasy writer last year, is a Native American author, and this series uses Native mythology* as its core: taking place in a post-global warming-caused apocalyptic world, in a walled off former Navajo Reservation called Dinétah, with Native gods, creatures and powers resurgent.  I enjoyed Trails of Lightning quite a bit, and was excited to see where Roanhorse took the series from there. 

*Given that this book takes place on what was once the Navajo Reservation and the author being Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, I'm guessing the mythology come from those cultures, but I'm obviously unsure due to my lack of experience with this area of mythology, so I will be using the term "Native" as a catch-all for this review.  Apologies if this is incorrect and if it's not proper, please feel free to correct in the comments and I'll fix.

 The answer is Storm of Locusts, which I enjoyed a good bit, maybe a little more than Trail of Lightning.  The book expands its world as the plot moves outside of Dinétah, further develops its heroine Maggie as well as other characters both new and old.  It's still far from perfect, but it's a lot of fun even as it shows a truly crappy world the characters have to deal with, with more Native gods and clan powers coming into play.  I'm hoping this is planned to be a long term series rather than just a tetrology (an interview I found suggests that the plan is to end with four books), but either way, I'm excited for what comes next.

Note: Spoilers for Trail of Lightning are kind of inevitable to some extent, so be warned if you go further in this review.


------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------
Maggie Hoskie is a mess.  A month has passed since the events at Black Mesa, and though she knows he's alive, Kai hasn't returned to her.  In the meantime, she's been left struggling in misery with her new determination not to be a killer, in spite of the bloodlust from her own clan powers.  But when a bounty hunt goes wrong, Maggie finds herself the guardian of a young woman named Ben complete with her own clan powers and an all too familiar need for vengeance.  And then word comes from Maggie's old sort-of-allies, the Goodacre twins, that Kai has gone missing along with the third Goodacre sibling....and that he might have gotten mixed up with a dangerous cult leader with dangerous powers of his own.

But as Maggie, Ben, and the Goodacre twins search for Kai, they find themselves forced to leave the confines of Dinétah and enter what's left of the United States outside the walls.  There, they will find dangers not just from Diné gods and monsters, but from monsters of the more human variety.  And even if Maggie and her sort-of-allies are able to survive these threats, the cult leader Kai has gotten mixed up with - the White Locust - might be the most dangerous of them all, and his plans spell bad news for all of Dinétah.  And worst of all, it's not clear that Kai hasn't come along with him willingly, and if so....can Maggie really trust the first man she's ever loved, who hasn't come back to her after she shot him in the heart?
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Storm of Locusts continues the story of Maggie Hoskie and the Sixth World, and as with any second book in a series, expands the world somewhat while introducing new characters in addition to the old ones.  The book is still set from Maggie's first person perspective (except for its epilogue), so we always know what Maggie is seeing and thinking, although what others are thinking is much less clear to us, as it is to her.

Of course, Maggie is a really strong central character, so this works. Her conflict here - where she's determined to no longer be a killer despite her clan power giving her a bloodlust, and despite being forced to mentor a young woman who wants absolutely to get mortal revenge - works rather well.  Add to that her struggle to make friends with others, and to deal with her feelings for Kai (pretty relateable feelings even if you're not a deadly killer with magical abilities), and it's just so easy to like her and root for her.

Most of the secondary characters work really well here too.  Returning characters Clive and Rissa Goodacre, especially Rissa, get further development and work really well, and new character Ben - a young bi woman with tracking clan powers and a want of vengeance- is oh so much fun to read about.  And then there are the new and old Native deities the characters encounter, each of whom has their own interesting personalities and attributes that make them really interesting to read.

As you might imagine, the plot here works really well, expanding the world by bringing our protagonists out of the confines of Dinétah and into the rest of the American Southwest, and the journey takes some real twists and turns on its way to the conclusion.  It's a shitty world out there, but Roanhorse makes it work, and it provides a solid set of problems, both mortal and not, for the protagonists to deal with.  And as noted above, the plot allows for the development of Maggie in som really nice ways.

If Storm of Locusts has a weakness, it's that the book keeps Kai off screen for 80% of the way, and as such, I never really cared that much about Maggie's relationship with him, which is a driving force for her.  Maybe it would've worked better if I'd reread the first book in its entirety instead of skimming it right before going into this book, but well Kai is kind of more of a plot device than a character here unlike how he was in the first book.  Hopefully that'll change in the future.  I was also kind of confused about how many clan powers a character could have - it was my understanding Kai had two - Big Medicine and Talks-in-Blankets, and that there was some sort of weather powers he also had, but here the weather powers are so prominent that they seem almost stronger than any clan power despite them having been said not to be such.  But this is a minor complaint overall.

So yeah, Storm of Locusts is definitely worth your time, though you'll need to pick up Trail of Lightning first if you haven't already.  Excited to read the next one, whenever it comes out.
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