I have been in an absolute funk today. Sometimes the brain weasels come and they don’t stop chewing, you know?
Rebecca Roanhorse’s latest book, Storm of Locusts, has been helping me out of the funk. The protagonist is Maggie Hoskins, a monsterslayer with Clan powers who lives in a post-apocalyptic United States in Dinétah, the Navajo nation that survived the Big Water. Having recently “killed” two gods, she has enough trouble to deal with in her life… but then she ends up unwitting caretaker of a teenager with Clan powers, half-friends half-enemies with a once ally, and crossing the Wall into the remains of Arizona to find the man she fell in love with in Trail of Lightning.
No matter how much I hate doing laundry and no matter how stressed I am about my job, nobody’s asking me to figure out how a lightning god’s sword works, or attacking me with locusts.
Oh, yeah, by the way? Total fuckton of locusts in this book. Me? I have no problem with creepy crawlies in books because my brain just kind of slides over them like “oh yeah horrible thing happens here, we’re not going to dwell on that…” but if(when) they make this series into a movie this is going to be nightmare city for some people.
Including me. Because my brain can’t slide past creepy crawlies in movies.
Anyway, just like in the first book of the series, this one is chock full of Navajo gods, Navajo culture, kick-ass women kicking ass with swords, guns, knives, etc., one seriously fucking creepy bad guy, and magic.
Plus bugs. We are not screwing around about the bugs here, people.
Definite must read, looking forward to the next one, hoping it’s slightly more bug-free.