Reviews

mitêwâcimowina: Indigenous Science Fiction and Speculative Storytelling by Neal McLeod

ablondal's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.75

poisonenvy's review

4.0

Average rating of all stories: 3.4*
Added an extra star for the importance of this anthology and its being the first of its kind in Canada.

The Void: The writing in this story wasn't great. Dialogue was difficult to follow and the story was almost entirely dialogue. There were some POV slips, especially at the beginning. The imaginative quality of this story was excellent and the messaging was clear. (2.5*)

Spaceman I feel like this story went over my head. It was less a story than an explanation of a concept. (2.5*)

Take us to Your Chief This story was laugh-out-loud funny at points, and while I don't watch much, and am not really a big fan of King of the Hill, this story kind of reminded me of it. The social commentary was sprinkled in subtly and cleverly throughout. Omniscient POV is difficult to do and I don't often like it, but Taylor managed to pull i toff smoothly and to good effect. (3.5*)

Onenkwaton: we Wow. This story was great. Beautifully written, well thought out, excellently paced. Engaging and interesting. (4*)

Beneath the Starry Map Beautifully and poetically told. The writing was stunning, with the debate ranging between living forever in stasis, how you are, vs. changing and growing, of preservation vs. renewal, of observing vs. participating. Evocative, and, I can not stress this enough, beautiful. (4.5*)

The Inheritors Well-written and intriguing. The message of living without actually living, of doing without purpose was all very well done. There's something to be said about trusting our memories to computers and tech instead of telling stories of our past, the difference between the Inheritors forgetting who were the first of their pioneers vs. the ones who were left behind knowing all their ancestors since the Bastion left because of their oral traditions. Loved the story. (5*)

13 Moon This story started off strong, but seemed to become muddled and confused as time went on. Parts needed another editing. Understanding the perspective and the timeline was confusing

Spoiler

(At the beginning, the narrator, Moon, says she was the first to be born on the new moon, but later, two cubs that apparently aren't her are born in on the first moon and it's said that has never happened before.

By the end, Moon isn't the narrator anymore, despite starting off that way, and there's some awkward tense shifting. The story itself was intriguing, but perhaps needed more time to become properly fleshed out. Maybe it should have been a novel or a novella instead of a short story. (2.5*)

Head.Full.of.Rust The decision to write this in second person was interesting, and I think the right choice. I had a lot of questions after

Spoiler

(How had she put her hand through a wall, for example)

, but perhaps they don't need to be answered. (3.5*)

The Eaters This was great. The metaphors aren't subtle, but they don't need to be. This story was all about the beautiful, kind parts of being human and it was beautifully crafted. (5*)

Phantom Heart of Pale Face Andrew The sentences sometimes had a habit of being distractingly long, especially at the beginning of the story, but they were still easily understood and, the story itself was beautiful and heartfelt. (4.5*)

Gimiwan Last Nation While the writing was amateurish, I thing that actually worked out really well, narratively. I quite enjoyed this one - from things ending up exactly how Randy said to the fun pop culture references. It was a lot of fun. (3.5*)

Swallow fantastically written, very engaging. The visuals were striking and poignant. Excellent. I want more of this story. (5*)

The Marrow Thieves Chilling and heartbreaking, but nicely hopeful at the end. My one criticism is that the narrator was not at all convincing as a ten-year-old child. I just learned that this has been turned into a series of books, and I'll definitely be checking them out. (4*)

What Happens When Stars Die The writing in this story was repetitive, clumsy, and had some strange word choices and punctuation problems. The plot itself was a little bland, and the ending was unsatisfactory. The opening paragraphs were very good though. (2*)

Land Run on Sooner City Well-written and entertaining. The last scene was very good; excellent visual. (3.5*)

Blood The writing in this had a few problems, including switching from third person to first person seemingly at random, and dangling pronouns any time there were more than two characters in a scene, making the action incredibly difficult to follow. This made the story in general hard to follow and read.

Spoiler

I did like them helping the bear, but I could not understand George's sudden and unexplained change of heart, or a lot of what was happening.

(2*)

The Seven Sisters & Sirius this was an excellent story about an Urban Indian returning to his roots. Relatively well-written, and whatever grammatical mistakes there were served to enhance the narrative instead of hinder it (such as using 'seen' instead of 'saw'). It was engaging, and the imagery was great. I would definitely read more of this story if the author chose to continue it. (4.5*)

The Old Man from the South Beautifully told and engaging, and I especially enjoyed the Cree translation, even if I coudln't read it. Left a lot of unanswered questions though

Spoiler

(Did Luke get away? It's rather vague on that point)

and that was a little dissatisfying because of that. (4*)

jnetennba's review

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0