You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by ohmage_resistance
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
challenging
dark
sad
tense
This was good. I’ve been meaning to try out Steven Graham Jones for a while, and I’m glad this book worked out for me. I honestly don’t have a lot to say other than I thought it was good, although a lot to process at times.
Yeah, it was really interesting to read a sort of “Western”-esque setting that really focused on a lot of factors that are left out of a lot of the Western media that I was exposed to at least, most notably, the genocide of Native Americans and the rampant destruction of the environment. It was really interesting how that shifted the tone from the sort of romanticization of the frontier that I'm used to to a more horrorifying/tragic reality. And speaking of horror, there wasn’t really anything I found particularly frightening, but some of the most impactful moments were the tragic ones, particularly the ones pulled from real history (in particular, Marias Massacre was really relevant). I know there’s often debate on how to depict historical tragedies in speculative fiction, but I’m glad that this event is something I’m aware of now. It’s something that I think more Americans should be aware of (I feel like the US has gotten slightly better at least being aware of slavery/the legacy of racism against Black people, but I feel like there’s still a long way to go when talking about the legacy of colonization and genocide of Native Americans.) It wasn't as unrelentingly grim as something like Beloved by Toni Morrison, imo, mostly because of the revenge aspects (I guess Beloved also had revenge as a theme but that was handled very differently).
I’m also not an expert of vampire media, but I liked the way it was handled here. Vampires (and that exact term was never used) worked really well with themes of greed and gluttony and colonization in this book. It was also used to create a theme about humans turning into something much more animalistic. Seeing this through a Pikuni lens was also very different than anything I’ve seen before, since Pikuni respect many animals much more than European derived cultures tend to (we tend to see them as something to be used or like pets with no in between, and neither one of those is really respect), but also there’s the loss of access to culture that comes with this more animalistic form that was deviating to Good Stab. I will say, theparallels between the way the Good Stab desecrates the chapel and the way the cat-man desecrates the Sun Dance worked well for me .
Good Stab himself used a mix of English, Blackfoot/Pikuni, and Blackfoot/Pikuni terms transliterated into English terminology. I’m actually curious if anyone has any more insight into when each was used (other than the Pikuni terms being the most sacred, in a way).
Ok, the acknowledgement section was pretty long and also Jones talked a lot about the media (not just people) that influenced him when writing this novel. I liked this acknowledgement of artistic influences, it’s something I don’t seen talked a lot about but generally see as being cool.
My only small note of criticism was that Etsy’s part of the story sometimes felt a bit too cheesy for me, especially in comparison to the rest of the book.
Yeah, it was really interesting to read a sort of “Western”-esque setting that really focused on a lot of factors that are left out of a lot of the Western media that I was exposed to at least, most notably, the genocide of Native Americans and the rampant destruction of the environment. It was really interesting how that shifted the tone from the sort of romanticization of the frontier that I'm used to to a more horrorifying/tragic reality. And speaking of horror, there wasn’t really anything I found particularly frightening, but some of the most impactful moments were the tragic ones, particularly the ones pulled from real history (in particular, Marias Massacre was really relevant). I know there’s often debate on how to depict historical tragedies in speculative fiction, but I’m glad that this event is something I’m aware of now. It’s something that I think more Americans should be aware of (I feel like the US has gotten slightly better at least being aware of slavery/the legacy of racism against Black people, but I feel like there’s still a long way to go when talking about the legacy of colonization and genocide of Native Americans.) It wasn't as unrelentingly grim as something like Beloved by Toni Morrison, imo, mostly because of the revenge aspects (I guess Beloved also had revenge as a theme but that was handled very differently).
I’m also not an expert of vampire media, but I liked the way it was handled here. Vampires (and that exact term was never used) worked really well with themes of greed and gluttony and colonization in this book. It was also used to create a theme about humans turning into something much more animalistic. Seeing this through a Pikuni lens was also very different than anything I’ve seen before, since Pikuni respect many animals much more than European derived cultures tend to (we tend to see them as something to be used or like pets with no in between, and neither one of those is really respect), but also there’s the loss of access to culture that comes with this more animalistic form that was deviating to Good Stab. I will say, the
Good Stab himself used a mix of English, Blackfoot/Pikuni, and Blackfoot/Pikuni terms transliterated into English terminology. I’m actually curious if anyone has any more insight into when each was used (other than the Pikuni terms being the most sacred, in a way).
Ok, the acknowledgement section was pretty long and also Jones talked a lot about the media (not just people) that influenced him when writing this novel. I liked this acknowledgement of artistic influences, it’s something I don’t seen talked a lot about but generally see as being cool.
My only small note of criticism was that Etsy’s part of the story sometimes felt a bit too cheesy for me, especially in comparison to the rest of the book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Eating disorder, Genocide, Gore, Racism, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Confinement, Rape, Suicide, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, War
Minor: Alcoholism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury
Cannibalism is vampire stuff, not entirely sure if that's what the tag is meant for.