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jackiehorne 's review for:
Trail of Lightning
by Rebecca Roanhorse
A promising, but flawed, urban fantasy debut, set in a post-apocalyptic U.S. after "Big Waters" and wars over energy put most of the country under water. More specifically, the setting is Dinétah, land of the Diné or Navajo, and our protagonist, Maggie Hoskie, is a member of that nation.
At the novel's start, Maggie's a dark brooder, having been abandoned for some unknown reason by her mentor, a god who rescued her from murderous bad guys and taught her to use her "clan powers" to fight monsters. Maggie fears that she's been abandoned because she's too evil, unworthy, and the book is appropriately dark to reflect this, with lots of killing and bloodshed.
I enjoy a fantasy that draws on a mythology/religion (in this case, the Diné or Navajo) not typically featured in the genre. I was a bit confused by its use in the book at times, though. Are the gods good? Some good, some evil? How/why do they interact with the human world? Are there different types/levels of gods?
As for the plot of this first book: A particularly nasty type of monster is suddenly appearing in Dinétah, and Maggie reluctantly tries to discover from whence it is coming. Maggie and her new sidekick, Kai, get jerked around from place to place and slaughter to slaughter, without a sense of building toward a clear end point, without collecting leads and clues that build toward a surprising conclusion. And when we do get to the climactic scene, it is really confusing; there seem to be multiple villains, without any clear sense of why they've involved Maggie in their doings/rivalry.
Maggie appears on the surface to be a kick-ass heroine, but she doesn't have a lot of agency. She's pretty much pushed around by the men (human and god alike) in her life. She may kill a lot of monsters, but she doesn't feel empowered at all.
I thought when Kai was first introduced that he was gay, a mistake on my part, but the vibe between him and Maggie did not seem at all romantic, or even lustful, not then, and not later on in the story. So their later tiny sexy scene felt off to me, too. So not much on the romance front to draw in a romance-oriented reader, alas.
At the novel's start, Maggie's a dark brooder, having been abandoned for some unknown reason by her mentor, a god who rescued her from murderous bad guys and taught her to use her "clan powers" to fight monsters. Maggie fears that she's been abandoned because she's too evil, unworthy, and the book is appropriately dark to reflect this, with lots of killing and bloodshed.
I enjoy a fantasy that draws on a mythology/religion (in this case, the Diné or Navajo) not typically featured in the genre. I was a bit confused by its use in the book at times, though. Are the gods good? Some good, some evil? How/why do they interact with the human world? Are there different types/levels of gods?
As for the plot of this first book: A particularly nasty type of monster is suddenly appearing in Dinétah, and Maggie reluctantly tries to discover from whence it is coming. Maggie and her new sidekick, Kai, get jerked around from place to place and slaughter to slaughter, without a sense of building toward a clear end point, without collecting leads and clues that build toward a surprising conclusion. And when we do get to the climactic scene, it is really confusing; there seem to be multiple villains, without any clear sense of why they've involved Maggie in their doings/rivalry.
Maggie appears on the surface to be a kick-ass heroine, but she doesn't have a lot of agency. She's pretty much pushed around by the men (human and god alike) in her life. She may kill a lot of monsters, but she doesn't feel empowered at all.
I thought when Kai was first introduced that he was gay, a mistake on my part, but the vibe between him and Maggie did not seem at all romantic, or even lustful, not then, and not later on in the story. So their later tiny sexy scene felt off to me, too. So not much on the romance front to draw in a romance-oriented reader, alas.