Trail Of Lightning
vBy Rebecca Roanhorse
vReviewed by Emily Lundgren
The world is flooded after sea-levels rise and everything is thrown
into post-apocalyptic chaos. During this time, the Diné build a wall
around what was once the Navajo reservation. This is the end of the
Fifth World (ours) and the beginning of the Sixth World. In the Sixth
World, the Diné monsters of legend return to the Diné lands. The walls
keep them in, and the rest of the world out. Maggie Hoskie, Trail of
Lightning’s protagonist, is a hunter of these monsters. Through the use
of her clan powers, she is very good at it. So good, in fact, her grappling
with the violence in which she must dispatch of these monsters has her
wondering if she is a monster herself.
The novel opens with one of these monster hunts. Tasked with
tracking down a girl stolen from her family, Maggie discovers a whole
new breed of monster and a resurgence of her anxieties and scars
of her past. The journey to find out who might have cast this new
monster into being leads her to meet Kai Arviso, the grandson of Tah,
the closest thing that Maggie has to family.
Reluctantly pairing up with Kai to investigate leads the two of them
on a dangerous journey as they clash with both mortal and immortal
enemies and frenemies (most memorably Coyote, the trickster),
including their clashes with each other. Meanwhile, Maggie’s past trails
at their heels, forcing her to make dire sacrifices for her own survival.
Trail of Lightning hits all the right notes for an urban fantasy and
Dr. Steven Anderson
leaves you certain Maggie
Hoskie could kick Buffy
Summers’s butt within
the first ten pages, plus,
it’s less of an urban
fantasy and more like a
rural fantasy—there is
no sprawling city, but
instead vast landscapes
and open roads not
unfamiliar to those of
South Dakota. That’s
probably what I loved
best about this book:
though it takes place
further West and
South, the world Maggie and
Kai navigates still felt familiar. What I also found
refreshing about Roanhorse’s fantasy was how there are nonNatives present, but it isn’t their story. It is entirely a Diné story.
Rebecca Roanhorse is writer to look out for, and this debut series
promises an exciting series start to the exploration of her Sixth World.
Check out Trail of Lightning as well as the second book in this series,
Storm of Locusts at the Yankton Community Library! n
Dr. Laura Slowey
Dr. Aaron Feser
www.visioncareassociates.net
605.665.2020
2701 Fox Run Parkway, Yankton, SD 57078
20vHERVOICEvJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020
A S S O C I AT E S