The term describes the geologic era after the human-influenced Anthropocene, in which Earth and its monsters take their revenge. The physical reappearance of the old gods,


and other beings, gives Roanhorse dramatic possibilities harking back to Greek mythol- ogy. Maggie Hoskie, her main character, deals constantly with gods and immortals. Maggie plays a traditional Diné wagering game with Nohoilpi, the Gambler, who maintains a pris- tine casino in the anarchy beyond the Wall. She alternately clashes or cooperates with Ma’ii, Coyote the Trickster, who dresses like an 1880s Indian Agent out of the television series “Deadwood.” Overarching all is her past as protégé and lover of Neizhgáni, the immortal Monster-Slayer, who trained her in his occu- pation. These interpersonal (interentity?) re- lationships are difficult and ambiguous. Part of the problem is the difference in perspective between a human with a limited lifespan and a being with a very long existence. But another part is that gods, in this literary tradition, are also flawed beings, with irrational passions and personalities limited by the traits and functions they personify. This tradition is even stronger in the


Cover for “Storm of Locusts (The Sixth World)” by Rebecca Roanhorse.


the Star Wars novel franchise. (Her contribu- tion, “Star Wars: The Resistance Reborn,” out in November, is appearing as a prequel to the next blockbuster movie installment that is scheduled to be released December 20. Roan- horse has observed that, in spite of Princess Leia’s Hopi-style hairdo and other deliberate Indian references, the Star Wars movies have “no American Indian characters.” She says she “has snuck a few” into her novel.) She has an- nounced a three-book deal with her publisher, Saga Press, for an unnamed novel, the third installment of “Sixth World” and the start of a new series, “Between Earth and Sky.” The last 12 AMERICAN INDIAN WINTER 2019


is an Indigenous-inspired (with Anasazi or An- cestral Puebloan influence) “epic fantasy that breaks out of the European mold.” These books are scheduled to be published in late 2020. For now, however, her reputation rests se-


curely on the Sixth World, a richly imagined setting that resurrects the Diné pantheon in a gritty, near future centered on the survival of the Dinétah. The term “postapocalyptic” seems inadequate for this new age. Another approach could be to borrow Donna Har- away’s coinage Chthulucene, from the Greek term for Earth-born with a touch of H.P. Love- craft’s horror-story “The Call of Cthulhu.”


work of N.K. Jemisin, a school counselor from Brooklyn, New York, who is having a supernova of a sci-fi career. Although she self- identifies as African-American rather than Indigenous, she has helped blast an opening in the sci-fi universe for women of color, including Roanhorse. Rather than drawing on an established pantheon, Jemisin invents her own gods, her own cosmogony and even her own theology. Like the Greek and Roman deities, however, her divine characters show a full range of personality defects and faulty judgements, with infinitely more dangerous consequences because of their power. She de- votes great attention to the sexual attractions between gods and humans, reviving a Greco- Roman tradition of deoeroticism. Roanhorse says she began reading Jemisin


only after her own Sixth World series was underway. “I am not influenced by Jemisin,” she says. But the two have independently been expanding the fantasy and sci-fi sub-genres that reflect a deep interest in religious tradi- tions. This focus is evident in Roanhorse’s education and in an eclectic list of influ- ences Jemisin describes in a “self-interview,” an appendix to her 2012 novel, “The Killing Moon,” in which she answers her own ques- tions. Starting with Freudian dream theory, Egyptian medicine and a smattering of Hin- duism, Jemisin adds, “Zoroastrianism, and Greco-Roman and Norse mythology, and


COVER DESIGN BY NICHOLAS SCIACCA; COVER ILLUSTRATION ©2019 BY TOMMY ARNOLD; SAGA PRESS/ SIMON & SCHUSTER PUBLISHING, 2019


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