Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week’s theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!
This week’s theme is a thanksgiving freebie! We don’t have thanksgiving here in the UK and, on this blog, we do not stan Christopher Columbus, so this week I’m sharing some sci-fi written by North American and Australian Indigenous authors.
While compiling this list I couldn’t help noticing just how much sci-fi by Indigenous authors is post-apocalyptic, but I shouldn’t be surprised. As Rebecca Roanhorse herself said in this piece for The New York Times, “We’ve already survived an apocalypse.”
The Swan Book by Alexis Wright: The Swan Book is a post-apocalyptic novel set in a world completely altered by climate change. I tend to enjoy post-apocalyptic novels centred around the environment and this one sounds so interesting.
Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson: I’m not all that into robot books, but I’m intrigued by this one because Rebecca Roanhorse describes it as ‘told in a montage of first-person accounts and lost camera footage from various corners of the world.’ Yes please!
Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse: Roanhorse’s debut is definitely most commonly defined as an urban fantasy novel, which it is, but as a post-apocalyptic UF novel it also slots nicely into the sci-fi genre. This is the only novel on this list I’ve read so far – I need to get a lot better at reading Indigenous voices – and I need to continue with the series!
Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction ed. by Grace L. Dillon: What better way to discover Indigenous sci-fi than to read a whole anthology of it?
Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich: I believe pretty much all of Erdrich’s work focuses on the First Nations communities of North America, and this particular novel introduces us to a version of our world in which evolution has reversed. Oh dear.
Resistance by Zainab Amadahy: This novel set in 2036 follows a nanotechnology researcher who must decide whether or not she’ll betray her principles for the lifestyle she desires. Novels about women in science are usually right up my street.
The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina: This YA post-apocalyptic novel set in the wake of an environmental catastrophe is the first in a series, and it sounds brilliant. I’m annoyed that I haven’t heard of it before, but to be honest I don’t know how much of that is because we don’t often hear about books from Australian authors here in the UK which is a real shame. There’s a lot of talent in Australia.
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline: Set in a futuristic world where only North America’s Indigenous people can still dream, our protagonist is on the run to prevent himself from becoming an unwilling marrow donor. It sounds creepy af.
The Old Lie by Claire G. Coleman: Back to Australia for this recent release, which follows several characters and how their lives are altered by war. The blurb tells us very little, which only makes me more intrigued by this particular book.
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice: This is another fairly recent release described as a post-apocalyptic thriller. Naturally, I’d like to give it a try.
Awesome post, thanks for the recs! Always looking for Indigenous authors to read and glad to meet some new names I didn’t know about
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Very nice twist! I’m not a big Sci-fi reader, so these are all new to me. Thank you for sharing them! ❤
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Oh I love that you did this list (as a Dutch person I don’t stan columbus anyway haha). There really isn’t enough attention for books by indigenous authors
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What a great topic. I really want to read more science fiction!!
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Erdrich is one of my favorites – I need to get on to this one!
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Resistance sounds really interesting!
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Great list, and I love the topic! I didn’t love the Louise Erdrich book (although I have loved some of her non-sci fi work), but thought Trail of Lightning was amazing. I’d definitely like to read some of the others listed here too. 🙂
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“we do not stan Christopher Columbus,” haha likewise. Robopocalypse sounds awesome to me and I had no idea it was an indigenous authors/
I want to read Crusted Snow as well.
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Same, I had no idea either until I spotted it on a list curated by Rebecca Roanhorse! It does sound interesting, though.
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Trail of Lightning has been on my TBR for a while.
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I hope you enjoy it if you pick it up!
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I’ve not read any of these so I definitely need to look into them. Does anyone stan Christopher Columbus? If they do, then they’re wrong! I always struggle with these Thanksgiving topics, because like you, I’m also from the UK so don’t really get the big deal but I watch a lot of US TV so I kept it simple this week and talked about my favourite Thanksgiving themed episodes.
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2020/11/24/top-ten-tuesday-291/
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Haha you’d be surprised! I went to Seville last year and there were plenty of people taking selfies by his burial place. It was pretty gross.
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Ugh no. I have to admit, I didn’t know a massive amount about Christopher Columbus before I did a module on Native American History at Uni, but once you do…..he sucked (and that’s putting it extremely mildly).
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What a great take on this week’s topic. There are a few here that I want to look into more closely.
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Thank you! 🙂
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This is such a perfect twist on the topic! I haven’t read any of these books yet, so I definitely need to work on that.
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Thanks Lindsey!
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Great twist on the prompt, the old lie sounds interesting, I’ve read hardly anything set in Australia.
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Thanks Catherine! Same, I need to make more of an effort to read more Australian authors because they always seem to slip through the cracks over here.
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Great topic! Trail of Lightning is one I heard a lot about, and they were good things.
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It’s so refreshing to read an urban fantasy novel full of Indigenous North American folklore – I’d recommend it!
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Wonderful list😁 And this is a perfect topic for Thanksgiving week!
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Thanks Tammy! 🙂
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Love what you’ve done for this week’s prompt, Jess! I’ve only read Trail of Lightning (which was amazing) but some of these look really good. Moon of the Crusted Snow is such a beautiful title! Reckon some of these’re going on the TBR now lol
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Thanks Dini! 🙂 I hope we both enjoy any of the others we pick up.
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All of these books look very interesting! Thanks for stopping by my post earlier.
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They do! 🙂
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Hell yes to not stanning (is that a real word? 😅) Christopher Columbus!
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Haha we all need to form a club and make t-shirts!
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