Recs for Indigenous/Anti-Colonialist AUs, Indigenous History, POC SFF Traditions, and More!

[sanguinity]

It's time for our monthly recs post! Usually I make this a space for members to ask for recs that interest them, but this time oyceter and I want to do something different.

Dunno how many of you have been following the dustup over a certain pair of white SFF authors? (Briefest of summaries: one author wrote a "shiny" alternate-universe U.S. "frontier"

Comments

[sanguinity]

Indigenous-centric or anti-colonialist alternate universes / histories:

[sanguinity]

Sesshu Foster, Atomik Aztex.

Non-linear book is non-linear, weaving between what may or may not be multiple narrators in multiple universes. However. The central universe is one where the Aztecs repelled the Conquistadores, and then moved to colonize Spain themselves. Most of the action is set during WWII, within various universes/timelines.

This isn't a happyshiny AU -- the (male, imperial) protagonist makes off-hand references to raping Spanish slaves in order to let off some steam, and does a lot of self-justifying talk that the Aztek are great because they're the ones with the guts to do the horrible things that someone's gotta to do.

That said, there's a lot of stuff I positively adore as it goes by.

[carenejeans]

This is one of the books I was thinking of when I answered your e-mail. I've only just started it, and have the same caveats, but second the rec.

[sirdrakesheir]

I'm actually salivating. This sounds fascinating.

[poeticalpanther]

The thread over at Tor Books about the 13th Child had a number of people linking to this comm, by the way, with much positive to say about it (as do I, when SFF racism comes up elsewhere). I'm looking forward to the recs! :)

[annwfyn]

Me too! I don't have anything to add, which is a shame, because I think the idea of non-European centric speculative fiction is really interesting. I have now ordered two books from the recs put up so far, and so hopefully if something like this comes up again I won't be quite so unhelpful.

[sanguinity]

Countering the notion of an Empty Continent, whichever continent that might have been:

[sanguinity]

(From morgan_dhu @DW, here)

Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki), Dawn Land, Long River, and The Waters Between.

I haven't read this, but going from blurbs-on-the-internet, this is a coming-of-age trilogy about a young Abenaki man, set at the end of the last Ice Age. Apparently Dawn Land is also Bruchac's first novel?

[sanguinity]

Two more Joseph Bruchac recs, both available from Oyate.

Children of the Long House: I'm only half-way through this one (I tend to have ten-or-more books going at the same time), but so far, it features a boy with a very close relationship to his sister, and how his learning to take on a man's role in the tribe both shapes and is shaped by that relationship. The boy is also dealing with bullying, and there's cool stuff about how the tribe handles bullying and other inter-personal conflicts.

Wabi: YA fantasy quest novel about a were-owl. I loved this one a lot. (Shiny!)

[sanguinity]

Thomas King (Cherokee) and William Monkman (Cree), Coyote Columbus Story.

I cannot express the depth of my love for this book (although I have certainly tried).

Native-centric telling of the Columbus story, in which it is made VERY CLEAR that Native people were living rich, full, active lives before Columbus came. Also, the reason that Columbus is in the Americas is because Coyote dreamed him up in a fit of boredom.

There's a lot of subversive stuff going on in the illustrations, too, like putting the Native people in jeans while Columbus and his crew wear Conquistadores-meet-crossdressing-Elvis outfits. Every aspect of the storytelling pushes the reader to identify the Native people in the story as unremarkable and familiar, while identifying Columbus as inexplicable, alien, and exotic.

Also, Columbus has very bad manners. Which includes thinking that he could enslave and sell people. I especially liked that King and Monkman manage to keep the tone humorous, without erasing the fact that Columbus himself committed atrocities.

[sanguinity]

Indigenous people shaping the world:

[sanguinity]

Emory Dean Keoke (Standing Rock Sioux) and Kay Maree Porterfield (?), Encyclopedia of American Indian Contributions to the World.

Young-adult, five volumes, available through Oyate. (There's also a single-volume version by the same authors, with a similar title.) I've only just started these last night, but there's a lot of stuff I like in here. One of the things I like most is that the authors don't use whether something was adopted by white people as the standard for what is or is not a "contribution to the world." (ETA: But if "adoption by white people" is the standard someone is making you use, you'll still find plenty of stuff in here.) The authors do a good job of combatting common assumptions about American Indian societies being "primitive": f'rex, there's stuff in here about metals electroplating and dental fillings.

Volume subject areas: Buildings, Clothing, and Art; Food, Farming, and Hunting; Medicine and Health; Science and Technology; and Trade, Transportation, and Warfare.

[sanguinity]

POC having a long history with SFF, or having SFF traditions that are independent of the anglophone, western, mainstream SFF tradition:

[sanguinity]

(via sparkymonster, here.)

W.E.B. duBois, "The Comet". Short story, published in 1920 in Darkwater, Voices Within the Veil.

Post-apocalyptic fiction!

[harborshore]

Sultana's Dream, by Rokheya Shekhawat Hossein, first published in 1905 in The Indian Ladies' Magazine. The link goes to the fulltext of the story. Utopian science fiction, written in response to the practice of purdah (which she writes about in The Secluded Ones, an essay series which is included in the Feminist Press edition of Sultana's Dream).

[icecreamempress]

!!! This is new and thrilling to me!