STORM OF LOCUSTS

Maggie Hoskie and her god-blasting clan powers are back in the second book of Roanhorse's post-apocalyptic Sixth World series; this time she’s taking on The White Locust, a man with clan powers who wants to destroy the now-thriving dystopian Navajo Nation (or Dinétah), Maggie’s home.

We already know that the Big Water has drowned most of America, and Dinétah is one of the last remaining strongholds. The magic of the Diné (Navajo) gods and the clan powers they bestow, and the powerful walls the medicine men constructed, are the only thing holding the chaos of the rest of the world back. What we don’t know is that a man given the power to rain down locusts and create humanlike figures from them, a cult leader called The White Locust, wants to destroy Dinétah for rejecting him as a mixed blood. What we find out is that this man has Kai, Maggie’s love, a medicine man she feels she has betrayed—and who betrayed her. Thus begins Maggie's journey to find Kai, to defeat the White Locust—and to face her fears of intimacy and betrayal, garnered from a tragic, violent past. Her journey takes her out of the safety of Dinétah, straight into the hands of people willing to do anything to survive, cultures built on ones that existed in the American Southwest but are now powerful, rich, and terrifying warrior-states. It also takes her to zoot suit–wearing trickster Gods. Roanhorse is the first Indigenous American to win a Nebula, a Hugo, and the Campbell award and is nominated for a second Nebula this year. She’s a groundbreaking writer, weaving Diné language and culture throughout her work in innovative and deeply important ways while at the same time providing a purely joyous reading experience.

Roanhorse’s latest is a killer.