Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World, #1) in Around the World in 80 Books

Jul 08, 2018 Rebecca rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2000s, urban-fantasy, female-author, adult, post-apocalyptic, series-to-continue-maybe

"Trail of Lightning" is an UF novel about Maggie Hoskie, a Native American, who hunts monsters in a post-apocalyptic world. Of course, magic powers play a huge role. I enjoyed the depiction of Coyote and other supernatural beings, fast pacing, and the authenticity of Native American details.

The narrative makes Maggie sound like a bad-ass, but her actions proved that wrong. Despite her clan powers, Maggie (view spoiler) ...more

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Jan 13, 2018 Nadine in NY Jones rated it liked it

Shelves: dystopian-and-post-apocalyptic, fantasy-and-sci-fi, myth, gods-known-and-unknown, r2018-in-2018

"I don't see how it matters what we call them. Dead is dead." To me it's splitting hairs not to think these men monsters. After all, there are plenty of human monsters too, just as twisted and evil as anything supernatural.

He turns fully to me, his sweep of broad shoulders blocking my view of the slurry tower and filling the space between us. "Words matter," he says. "The name you give things, it forms them when you speak. You must always be careful with your words." *

I really wanted to love

"I don't see how it matters what we call them. Dead is dead." To me it's splitting hairs not to think these men monsters. After all, there are plenty of human monsters too, just as twisted and evil as anything supernatural.

He turns fully to me, his sweep of broad shoulders blocking my view of the slurry tower and filling the space between us. "Words matter," he says. "The name you give things, it forms them when you speak. You must always be careful with your words." *

I really wanted to love this. I expected to love this. But, I just didn't love this.

There is no one glaring thing wrong with it, it just sort of didn't do it for me. Mostly because I was kind of confused. The basic obvious things were over-explained for us, and some things were obvious to me from the beginning but turned out to be huge reveals later in the story for Maggie, but then other things never made sense to me at all and I really WANTED them to be explained. I plan to read the rest of the series, so I'll spell out my confusion here so I can look back on it later:
(view spoiler)
*- (view spoiler)

I think a big part of why I was confused is because the plot was all over the place, Roanhorse lost her direction a few times and had to fumble a bit to get it back. It started off really strong, and then fizzled a bit, bubbled now and then, and it tried to finish strong but by then I was annoyed. I know this is a debut effort so I'm hopeful that she'll clean that part up in future books.

I didn't really like Maggie, or, rather, I didn't really like what Roanhorse was trying to make Maggie. Yeah, she's this tough woman, but she's just a pawn being pushed around the board by the men in her life. Maggie does some really stupid things that don't make sense. And she pulls that very annoying thing that you see all the time in YA: she's looking for information, she finds someone who is about to tell her the information, and she refuses to listen. Ugh! I hate that!

The idea of this dystopian was so fascinating, but I never really got a good feel for it. If Roanhorse didn't keep reminding us that this was taking place in a dystopian, I would forget, because for the most part every day life in the book is the same as every day life today.

All that aside, that really is a gorgeous cover. ...more

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Feb 11, 2024 Rachel N. rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2024, native-american, urban-fantasy, navajo

An environmental disaster has destroyed most of Earth but the Navajo nation was protected by a great wall and had remained relatively intact. The event also caused clan powers to be awakened in some people. Maggie Hoskie's abilities come in the form of super speed and the ability to kill easily. Maggie spent a lot of time with the immortal Neizghání but after he abandoned her she's mostly been hiding out until called upon to kill a monster that has kidnapped a girl. Maggie learns there are more ...more

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Jun 02, 2019 Julie rated it really liked it

Outstanding! Such a powerful and singular story, hard to believe this is Roanhorse’s debut! I loved how she wove first nations’ mythology into an environmental dystopian landscape and made it impossible to but down. Pick up this book and read it, share it with your young adult friends and family, share with anyone who likes magic, a great story and cares about the world we live in.

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Sep 27, 2020 Megan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Amazing world building, well earned and unexpected plot twists, and a solid start to a new urban fantasy series. Unfortunately, I think this was too hyped up to me and the writing didn't transcend in the way I was expected. ...more

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