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" story in which Indians never existed and the U.S. never had slavery; she also characterized that as a history that wouldn't be "wildly divergent". Another author made statements that, among other things, imply that POC are new to SFF.) Notice, please, that this isn't a post about the two authors: we don't write posts about white authors on this comm.

Given that we don't write posts about white authors, here's the reason I'm even bringing up that hot mess: while browsing nahrat's link round-ups, I've been noticing that now and again someone asks for recs of books that give the lie to the assumptions those two authors made. Unfortunately, the rec-making has been a bit thin, and sometimes is pretty heavily tilted toward white authors.

Happily, reccing POC authors is something this comm does really well. Let's make some recs! I'd like to see recs for the following:

• Alternate histories or universes that are indigenous-centric and/or anti-colonialist. There is no need for the AH/AU to focus on the Americas, and I'd love to see recs that don't.
  
• Books that oppose the notion of an Empty Continent -- again, books can focus on either of the Americas, Australia, Africa, or anywhere else that has had to deal with that lie.
  
• Books about how indigenous peoples have been an integral part of shaping the history of the world, and aren't just optional background scenery.
  
• Books which document and/or demonstrate that POC have a long history with SFF, or a history that's independent of the Verne/Heinlein/Asimov/Campbell anglophone tradition.

If you have other themes that seem appropriate to the discussion, do feel free to start a comment-thread for them.

Additionally, here are two existing POC-author rec-making posts in the discussion:

• ithiliana: Some of my favorite American Indian authors
  "Feel free to suggest other writers! Please!"
  
  
• Bangla at deadbrowalking
  "So several of the Desi folks commenting on the Global Represent thread have mentioned reading genre fiction in Bengali. Who are the authors you recommend? What's been translated to English or other languages?"

Remember, please: this is not a post for discussing white authors; this is a post for reccing POC authors. Let's make some recs!

ETA: I set up some category-specific comment threads below, but if you've got something that needs to be rec'd and the categories seem to be too constraining, DO feel free to ignore the categories. The recs are the important thing here, not the categories.

Comments

[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.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I was going to recommend some other books by Thomas King, particularly Green Grass, Running Water, which is an incredible, funny, and sad work of historical speculative mythological fiction.

[oyceter]

Caveat that I'm only half way through this one, but given that I had an hour and a half of sleep the night before and *still* stayed up past my bedtime trying to get further in the book says something ;).

Drew Hayden Taylor, The Night Wanderer is a modern vampire (I think) novel, but the hints seem to be that the vampire character is a very, very old member of the Anishinabe tribe.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

This sounds interesting! I never heard of it.

[oyceter]

I just finished it yesterday, and it's really good! It reminds me a lot of The Silver Kiss and has bits in the end about passing on knowledge and tradition that just got me.

[sunnyskywalker]

*pops in from elsewhere teh internez* Ooh, yes! I loved that book. (And not just because it's like the anti-Twilight, though that's fun too. Teen girl has actual problems! And actual relationships with her family! The divorce matters! Pale boyfriend isn't perfect after all! Vampirism isn't hot!)

The scene where Pierre shows Tiffany that history is still alive in this land and that it's hers and it matters is awesome.

[sanguinity]

Rodolfo Acuña, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos.

I suspect this might better fit under "shaping the world", but I've only read the first chapter yet -- entitled "Not Just Pyramids, Explorers, and Heroes" -- and it very much fits under "not an empty continent."

Acuña begins by debunking the phrase "New World," then moves on to discussing world systems, independent cradles of civilization (two in the Americas!), and the ancient dispersal of humanity into the Americas (including the possibility of back-migration into Asia via the Bering land bridge). He then runs through a description of a handful of the numerous Mesoamerican civilizations: Olmeca, Maya, Teotihuacan, Tolteca, Tarasco, and Azteca.

I came away from this chapter with a clear sense that history in the so-called New World is old and deep, and isn't just some random footnote to "real" history.