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]

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.