“Buffalo Is the New Buffalo” Review

“Buffalo Is the New Buffalo” by Chelsea Vowel

Powerful stories of “Metis futurism” that envision a world without violence, capitalism, or colonization.

Inspired by classic and contemporary speculative fiction, Buffalo Is the New Buffalo explores science fiction tropes through a Metis lens: a Two-Spirit rougarou (shapeshifter) in the nineteenth century tries to solve a murder in her community and joins the nehiyaw-pwat (Iron Confederacy) in order to successfully stop Canadian colonial expansion into the West. A Metis man is gored by a radioactive bison, gaining super strength, but losing the ability to be remembered by anyone not related to him by blood. Nanites babble to babies in Cree, virtual reality teaches transformation, foxes take human form and wreak havoc on hearts, buffalo roam free, and beings grapple with the thorny problem of healing from colonialism.

“Education is the new buffalo” is a metaphor widely used among Indigenous peoples in Canada to signify the importance of education to their survival and ability to support themselves, as once Plains nations supported themselves as buffalo peoples. The assumption is that many of the pre-Contact ways of living are forever gone, so adaptation is necessary. But Chelsea Vowel asks, “Instead of accepting that the buffalo, and our ancestral ways, will never come back, what if we simply ensure that they do?”

Indigenous futurisms seek to discover the impact of colonization, remove its psychological baggage, and recover ancestral traditions. These eight short stories of “Metis futurism” explore Indigenous existence and resistance through the specific lens of being Metis. Expansive and eye-opening, Buffalo Is the New Buffalo rewrites our shared history in provocative and exciting ways.

Review

I really enjoyed reading all of the stories in the book! The Locating Myself, Preface and Conclusion chapters are important to read as they give a lot of context for the kind of stories that are included. Something that is often ignored is that all of the stories about world ending invasions have already happened to many Indigenous populations. The stories in this book play on that concept in different ways. The introduction gives a short explanation for the stories included. Each story also includes an explanation of the story and several footnotes which are interesting to read as they give additional context for the story and the inspiration for them.

BUFFALO BIRD – I liked the way it played out though it was tricky keeping track of the story as it jumped between different times in the life of the shapeshifter character. Though I did think the different time and situations had a common thread that made it work.

MICHIF MAN – This one was interesting as it was split between a modern day academic presentation of whether or not Michif Man actually existed or was just a metaphor and then actual scenes from the character’s life. Interesting story!

DIRTY WINGS – This one is a dream / stream of consciousness story so it’s a bit tricky to get. It’s interesting though and I really enjoyed the explanation section for this one.

MAGGIE SUE – This one takes some work to get through because it’s a detailed story that the POV character is telling about an event that happened. The character isn’t the main character of the story but actually a side character who encounters the main character as they head off on a quest (basically). There’s a lot going on in the story with a few side stories as the character explains things and it does take work to follow along. Worth it though.

A LODGE WITHIN HER MIND – A pandemic story! Interesting take in the idea of being uploaded into a virtual reality and what it can mean for you afterwards. The ending of it is neat.

ÂNISKÔHÔCIKAN – This one has an interesting idea – using nanites to force all language heard by a person into Cree, from birth, in order to create more native speakers of the language. The story is short and it’s intended to raise more questions than answers as we only see the beginning years of the child’s life without a lot of detail. How will it work as the child grows up? There’s hints of the idea of how we claim that technology will save us but it never works without consequences.

I, BISON – This story takes the idea of digital uploads and expands on what it would mean in the context of spiritual connections to the body. It also explores the idea of disability or mental illness and what actually disabled us. I really liked the ideas presented and the explanation is after the story is interesting.

UNSETTLED – And this is the story that deals with the idea that Indigenous populations are already postapocalyptic. They’ve had their lands stollen and their people enslaved or killed. What would happen if they were given control back? What would it take for them to decide that it was worth whatever cost they had to make? It’s an interesting idea and makes an interesting point. The explanation afterwards is great too.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Buffalo Is the New Buffalo”.

Book Details

The cover is filled with blue swirled lines with white lights all along the swirls going upwards and expanding out. On either side are cliffs of drawn flowers with lines of beads in various colors - red, white, blue, and green leaves. On each cliff is a black figure with white patters around their arms, legs and face. The one on the left is kneeling holding a bowl and spoon. The one on the right is standing holding something up in their dads. At the bottom of the cover is the vague shape of a buffalo raised up on its hind legs. The title of the book is written out between the two cliffs with the authors name at the bottom.

Author’s Website
Chelsea Vowel
Publisher / Date
Arsenal Pulp Press, June 2022
Genre
Science Fiction, Short Stories
Page Count
341
Completion Date
August 31, 2024

“The Seep” Review

“The Seep” by Chana Porter

Trina FastHorse Goldberg-Oneka is a fifty-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle—but nonetheless world-changing—invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible.

Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence—until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life. Using Seeptech to make this dream a reality, Deeba moves on to a new existence, leaving Trina devastated.

Heartbroken and deep into an alcoholic binge, Trina follows a lost boy she encounters, embarking on an unexpected quest. In her attempt to save him from The Seep, she will confront not only one of its most avid devotees, but the terrifying void that Deeba has left behind. A strange new elegy of love and loss, The Seep explores grief, alienation, and the ache of moving on.

Review

This was an interesting read! It would appear that in the aftermath of the invasion Earth has become a utopia of sorts but there’s a lot of questions about how it all works and how good things actually are for everyone. While there were some hints, the story was focused almost entirely on Trina dealing with her grief over losing Deeba, so we don’t really get any definite answers to those questions beyond how she was impacted. The ending got very weird and I’m still not entirely sure what all happened (beyond what were apparently some Seep fueled hallucinations). Overall I enjoyed it even though I was left with more questions than answers.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Seep”.

Book Details

The cover has a black background with for arms with their hands reaching across from left to right in various poses. Spaced over and in between the arms are flowers of various colors: red, yellow, black, white and blue. The title is at the top with the author's name at the bottom.

Author’s Website
Chana Porter
Publisher / Date
Soho Press, January 2020
Genre
Science Fiction
Page Count
216
Completion Date
August 9, 2024

“Monstrilio” Review

“Monstrilio” by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

After her son dies, Magos carves out a small piece of his lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her decaying childhood home in Mexico City. But despite her best efforts to turn the monster into a man, Monstrilio’s innate impulses threaten to destroy this fragile second chance at life.

A meditation on grief, acceptance, and the monstrous sides of love and loyalty, Gerardo Sámano Córdova’s ambitious debut spans the globe from Brooklyn to Berlin, offering an uncanny and precise portrait of being human.

Review

This was such a weird book (and a bit more sexually explicit, in a couple brief scenes, than I’d usually read), but also very good. The story is split into four sections with different narrators for each one – Magos, her best friend, her husband, and finally Monstrilio. Monstrilio’s section is probably the most complex as he is working out who he actually is and how he will continue to live. He ends up making a choice in the end that isn’t really a surprise considering all that has happened. Overall I felt like all four of the characters were unlikeable but sympathetic in their own ways, which made the book interesting to read. Monstrilio was obviously the most sympathetic because of how he was created and forced to be something he’s not by the choices others made.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph Page for “Monstrilio”.

Book Details

The background of the cover is textured gray/green and there are several shapes around the cover, triangles, squares and circles. At the bottom middle is the head and chest of creature with pointed ears larger than its head and red eyes. The title of the book is at the top with the author's name in the middle.

Author’s Website
Gerardo Sámano Córdova
Publisher / Date
Zando, March 2023
Genre
Horror, Thriller
Page Count
336
Completion Date
August 8, 2024

“Summer Bird Blue” Review

“Summer Bird Blue” by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea.

Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door” — a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago — Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.

Aching, powerful, and unflinchingly honest, Summer Bird Blue explores big truths about insurmountable grief, unconditional love, and how to forgive even when it feels impossible.

Review

I really enjoyed reading this book. Rumi has a lot to work through and her time in Hawaii helped put a lot of things into perspective. Her anger is a lot and she does come across as very mean but it’s also very understandable. I’m glad she developed such good friendships with Kai (along with his friend group) and Mr. Watanabe. While the situation with her mother seems horrible at first I ended up liking the way it was handled. It’s a lot more complicated than it first seems. Rumi isn’t always a reliable narrator in what’s happening due to her anger and grief, but there’s also things her mother needs to work as well. I thought the ending worked well for the story being told. There is a good outcome for the future as Rumi and her mother are dealing with their grief.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph Page for “Summer Bird Blue”.

Book Details

The background of the book cover has the appearance of a painted blue and green wave of water curling up from the bottom towards the top of the cover with the. There are two drawn images of birds at the top of bottom of the cover with the bottom one sitting on a flower. The title is written in the center of the cover with the author's name at the bottom.

Author’s Website
Akemi Dawn Bowman
Publisher / Date
Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers, September 2018
Genre
General Fiction, Young Adult
Page Count
384
Completion Date
August 5, 2024

“Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space!” Review

“Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space!” by Cait Gordon

In a galactic network known as the Keangal, where space is accessible.

Lieutenant Eileen Iris and the command crew of the S.S. SpoonZ haven’t a clue what it means to be disabled. An unexpected conversation with an intergalactic janitor brings up the question but offers no answers before he’s ‘ported away.

Unfazed, duties resume as Iris manages an overprotective guidebot; Security Chief Lartha and her sentient prostheses offer kick-ass protection; Mr. Herbert’s inventiveness is a godsend (although he’s not quite grasped how to flirt); Commander Davan’s affable personality comes through whether trumpeted, texted, or signed; and Captain Warq’s gracious but firm leadership keeps everyone at their best.

Until on one mission, where the crew tears through space.

Just a little bit.

Review

I really enjoyed the characters, (which included both disability and LGBQIA+ representation), and the various adventures they all had. I thought showing how well they all worked together worked for the book and it’s a great concept. Here’s the thing – I would have enjoyed this more if the first chapter hadn’t contained the scene mentioned in the description where the intergalactic janitor calls the crew disabled and the crew has no idea what it means.

I understand the intent behind the book with all access needs being taken care of and everything is just fine – similar to the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe where everything is taken care of (with some exceptions once you look beyond the Enterprise). But I also felt like the author wanted to have it both ways. Never mentioning disability, just accessibility needs but there are still moments in the book where needs aren’t always met completely or in a way that works for everyone. Also there was a sub-plot about one character who was not sensitive to diverse body-minds and had to be made to be more aware of his behavior.

Now it could also be said that the reason “disability” is never mentioned is that several, if not all, of the crew members are actually aliens who have different access needs that present as real world disabilities (autistic, d/Deaf, vision issues, non-speaking with mouth words, etc). Which would be the actual reason why disability is never brought up because they’re not disabled in a way that we’d call it. But other terminology related to disability is used the same way we would use it, accessibility, wheelchairs, guide bots (as apposed to guide dogs) and so on. While you may be able to talk about various access needs without using the word disabled it makes it awkward to read about as a disabled person.

Also everything is ideal for the crew but no mention is made of anyone with higher support needs or intellectual disabilities. How are they taken care of in this universe? Are they helped or is all of this access for only the elite? It’s implied at one point that healthcare is paid (for some at least) but there are gaps in the world building that lead to more questions.

I honestly fee torn about this review, because I think without the “but you’re disabled” scene at the beginning I would have been focusing on the characters and the plot which are very good. In many ways the book does what the author appears to want to do with regard to showcasing how things could be. Unfortunately, for me the scene in the beginning brought up all the various questions about how the universe works. How did they get where they are without needing to use the word disabled? I also do wonder if I’m being hyper critical because I’m disabled too and have certain ideas about what we need to be saying about disability seem to be different from the author’s ideas.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space!”.

Book Details

The cover has a group of four individuals standing on a rocky surface under a field of spinning stars that are circling above them. There's a spaceship in the upper right area. The four individuals include a person using a cane for the blind with a small robot at their feet they have their hand on the bot. Next is a person holding a large gun with at least one prosthetic leg visible. Next is a blue alien with a large trunk and he has his hand raised as if he's waving. Last is another individual with his hand on the alien character pointing up towards the ship.

Author’s Website
Cait Gordon
Publisher / Date
Renaissance Press, September 2023
Genre
Science Fiction
Page Count
302
Completion Date
August 4, 2024

“The Spirit Bares Its Teeth” Review

“The Spirit Bares Its Teeth” by Andrew Joseph White

London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he’ll be married by the end of the year. It doesn’t matter that he’s needed a decade of tutors to hide his autism; that he practices surgery on slaughtered pigs; that he is a boy, not the girl the world insists on seeing.

After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton’s Sanitorium and Finishing School. The facility is cold, the instructors merciless, and the students either bloom into eligible wives or disappear. So when the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton’s innards and expose its rotten guts to the world—as long as the school doesn’t break him first.

Review

This was such a good book with a lot of great characters besides Silas. While it doesn’t have quite as much gore as the other’s other book, there is some, all with a medical focus this time. I really enjoyed how Silas struggles to work everything out while dealing with everything else going on for him. The plot is very dark and disturbing but I really like how everything plays out. Certain things were not a surprise while others completely were and I really enjoyed it all. And I was really glad a particular plot point was resolved the way it did. The ending is a bit open ended but I think it makes sense given the storyline.

Be sure to take note of the authors warnings at the beginning of the book. Also be sure to read the authors end notes because while this story is fantasy the ugly truth is people always been sent a way because they were deemed unfit by society and many have been experimented on throughout history.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Spirit Bares Its Teeth”.

Book Details

The cover has a young person standing in the middle of it facing forwards but with their head turned to the right. Their skin is very pale white with brown hair and they are wearing a purple dress and holding a broken shard of glass that is also purple. Behind them is a sky in purple with white clouds. They're framed in an oval shaped image with other images of violet eyes all around the cover. The authors name is at the top and the title is at the bottom on a ribbon that is wrapped around the picture frame.

Author’s Website
Andrew Joseph White
Publisher / Date
Peachtree Publishing Company, September 2023
Genre
Historical Fiction, Horror, Young Adult
Page Count
381
Completion Date
July 21, 2024