Reseña: Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)

Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)

by  

Rebecca Roanhorse

287 pages

Published June 26th 2018 by Saga Press

Edition Language:English

Series: The Sixth World #1

 

BLURB: While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters.
Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last—and best—hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much larger and more terrifying than anything she could imagine. Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel to the rez to unravel clues from ancient legends, trade favors with tricksters, and battle dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My bookshelves: here-be-monsters, bloody-and-gory, post-apocalyptic, myth-and-legends, dinetah-navajo, hugo-nebula-nominee, locus-award, multiple-awards-nominee, deidades-y-dioses, 2019-readings, coyote-spirit, kick-butt-heroine

I remember the first time I saw the Wall. I had expected something dull and featureless. A fifty-foot-high mountain of gray concrete, barbed wire lining the top like in some apocalyptic movie. But I had forgotten that the Diné had already suffered their apocalypse over a century before. This wasn’t our end. This was our rebirth.
[--]
They say the hataalii worked hand in hand with the construction crews, and for every brick that was laid, a song was sung. Every lath, a blessing given. And the Wall took on a life of its own. When the workmen came back the next morning, it was already fifty feet high. In the east it grew as white shell. In the south, turquoise. The west, pearlescent curves of abalone, and the north, the blackest jet. It was beautiful. It was ours. And we were safe. Safe from the outside world, at least. But sometimes the worst monsters are the ones within.

En el mundo postapocaliptico de Magdalena Hoskie las aguas subieron y un muro se alza con ayuda de hombres sagrados para mantener a raya las aguas en la reservación Diné (Navajo), mientras que adentro hay una sequía y se desdibuja el tiempo de leyendas con el cotidiano. Magia y dioses conviven y despiertan dones de clanes entre la gente.


La idea esta fuertemente basada en el mito de la creación de los Diné , de ciclos de destrucción y creación. Hay magia, brujos, y dioses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Din%C3%A9_Bahane%CA%BC

Maggie es una heroina de acción, una caza-monstruos, y su historia se va contando a través de la novela. es un personaje complicado, pero que se ve esta en conflicto porque su mentor / amante se ha ido y ella sufre por eso, sin comprender bien la razón. La gente de la reservación es le pide ayuda para defenderse de los monstruos que los depredan, pero también le teme por ser quien es: una asesina con un don especial. Cuando vamos entendiendo quién es ese mentor vamos descubriendo un mundo de leyendas diné , donde se habla de un "Monsterslayer": 

He tells me his name is Naayéé’ Neizghání and he is honored to have been there at my rebirth. He calls me “Chíníbaá’,” a traditional Diné name that means “girl who comes out fighting.”

Luego ella se encuentra con asuntos viejos, o mejor dicho monstruos que atacan gente y se parecen demasiado al que acabó con su abuela, al parecer trabajo de un hechicero, y necesita ayuda de un joven que tiene sus propios secretos, y empieza a ayudarla a descubrir que ella estaba viviendo en una situación abusiva anteriormente .

“Then who? Neizghání? That teacher you clam up about every time his name comes up? Did he tell you that you were poisoned, some kind of natural-born killer? Did he convince you that you couldn’t have friends? Couldn’t be loved?”
---
What do I say? It’s the only life I know? It’s the only thing I’m good at? Killing is the only thing I have that makes me worth anything to Neizghání? And Neizghání was the only thing I had that makes me worth anything at all?
{
“One of the first lessons Grandpa taught me. Clan powers are a gift, not a curse. We may not understand them, why they only come to some of us, what their full potential is, but he was sure they were an instrument against dark times, against the coming of monsters. And like any instrument, they can be used for good or evil. A good man can use a hammer to build a house. A bad man can use it to kill his neighbor. The hammer is the same.”

Todo la acción se desarrolla dentro de la reservacion navajo que es por Arizona , el lugar esta vivo de leyendas, y gente no del todo humana. Afuera se habla de inundaciones, pero adentro hay sequia.

 I wonder if there are other places like this, other homelands where the old gods have risen, where monsters threaten the five-fingereds, where death stalks the few who still live on the land of their ancestors.

“The sad truth you do not wish to face, Magdalena, is that sometimes the ones we call our heroes are the greatest monsters of all.”

Es una buena historia,aunque por momentos todo el angst de Maggie llega a ser demasiado. Hay traiciones y secretos, y siempre crees en Kai aunque ella no lo haga.

En algun momento seguiré con la continuación cuando termine con mi bloqueo de lector.

Es sumamente interesante por toda la mitologia de dioses y leyendas dinetah que normalmente nunca hemos escuchado.

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