#TBRChallenge 2026

Posted on January 9, 2026 by Victoria Janssen

TBR Challenge 2026 is a fun way to actually read all those books I’ve been accumulating over the years. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it: once a month pull a dormant book out of your TBR pile and read it. On the 3rd Wednesday of the month, talk about that book. If you’re on social media all you need to do is use the #TBRChallenge hashtag – there’s no need to sign-up and your participation can vary throughout the year. You can use this hashtag on any day, at any time – but we’re still going to concentrate on the 3rd Wednesday of every month to kick our commentary into high gear. The idea is to have at least one day a month where we can always count on there being book chatter.”

January 21 – Still Here: Cold Bayou by Barbara Hambly
February 18 – Vintage: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
March 18 – Tropetastic!: Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London
April 15 – Fool’s Errand: Lady of Perdition by Barbara Hambly
May 20 – New Beginnings: Body Movers by Stephanie Bond
June 17 – Pride: Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff
July 15 – Freedom! (main character escaping “something,” books set during period of political change – pick a war, suffrage, Civil Rights Movement, etc.)
August 19 – Backlist Banger (book that’s been in your TBR a long time, backlist title by favorite and/or prolific author, etc.): The Hundred Days by Patrick O’Brian
September 16 – Lush Life (some definitions of lush = luxuriant, thriving, prosperous, savory, drunkard, curvaceous. Run with it folks!)
October 21 – The Hunt (thriller, romantic suspense, Gothic, paranormal, fantasy, etc.)
November 18 – Wrath (revenge, vengeance, a struggle of some sort, angry characters)
December 16 – Wild Card (unpredictable characters, random “free pick” from your TBR)

Posted in reading | Tagged | Leave a comment

Welcome to Refuge!

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Victoria Janssen

This is the official website of writer Victoria Janssen, author of A Place of Refuge. This novella series is science fiction #hopepunk following three former guerillas who lose their fight against a fascist empire but escape to a utopian planet. They’re figuring out what’s next with the aid of pastries, therapy, and other people. A Place of Refuge is now available in an omnibus edition with extras. Now available: Dissenter Rebellion: The Rattri Extraction, a Refuge prequel adventure story.

Victoria is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association and serves on the Romance Steering Committee.

Visit the Bookshelf for more of my writing.

You can also find these novellas at Goodreads, StoryGraph, and LibraryThing.

Email: victoriajanssen@victoriajanssen.com.

Social Media:
Goodreads.
Bluesky.
Romancelandia at Mastodon.
Wandering Shop at Mastodon.
Tumblr.
Facebook Author Page.

Last update: 28 October 2025.

Yes We Blog! Webring

Posted in refuge series, writing | Comments Off on Welcome to Refuge!

My Readercon 2026 Schedule

Posted on June 26, 2026 by Victoria Janssen

I’ll be paneling at Readercon July 9 – 12, 2026 at the Boston Marriott Burlington in Burlington, MA. My schedule is below:

The Works of P. Djèlí Clark
Friday, July 10, 2026, 11:00 AM EDT
Andrea Hairston; Rob Cameron [moderator]; Tom Doyle; Victoria Janssen
Our Guest of Honor P. Djèlí Clark rounded out his first decade as a published author with a Nebula and a Locus for his first fantasy police procedural novel, The Master of Djinn, and both of those awards plus a British Fantasy Award for his monster-hunting novella, Ring Shout. His short story “How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub” took the Locus award. As a history professor at the University of Connecticut, he investigates the pathways leading from West African storyteller/poets (griots, aka djèlí) to the American abolitionist movement. Help us celebrate the works of our honored guest!

Delany’s “Trouble on Triton” at 50
Friday, July 10, 2026, 2:00 PM EDT
Victoria Janssen [moderator]; Benjamin Rosenbaum; Elizabeth Bear; Gregory Feeley; Sonja Ryst
Samuel R. Delany’s final SF novel “Trouble on Triton: an Ambiguous Heterotopia” was published in 1976, and remains a continued source of critical and popular discussion. Jo Walton noted that it is at heart a “personal is political” novel: interstellar war rages, but it is lives, not worlds, that are shaken. Very different from “Dhalgren” (published the year before) or the Nevèrÿon fantasy novels that came after, it takes direct aim at Ursula Le Guin’s “The Dispossessed” (“an Ambiguous Utopia”) in depicting a future full of possibilities and pitfalls.

Fantasy Noir
Friday, July 10, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT
A.C. Wise [moderator]; Laurence Raphael Brothers; Nicole Glover; Scott Lynch; Victoria Janssen
Fantasy noir. We’ve all been relishing hopepunk in the past decade, and cozy is all the rage, but what keeps some of us reaching for the dark themes and frequent hopelessness that are the hallmarks of noir? There’s plenty of great fantasy detectives if what you want is a good mystery—which are the standouts and hidden gems of fantasy noir, and who’s defying expectations with some little rays of hope amidst their noir trappings?

Lois, Megan, and Tammy; Miles, Gen, and Alanna
Friday, July 10, 2026, 6:00 PM EDT
Kate Nepveu [moderator]; Bethany Powell; Marissa Lingen; Sophia Babai; Victoria Janssen
Fans of Lois McMaster Bujold often speak of both Megan Whalen Turner and Tamora Pierce in the same breath, saying their writing and characterization feel the same, that these women are writing in the same vein, scratching the same itch for their readers. Why are these writers being grouped together by fans? How are their works in conversation with each other? Are there additional authors and series that belong on the same list?

The Rise of Cozy Fiction
Saturday, July 11, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT
A.C. Wise [moderator]; John P Murphy; Meredith Schwartz; Rachel Gutin; Victoria Janssen
Cozy fiction, like romantasy, is developing as a genre niche, but also like romantasy, not without controversy and debate. But what makes fiction cozy? Is it a lack of plot? Quirky characters? Is cozy expanding beyond its traditional home in mystery? If so, is that OK? There are some who claim that a cozy book will read the same whether or not the reader has encountered spoilers. Are cozy books the equivalent of comfort reads? And who are cozy fiction readers, anyway?

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex Writing But Were Afraid to Ask
Saturday, July 11, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT
Marianna Martin [moderator]; Claire Houck; Kit Sedia; Meredith Schwartz; Victoria Janssen
Is it difficult to write about sex, or are we just overthinking it? Do you balk at writing (or reading?) sex scenes, and skip over them entirely? Why or why not? There is an annual “Bad Sex Writing” list, that nobody wants to find themselves on — why is it so easy to get one of our basic needs so wrong, and how do we get it right? How do we avoid being cheesy or salacious? Or…are those the qualities we need to lean into? Don’t be embarrassed. Join us for a frank, adult discussion on a vital subject.

Posted in writing | Leave a comment

My May Reading Log

Posted on June 19, 2026 by Victoria Janssen

Fiction:
I started off the month of May with three DNF mystery novels; it might be me and not the books!

Darksight Dare by Lois McMaster Bujold is latest in her Penric and Desdemona series; it’s also latest in the series chronology. Penric’s duties as a Divine of The Bastard bring complex issues to his door; first, making sure a willing demon passes to a willing candidate when its human dies, and second, teaching the new sorceror, who wasn’t trained to house an other-dimensional being. As usual, the plot grows out of Bujold’s splendid characters, and the plot is filled with interesting worldbuilding. My only complaint is that the story felt far too short; I am hoping these characters will show up again.

Water into Wine by Joyce Chng is a novella whose lead character who inherits a vineyard on a distant planet, just before a war breaks out. The war slowly advances on the protagonist and family, destruction in contrast to the growth and building of a vineyard; the family put downs roots and defends themselves and their land. We never learn much about the two sides or why they’re fighting, other than “Loyalists” and “Traitors.” For such lowkey prose, I found the story to be very emotionally dense and affecting. I don’t want to spoil too much, so I’ll stop here.

Call Me Traitor by Everina Maxwell is due out December 1, 2026; I read a copy from NetGalley. Unlike Maxwell’s previous novels, this one is fantasy, and had themes that reminded me of The Winter Soldier arc in the Captain America comics as well as the magic system in Avatar: the Last Airbender. The protagonist is En, a “War Tank,” a person whose skin in incised with runes for enhanced spell casting; her memory is periodically wiped and she is always under the control of a commander, who uses a rune to get her attention or inflict punishing pain. En, like the reader, awakens into situations without context; but via flashbacks, the reader is given some of the context that En lacks, and roots for her as she begins to rediscover her sense of self. The flashback story, featuring a group of naive senior mage students experimenting, eventually intersects with En’s present-day story. For me, the flashbacks were less effective because I already guessed the outcome and don’t usually enjoy reading about slow-building disasters; but I did enjoy the way the story concluded, and was curious as to what would happen next.

Fanfiction:
I spent a couple of weeks reading a Star Wars alternate universe that was over 700,000 words, but alas it stretched on too long and was too epic for my powers of concentration. Also, the author never met a homonym they didn’t misuse, which is a personal peeve of mine. However, I loved how the story incorporated ground-level activism into its plot, at least for the first portion. So, another DNF.

Posted in alternate universe, lesbian, lgbtqia+, reading, sf/f | Tagged | Leave a comment

#TBR Challenge – Pride: Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff

Posted on June 17, 2026 by Victoria Janssen

Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff has been lingering on my TBR since it came out, but you really can’t go wrong with menopausal lesbian werewolves.

Becca lives in an isolated mountain town and, after her divorce, has made a life for herself with a house, a job at the hardware store, and active participation on a local womens’ club. Her story begins with a hot flash, soon followed by an invitation from her hot neighbor, Erin, to a menopause celebration party.

I was expecting more Romance plot; I am not sure why, but while there is romance happening, and Becca’s realization she’s attracted to a woman for the first time, this book is really a plotty fantasy novel. Because Becca is newish to the town and new to being a werewolf, the reader learns what’s going on, and the dangers that have been happening out of her purview, as Becca does.

The other werewolves in the town, and some of the humans, know more than Becca does, and like her I sometimes found that frustrating; she is part of the pack but ignorant of it’s recent history. That aspect of the book felt like a naive narrator tossed into a thriller, with new, unknown dangers at every turn.

It was a suspenseful light read for some hot summer days. Happy Pride!

Posted in glbtqia+, paranormal, reading, sf/f, werewolves | Tagged | Leave a comment

#TBRChallenge – “New Beginnings”: Body Movers by Stephanie Bond

Posted on May 20, 2026 by Victoria Janssen

Body Movers by Stephanie Bond is first (I thought) in a cozy mystery series with the unusual aspect of body movers for the morgue. I’ve been meaning to check it out because I love reading about different professions. Partway in, after several backstory dumps, I realized it was actually second in the series, but it was still the first for me!

Protagonist Carlotta Wren grew up wealthy until her parents skipped town to escape her father’s embezzlement charges, leaving her to raise her younger brother. Carlotta ends up working for a high-end department store in the Atlanta area and trying to keep her brother out of trouble, which seems to be a full-time job as he’s a gambling addict and teenage hacker obsessed with his father’s case. We first meet him when he’s just been arrested and Carlotta has to leave work to see him and arrange bail.

I confess the constant money problems afflicting the protagonist stressed me out, and I did not finish the book; I stopped before the murder had even happened. Better luck next time?

Posted in mystery, reading | Tagged | 1 Comment

My April Reading Log

Posted on May 15, 2026 by Victoria Janssen

Fiction:
Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher is a somewhat dark fantasy with many fairytale elements. Marra is the youngest princess of a tiny kingdom with a good harbor; her mother has bargained for their safety with the eldest and, when Damia dies in what might not have been an accident, her second daughter, Kania. Marra is shuffled off to a convent where she is happy out of the endless gaze of the public, learning needlework and shoveling stables; at least until she learns that Kania is being abused. Marra puts together a ragtag team including two elderly magical women and a soldier/diplomat, accomplishes some impossible tasks, and saves the day with her knowledge of weaving. Necessary spoiler: the [not entirely alive] dog made of bones does not die. This might be my favorite of Kingfisher’s books so far.

Clockwork Boys (Clocktaur War Part 1) by T. Kingfisher is essentially part one of a single book. Experienced forger Slate, assassin Brenner, a young genius priest, and a former Paladin who was once possessed by a demon set out on a mission that will almost certainly lead to their deaths as they attempt to discover what the seemingly unstoppable enemy Clockwork Boys are and how they might possibly be defeated. When the book ends, the Clockwork Boys have been seen once, from a distance, and the team has just arrived at Anuket City where they hope to find more answers. I am not sure why this book and its sequel were not simply published as one book.

The Wonder Engine (Clocktaur War Part 2) by T. Kingfisher deepens the worldbuilding as the team attempt to discover the source of the Clocktaurs and who controls them, while also searching for a missing priest. My favorite part was the gnoles, a sapient species who look a bit like large badgers, and have moved into Anuket City in great numbers, taking on a wide variety of jobs that humans find undesirable. Via a gnole saved by Slate in the previous book, the gnole population proves vital to solving the mystery and gaining access to the titular wonder engine. I enjoyed the story a lot, and still think these two books should be one.

Nonfiction:
Roddy McDowall: An Actor’s Life — From “How Green Was My Valley” to “Lassie” to “Planet of the Apes” by Samuel Garza Bernstein meticulously represented the breadth of McDowall’s career, from childhood movie star to stage and television stalwart, to more movies and eventual voicework. He was apparently a genuinely nice person who loved being a social connector; his social gatherings were legendary and he was diligent about his correspondence. However, the entire book is in present tense, which I found distracting and didn’t really understand the use of. Also, I felt some of the long lists of people’s names needed to be either trimmed or given more context. I understood McDowall knew a lot of people who didn’t necessarily know each other fairly early on, but once I knew that, reading an entire page at a time of nothing but names felt like a bit of a slog. McDowall left detailed archives, and I would have appreciated a bit more curated detail.

Posted in sf/f | Tagged | Leave a comment

My March Reading Log

Posted on April 17, 2026 by Victoria Janssen

Fiction:
A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher was short but a lot of fun! Fourteen year old Mona lives in Riverbraid, which has a number of wizards with odd small talents; Mona’s magic works best with dough and baked goods. She is learning her trade in her Aunt Tabitha’s bakery, where she unexpectedly finds a dead body, which leads to a much larger and more frightening mystery: who is after the wizards of Riverbraid? And what can be done about it, if you have no power? Together with Spindle, a boy who grew up on the street and whose sister was a victim of the murder, Mona reluctantly is thrust into finding out what can be done, and what she herself will have to do, to save the city. Though her aunt and uncle provide support both physical and emotional, at times she’s separated from them and realizes it’s not always the person who should be doing things who actually does them, and that anyone can step up if the need is dire.

A Power Unbound by Freya Marske finally came through on my library hold, and I really enjoyed it! The class difference between the two protagonists, Jack Alston and Alanzo Rossi, is foregrounded throughout and I was pleased to see that it wasn’t tidily resolved at the end. I also enjoyed the way Jack and Alan found in each other a partner for treasured fantasies that added extra spice to their relationship. As this book is third in the “Last Binding” series, as you might expect the characters from the previous two books return and the plot resolves the whole trilogy with some new and intriguing twists in the worldbuilding.

Fanfiction:
a kind of dwell and welcome by leupagus is a male/male romance between Ted Lasso, American football coach, and Trent Crimm, a journalist and author. I’ve only seen a few episodes of Ted Lasso, but I was able to follow and really enjoyed this, especially its exploration of a middle-aged man feeling intense sexual attraction for the first time, and for the first time being attracted to a man, and figuring out what it is and what he wants to do about it, and how their families will adjust to these post-divorce relationships. From what I’ve seen on the show all the characterizations felt spot-on, and though it’s a lowkey story overall, I was engrossed by the subtle maturation of the romance.

If You Give a Bat a Burger by Cielle_Noire crosses over Batman and the Batfam (Robin, Red Robin, Nightwing, Red Hood, Oracle, Spoiler, Batgirl, and Signal) with Danny Phantom, a cartoon series I have not seen but figured out from the supplied context, and guest-starring John Constantine (Hellblazer). This epic is over 300,000 words, but I kept going for the intriguing worldbuilding relating to ghosts in Gotham and how that might relate to the Lazarus Pits and various other DC comics lore. Danny is a refugee from his home town, fleeing a government agency that would make him and his ghostly powers into an experimental subject. In Gotham, he finds more ghosts than there should be, and that they’re up to something…but he also has to go to high school, feed himself, and keep the ghosts in check, leaving little time for mysteries. It’s a good thing he eventually has help.

Posted in fanfiction, reading, sf/f, ya | Tagged | Leave a comment

#TBRChallenge – “Fool’s Errand”: Lady of Perdition by Barbara Hambly

Posted on April 15, 2026 by Victoria Janssen

Lady of Perdition by Barbara Hambly is seventeenth in the Benjamin January series of historical mysteries, this one beginning in April, 1840. I’ve already caught up on the previous book in this series for this year’s challenge, but this one fit the theme so well I couldn’t resist one more. Benjamin January knows no black person in their right mind would willingly go to the Republic of Texas but when his former pupil Selina Bellinger is kidnapped and enslaved, he has no choice. Once there he is saved from being hanged by Valentina Taggart, wife of the wealthy landowner of Rancho Perdition. After Valentina is accused of the murder of her husband, she in turn calls on Benjamin for help.

As usual with this series, the peril is baked in with the historical setting and protagonist, who is a free man but always at risk of being kidnapped and sold. On this dangerous journey to The Republic of Texas, his risk is even worse; but he cannot allow a sixteen year old to lose the rest of her life due to the single mistake of falling in love with a predatory man. His best friend Hannibal Sefton, an Irish musician, poses as his “owner” despite his constant ill-health, and their friend New Orleans policeman Abishag Shaw, ruthless and practical, serves as their undercover agent and muscle. The story is actually two stories, linked by a few characters: first, the rescue of Selina, which includes an accidental encounter with Valentina, a guest character from a previous book in the series, and glimpses of a familiar man named Gervase Hookwire, also traveling to Texas from New Orleans. After Shaw escorts Selina out of Texas, Ben and Hannibal are entangled in a murder investigation via Valentina, and then find a second murder has taken place. Ben’s skills as a trained surgeon help out with the second investigation as it’s clear to him that the second victim had not, in fact, been killed by the Comanche, who do not appear in the story except as a constant threat of danger.

This installment had a large cast and a fair amount of plot relating to 1840s Texas history that I mostly knew nothing about, so I felt I learned something as well as enjoying the difficulties of figuring out a murder while being in danger the entire time. While I missed the New Orleans cast, it was good to see Shaw again, however briefly, and Ben and Hannibal’s friendship is always a joy. Every detective needs a sidekick! I am very glad that Hambly has apparently decided that Hannibal’s tuberculosis is in abeyance for as long as the series requires! A few books ago, he also kicked his opium habit, so it’s a bit more plausible that he continues to survive, though that aspect of his character is represented by coughing and tiring easily. It’s a good thing his best friend is a surgeon.

Posted in historical fiction, mystery, reading | Tagged | Leave a comment

#TBRChallenge – “Tropetastic!”: Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London

Posted on March 18, 2026 by Victoria Janssen

Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London hasn’t been on the TBR for that long (October 2024), but it seemed a perfect fit for this theme! I love seeing fandom and fanfiction appear in other genre fiction, especially when there is meta-exploration of the fandom aspect. In the world of Fang Fiction, supernatural beings including vampires are real, as is inter-dimensional travel, but very few know this. Instead, the lives of vampires, trapped in a shadowy version of Manhattan Island, are known to the mundane world through the trilogy of soapy “Blood Feud” novels written by the reclusive August Lirio.

Though about fandom, this book is also about survival after a past sexual assault, so please be warned if that is a trigger for you. Tess Rosenbloom is a graduate student in English at Columbia University, where she met her best friend and roommate Joni Chaudhari. However, after being date-raped by her crush at a party, Tess flees her friends and school where her rapist is a fellow student. She ends up as night manager of a queer hotel, unable to sleep or talk about her trauma, and estranged from Joni who doesn’t know what happened. Instead she submerges herself in Blood Feud fandom, even writing a popular article for Buzzfeed on the many theories that the vampires are real.

Then one of the vampires from the books appears in New York City, and because of that article, seeks out Tess for help. Tess can’t rely on the series canon to figure out what’s happening, plus her PTSD leaves it almost impossible for her to trust anyone, especially not vampires who could kill her. However, she can’t resist the pull of knowing more.

There were a lot of plot threads: Joni and Tess’ reconciliation, Tess’ recovery and new romance, Joni’s secondary romance, the warring vampire clans, and the mystery of August Lirio. I think all the different threads slowed the pace, and I wished there had been more fandom and less romance (that’s a me thing, not the book’s fault), but I was satisfied with the ending.

Posted in sf/f, vampires | Tagged | Leave a comment

My February Reading Log

Posted on March 13, 2026 by Victoria Janssen

Fiction:
Paladin’s Faith by T Kingfisher is fourth in the series, featuring Marguerite Florian and the paladin Shane, whom we met in the first book. As with the previous installments in this series, I was more invested in the worldbuilding, the plot, and the secondary characters than in the romance between Marguerite and Shane, but those are a lot of things to like and I enjoyed the journey! I am hoping I will see Ashes Magnus and Lady Silver again at some point! Ashes is definitely a Life Goal as an older woman.

Warnings: dealing with recent pregnancy loss, past rape, stalking subplot that resolves safely. And the Crowd Went Wild by Susan Elizabeth Phillips is the newest from this well-established contemporary romance author, another in her “Chicago Stars” series. Dancy is an actress typecast as a shallow beauty, suffering from a high-profile divorce and a subsequent recent miscarriage, to which she’s responded by drinking a lot of alcohol. After a truly humiliating event goes viral, she seeks refuge with her first love, Clint, a professional football player seeking a mental reset in his isolated home. It’s been decades since their breakup and still-resentful Clint is not in the mood for helping her, but he allows her to stay in his guest house, a renovated train caboose, the most charming element of the story followed by the rescue dog who steals the show. Fans of Phillips will know this seemingly overdramatic opening is very typical of her heroines, who usually start the story at their lowest point and earn their happy ending after much hardship. Dancy makes some new female friends and discovers the depth of her own talents and strength along the way, while Clint learns when it’s necessary to seek help. This is a pretty classic example of her style, though I was pleased to also find some exploration of toxic masculinity and how it can harm both men and women.

The Wolf and the Girl by Aster Glenn Gray is a short work loosely based on Little Red Riding Hood and set in 1911 Russia and France; though I’m not hugely into fairy tale retellings for the most part, I do love historicals set in this period, and as an added bonus, silent film and Alice LeBlanc figured into the plot. Masha takes care of her beloved grandmother, who is dying, until a wolf arrives that is not a wolf but her former crush, Raisa, who received a scholarship to St. Petersburg and there fell in with anarchists whose terrifying leader, Tatiana, makes a deal with the devil for magic; and after Raisa has second thoughts, she is turned into a wolf. Masha and Raisa flee together and take up stage work, followed by a silent film, which leads Tatiana to them for a very satisfying confrontation. This would be a great introduction to Gray’s work!

Posted in contemporary, glbtqia+, reading, romance novels, sf/f, silent film | Tagged | Leave a comment

#TBRChallenge – “Vintage”: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Victoria Janssen

For this month’s “Vintage” theme, I went with a historical novel. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones is gory historical horror set in 1912 Montana that’s in conversation with Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. More importantly, it’s both narrative and meta-narrative about settler colonialism and the genocide Americans perpetrated against the indigenous inhabitants of the American West, viewed through a lens of revenge, survival, and atonement. Finally, it shows a long, difficult attempt at justice, requiring sacrifice and suffering along the way.

This review contains spoilers.

The novel begins with a frame story about a young faculty member, Etsy Beaucarne, trying to get tenure, which leads her to a document written by her many-times great-grandfather Arthur Beaucarne. Beaucarne’s hidden diary chronicles a long and bloody tale related to him by a mysterious indigenous man of the Pikuni (Blackfeet) once named Good Stab. Good Stab, in the course of a skirmish with Americans, had been killed and accidentally infected by a White person he calls Cat Man; after his resurrection, he can only feed on blood and can’t figure out how to die. Separated from the Pikuni by his new circumstances, Good Stab must kill to survive. At the same time, American settlers and soldiers are doing their best to murder the Pikuni and brutally exterminate the bison on whom their lives depend. Arthur is at first dubious of Good Stab’s claims, but writes them all down; the way in which he doubts the word of Good Stab seems normal to him, but to a modern reader is brutally racist and dismissive.

Good Stab’s story circles around and repeatedly returns to the January 1870 Marias Massacre, in which the U.S. Army massacred an entire village of innocent Pikuni; he relates the story in bits and pieces to Arthur, who is the German-speaking Lutheran pastor of a small town, which has been recently plagued with a series of murders, human bodies found skinned like bison for the “robes” on their large humps. It’s clearer to the reader than to Arthur that he was not chosen at random as an interlocutor, and that Good Stab is being both tricky and truthful, so there’s a dreadful inevitability throughout, heightening the intensity and horror of the plot’s climax.

I am rarely a reader of horror, but I would highly recommend this to those with an interest in the genre for its thematic complexity and for the emotional resonance that gives the deaths, both human and animal, throughout the story. Colonialists basically take/eat the colonized and everything they have, from their goods to their culture, so Good Stab’s vampiric eating of his enemies seems a perfect revenge…except he can’t stop there. He learns that in order to keep his Pikuni body, he must consume the blood of his own people, a slippery slope he constantly has to justify to himself, and which becomes less and less morally defensible even when his physical survival, and his survival as a Pikuni, is at stake. His entire story is a series of losses, and his increasingly awful attempts to revenge those losses that, in truth, can never be made whole again. Meanwhile, Arthur’s past terrible actions are made more cruel by how casually they were perpetrated. Arthur’s descendent Etsy, in using this narrative to try to gain academic tenure, is herself attempting to profit off the nasty fruits of colonialism, though being a woman in academia, she is fighting a similar insurmountable battle against patriarchy, and in the darkly hilarious ending section, strives to bring about justice.

As this is horror, there are a lot of warnings: the historical horrors of genocide and cultural extermination; body horror; human deaths, both adult and child, most of them gruesome; wasteful and cruel bison deaths; dog deaths. Historical references include the Marias Massacre, the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and the sinking of the Titanic.

For those not well-versed in American history, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz would be good preparation for this novel, or as a readalong.

Posted in historical fiction, reading | Tagged | Leave a comment