The list

 When I tell people that I am doing my dissertation on Indigenous science fiction, they are delighted by the concept of Indigenous science fiction and then they ask for the list of stories. So, here is the list of books. I also included three films - Slash/Back, Night Raiders, and Blood Quantum.  

• 1994 The black ship by Gerry Williams – novel 

• 2012 Walking the clouds: An anthology of Indigenous science fiction edited by Grace Dillon – short fiction anthology 

• 2014 Lightfinder by Aaron Paquette – novel 

• 2014 The back of the turtle by Thomas King – novel 

• 2016 Take us to your chief: And other stories by Drew Hayden Taylor – short fiction collection 

• 2016 Mitewacimowina: Indigenous science fiction and speculative storytelling edited by Neal McLeod – short fiction anthology 

• 2016 Love beyond body, space, and time: an Indigenous LGBTQ sci-fi anthology edited by Hope Nicholson – short fiction anthology 

• 2017 The marrow thieves by Cherie Dimaline – novel 

• 2017 This accident of being lost: Songs and stories by Leanne Betasamoke Simpson – short fiction collection plus song lyrics

• 2017 Read, listen, tell: Indigenous stories from Turtle Island edited by Sophie McCall, Deanna Reder, David Gaertner, and Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill – short fiction anthology 

• 2017 Future home of the living god by Louise Edrich – novel

• 2017 Mapping the interior by Stephen Graham Jones – novel

• 2018 Split tooth by Tanya Tagaq – novel 

• 2018 Trail of lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse – novel 

• 2018 Moon of the crusted snow by Waubgeshig Rice – novel 

• 2018 Guardian angels and other monsters by Daniel H. Wilson – short fiction collection 

• 2019 Taaqtumi: An anthology of Artic horror stories compiled by Neil Christopher – short fiction anthology 

• 2019 Empire of wild by Cherie Dimaline – novel 

• 2020 Land-water-sky/Nde-ti-yat’a by Katłıà – novel 

• 2020 Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger – novel 

• 2020 Love after the end: An anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer speculative fiction edited by Joshua Whitehead – short fiction anthology 

• 2021 Firekeeper’s daughter by Angeline Boulley – novel

• 2021 Snake falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger – novel 

• 2021 Bugz: Walking in two worlds by Wab Kinew – novel  

• 2021 The barren grounds: The Misewa saga by David Alexander Robertson – novel 

• 2022 Buffalo is the new buffalo by Chelsea Vowel – short fiction collection 

• 2022 Wapke: Indigenous science fiction stories edited by Michel Jean – short fiction anthology

Indigenous fiction enthusiasts will notice some absences here. David Alexander Robertson is a prolific writer, and one could probably write a dissertation on his work alone. Rather than including all of his books, I only included one. The sequel to Marrow Thieves came out while I was writing this work, and I tried to read it, but the interpersonal conflict between family members was too vivid, so I could not complete it. Likewise, Never Whistle at Night put me in a dark place every time I picked it up, and I could not complete it. Once I hit a certain threshold of solidity in my inquiry, I implemented a "no new friends" policy, where I stopped reading new fiction. Moon of the Turning Leaves was published shortly after I hit that mark and so I have not read it yet. I bought it right away, and it sits on my table waiting. Some people buy champagne in advance of an anticipated celebration. I don't drink alcohol, so I don't have a bottle of champagne waiting. Instead, Moon of the Turning Leaves will be the way that I celebrate submitting my final version of my dissertation. Some may wonder why I didn't include Eden Robinson's Trickster series of books and/or the subsequent TV show. My original conceptualization was to focus on science fiction, and I place Trickster more in the realm of supernatural fiction. I acknowledge that given that some may view spiritual knowledge as a technology in and of itself (McLeod, 2016), perhaps the distinction between science and supernatural is and arbitrary distinction which reflects a colonial mindset. But in the context of a dissertation, I had to have some criteria in place to make the inquiry manageable in scope, else I would never finish. 

I plan on posting about some of these in the future. I'm sort of recalibrating my brain around reviews of creative works. Someone who writes creative works told me that they think that the act of writing reviews is inherently colonial, and as a creative writer, they experience reviews as a form of harm. I don't want to harm anyone. I love Indigenous literature, and I'd never want to perpetuate colonial violence on other Indigenous people, especially if there is a risk that it might harm their ability to write creatively. I never blog negative reviews on fiction, poetry, plays, or films. If I don't like something, I actually do spend a lot of time trying to figure out why I didn't like it, and I spend a lot of time reflecting on it and processing it. Sometimes that process of reflecting does actually bring me around to a place where I am like "okay, actually, I see now why I had a strong reaction, and having processed that strong reaction, now I do like this work because it is provocative." But if I never arrive at a place where I come around to liking the work, then I just don't post about it. 

Part of the reason why I blog is to encourage others to read books by Indigenous people. I hope that people read my blog, and think to themselves "I'd love to check out that book" and then go buy the book. Then the publisher and author make money, and hopefully this causes the author feels encouraged and supported to write more. And so in a small way, I hope that my contribution to the eco-system of books is overall positive. Additionally, historically I have had a high readership of teachers because K-12 is my jam. Over the years, teachers have told me that my blog helped them discover more Indigenous texts for teaching. If, over the years, my blog has helped to increase the volume of Indigenous texts that all students encounter in K-12, then I hope that that has an anti-racism function, and if it is even only a tiny a drop in the bucket of the larger effort of reducing racism, then I think it's a worthwhile use of my life energy. Do these benefits outweigh the coloniality of reviews? If someone says "please don't review my work" then I won't review their work. I don't know, though, how broad that sentiment is among Indigenous creative writers, so I am definitely experiencing a paralysis of sorts with respect to writing about creative works. 

Theoretically, I could just post entirely positive content. That's basically marketing. And promotion of the concept of Indigenous literature is generally part of what I am doing with this blog. There are modes of inquiry, such as appreciative inquiry, which focus primarily on the positive. And this blog is my happy place, where I talk about things that make me happy. There are two major pitfalls with only posting entirely positive content, though. 

The first pitfall is that only focusing on the positive will kill the spirit of the blog. If I am writing about a book here, that means it did something to me. Likely, it challenged me in some way, or made me think about something in a different way. I write here to digest what I read and ask questions. That's what makes writing interesting for me, and I suspect that's part of what makes my writing interesting for others to read. If this becomes a space which is limited to only writing promotional materials, then it will become boring. I will become bored writing it, and maybe people will stop reading it. And then it will become lifeless. 

The second pitfall is that it will undermine the credibility of the reviews. Instead of the blog being a real person having real reactions, it will be like an advertisement. Often, the difference between a real review and a promotion is that a real review is not always entirely positive content.  This is not an unboxing channel and I'm not a paid influencer. So, I think that when I say "as a thoughtful reader, overall I liked this but I didn't agree with everything in it" - that carries more credibility as a positive review than saying "I loved every single page and you will too." If my reviews are not authentic, and become solely promotion, then readers may question whether or not the reviews are even real. And they would be justified for doing so. 

I think that all of this is much easier to grapple with when it comes to non-fiction. In non-fiction, usually someone is saying "here are some facts, based on these facts, I am trying to persuade you the reader to do X." And then I, the reader, unpack whether or not I have been convinced by the author to live my life differently based on their argument. So, it's a conversation. By virtue of writing a book with an argument, there is an implied invitation to converse with the ideas. Do creative works contain the same invitation?