Take Us to Your Chief and Other Stories: Classic Science-Fiction with a Contemporary First Nations Outlook (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781771621311)

A forgotten Haudenosaunee social song beams into the cosmos like a homing beacon for interstellar visitors. A computer learns to feel sadness and grief from the history of atrocities committed against First Nations. A young Native man discovers the secret to time travel in ancient petroglyphs. Drawing inspiration from science fiction legends like Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury, Drew Hayden Taylor frames classic science-fiction tropes in an Aboriginal perspective.

The nine stories in this collection span all traditional topics of science fiction--from peaceful aliens to hostile invaders; from space travel to time travel; from government conspiracies to connections across generations. Yet Taylor's First Nations perspective draws fresh parallels, likening the cultural implications of alien contact to those of the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, or highlighting the impossibility of remaining a "good Native" in such an unnatural situation as a space mission.

Infused with Native stories and variously mysterious, magical and humorous, Take Us to Your Chief is the perfect mesh of nostalgically 1950s-esque science fiction with modern First Nations discourse.

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor
ISBN-10: 1771621311
ISBN-13: 9781771621311
Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre
Language: English
Published: 04/11/2017
Pages: 160
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.40d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 01/16/2017
School Library Journal 03/01/2017 pg. 132
Library Journal 04/15/2017 pg. 66