OPERATION REBOOT

Time travelers help Indigenous Americans fight European invaders using advanced tech, martial arts, and feminism in Hallenbeck’s sci-fi adventure.

Facing ecological catastrophe and extinction, people in the year 2101 send a cube-shaped time machine back to upstate New York in 1607 to redirect humanity toward a sustainable future. Calling themselves the Visitors, the crew includes commander Julius, anthropologist Margaret, physician Watson, and an acerbic AI called Minerva. (“Relax, Julius, everything is fine. Enjoy the moment, for Christ’s sake.”) The Visitors greet the Kanienkehaka tribe with an apocalyptic warning: The encroaching European civilization constitutes a Great Evil that will destroy them and, eventually, the whole world. The Visitors teach the Kanienkehaka about contemporary European technology and spread a nonlethal smallpox strain to inoculate the people against deadly European variants. They groom tribal leaders like Little Feather, a young shaman gifted with prophetic visions from the crow spirit, to whom they give a computer tablet containing all of their knowledge. (What really wows the Kanienkehaka is the Visitors’ female security officer, Tomoe.) Under the Visitors’ tutelage, the Kanienkehaka defeat attacking tribes and enjoy bumper harvests and booming trade. Little Feather duly proposes a Purple Feather League of all the Native American tribes against the European threat—but then wonders if this body will reject the invaders’ ethos of greed and environmental despoliation or simply reenact it. Hallenbeck’s yarn takes a vivid, intricate look at technological progress in a primitive society where iron pots seem miraculous. His writing is vigorous and evocative in punchy action scenes, but there’s also a lyrical wisdom in his prose when the Indigenous characters ponder the changes engulfing them. (“New life is always bound to death,” reflects Little Feather’s grandfather, Medicine Bowl. “He looked upon the festivities as a father might a newborn child, wrinkled, slick, and streaked with blood. The baby cries. Still, parents rejoice.”) The result is a fascinating culture clash with philosophical bite.

An engrossing saga of New World first contact from the Indigenous perspective, richly detailed and thoughtful.