Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow and Moon of the Turning Leaves

Thanks so much to Julie for ordering Moon of the Crusted Snow when I requested it earlier this year. I’d been curious about it since first hearing about it, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I usually review horror for October to tie in with Halloween, and though the book isn’t overly horror, it is very eerie.

Author Waubgeshig Rice is an Anishinaabe writer from Canada, and these books are set among the members of an Anishinaabe reserve in his native Ontario. The rich cultural background is a big part of what I found fascinating about these novels–Rice seamlessly weaves the language, religion, and folkways in–but they’re also thoughtful, compelling dystopian fiction.

Rice bills these novels as part of Moon series, though he didn’t initially set out to write a series. The Moon of the Crusted Snow, the first book, published in 2019, focuses on a small reserve in remote Northern Ontario when the world suddenly shuts down from a massive, unexplained power outage. Initially, life is just inconvenient for the residents, including Evan Whitesky, a young family man who also works for the reserve. However, as days turn into weeks and fragmented disturbing news trickles in from the south, a creeping realization that something is very wrong starts to sink in. Rice does a masterful job of showing how the tension and uncertainty starts to erode relationships and the sense of community and gradually amplifying the suspense and horror.

Though Rice had not planned to write a sequel, he had so many readers ask for a followup that he more recently penned Moon of the Turning Leaves, which picks up with the same group some twelve years later. I don’t want to spoil too much about either book, but it is an interesting and unique read in its own right as well as a great sequel.

Recommended for those who enjoy the work of Emily St. John Mandel, Peter Heller, Stephen Graham Jones, and Louise Erdrich.

*Moon of the Crusted Snow also available as an audiobook and ebook on Libby.

Have you read these books? What’s your favorite dystopian series? What are you reading now for Halloween? Tell us in the comments! As always, please follow this link to our online library catalog for more information on any of our items or to place them on hold.