City at My Feet
Mannahatta Series Book 1
A would-be warrior travels through an interdimensional portal to rescue her sister in the gripping science fiction novel City at My Feet.
In Thomas More’s science fiction novel City at My Feet, a headstrong aspiring warrior pursues her abducted sister through a multidimensional portal.
In an alternate version of the United States in which Indigenous tribes have more autonomy, Sakima lives on the island of Mannahatta, where the Lenape tribe has thrived for centuries. The Lenape prioritize harmony with their land. They also benefit from the advanced technology gifted to them by a crashed interstellar ship, including mechanical beasts with biochemical functions and bows and arrows whose flight can be controlled for the delivery of microbombs.
Sakima, who grew up with this wondrous technology but was held back due to her gender, grew up idolizing her brother and the other warriors of the tribe and eschewing the roles of domestic servitude left to women. When, against her tribe’s wishes, she embarks on a vision quest to commune with her ancestors and the aliens, she stumbles across Machto, her vile brother-in-law, breaking into the community’s science center. Sakima then watches as a monster out of the tribe’s mythology destroys the center and disappears into a portal with Machto and Tangetta, Sakima’s sister, in tow. Sakima follows in order to rescue her sister and arrives in contemporary New York City, a place less advanced than Mannahatta. There, she is driven to honor her tribe, her family, and her ancestors. She befriends teenagers in New York City, too, helping to bridge the two realms.
In Mannahatta, people’s speech patterns are peppered with colloquialisms like “What’s up?” despite there having been no previous contact with the connected timelines. Further, Lenape expressions are often followed up with direct English translations despite all those present being fluent in Lenape, as with “‘Maluwe!’ she said in her native tongue. ‘Damn it!’” Such anachronistic moments impede true immersion in Sakima’s world. The translations are more natural after Sakima and her crew travel through the portal into a land where no one else speaks Lenape, though.
Sakima’s race to rescue her sister and save New York from a mythological beast is exciting, and it ends in an emotional manner that helps solidify her connection to her tribe. Beyond the resolution of the immediate threat, the groundwork is laid for future books in the series.
City at My Feet is an intricate science fiction novel in which a tribe strives to keep all worlds safe from unimaginable monstrosities.
Reviewed by
John M. Murray
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