I loved Redwood and Wildfire when I found it in the New Books section of the library a few years ago, so I was excited to have the opportunity to read a new book set in that world, Archangels of Funk, which was published on May 7. This is a fantastic near-future book that combines magic and hopepunk with vibrant, joyful optimism, where a diverse community works together to survive and thrive as an independent cooperative amid an increasingly corpocratic world.
Redwood and Wildfire was set in the American South of the 1890s, with magic, and told how Black teen Redwood Phipps and her eventual love, Aidan Wildfire Cooper, moved through time and became part of the early days of the film industry. Somehow I had missed the middle book in the series, Will Do Magic for Small Change, about their granddaughter, Cinnamon Jones, but I’m happy to say that I didn’t have any problem moving from the first book to the third; I’m sure to have missed some nuances and callbacks, but I didn’t experience any puzzlement or feel that there were any missing pieces. In fact, I’d say that a new reader could probably start with this book (although Redwood and Wildfire, at least, is great and worth finding); there are certainly references to the characters and events of Redwood and Wildfire, but they are explained well enough that there isn’t any significant missing context.
Archangels of Funk is told (in third person past tense) following several points of view, including a Border Collie, another dog who’s a cyberghost, some Circus-Bots, and a friend, but the main protagonist is Cinnamon Jones. She’s a tech wizard who’s a leader in her community of farmers and Water Wars refugees but who tries to avoid being noticed by the wider world. An older woman, she’s had her share of past glories and heartbreaks. Her focus now is on helping others while honoring her ancestors and the spirits of her heritage; she doesn’t think she can change the world, but she fights to keep her corner of it viable and unique.
There is a LOT going on in this book. It starts two days before the community’s annual Next World Festival, which Cinnamon runs, as she searches for one of her missing Circus-Bots. These are theatrical junk-sculptures that she had built and animated with computer code and hidden hoodoo. She finds a Circus-Bot sheltering a little girl who’d fled from child-snatchers. The Festival is an ongoing tight-time focus throughout most of the book, but there are also echoes from Cinnamon’s past that come to confront her, including former lovers and betrayers, and people who try to lure her to sell her secrets and sell out. Other subplots include various theft/con attempts, a couple of security guards who are basically just trying to get by at the start, but whom Cinnamon and the community try to influence to actually do good and be good people, an ancestral spirit who helps Cinnamon and the community but who is fading, and several budding or recurring romances.
Redwood and Wildfire is bright and dark and jangly and eventually soothing. It’s a hard world, but when has it not been? It can be overwhelming, but Hairston passionately demonstrates in her writing that community ties of love and hope, and occasionally offering second chances to people, can make hearts soar. There are oppressive systems and a lot of exploitative individuals, but it is very much worth continuing to fight for a better world in small ways that add up to big things. I adore this book and the people in it. This is one of my favorite books so far this year. Please give it a try.
Content Warnings: Deaths, threats, betrayals
Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of this ebook from the publisher.
