Alternatively Titled: Reading Kill Columbus Over Thanksgiving Weekend
Happy Native American Heritage Day! I didn’t intentionally go into Thanksgiving weekend trying to read a book by an indigenous author; I wish I could say I had. Stephen Graham Jones’ Earthdivers, Vol. 1, had been screaming at me for a while now, and I just wanted to finally read it. It wasn’t until we hit the highway toward our family Thanksgiving dinner that I remembered Earthdivers, Vol. 1 is an indigenous time-travel story about killing Columbus. “Well, that should be relevant,” my husband appropriately surmised.
If you want to add thought-provoking conversation to your Thanksgiving dinner, read a book discussing the crimes of white people and colonialism in America. Better yet, just read Earthdivers.
Synopsis:
The year is 2112, and it’s the apocalypse exactly as expected: rivers receding, oceans rising, civilization crumbling. Humanity has given up hope, except for a group of Indigenous outcasts who have discovered a time travel portal in a cave in the desert and figured out where everything took a turn for the worst: America.
Convinced that the only way to save the world is to rewrite its past, they send one of their own—a reluctant linguist named Tad—on a bloody, one-way mission to 1492 to kill Christopher Columbus before he reaches the so-called New World. But there are steep costs to disrupting the timeline, and taking down an icon isn’t an easy task for an academic with no tactical training and only a wavering moral compass to guide him. As the horror of the task ahead unfolds and Tad’s commitment is tested, his actions could trigger a devastating new fate for his friends and the future.
Join Stephen Graham Jones and artist Davide Gianfelice for Earthdivers, Vol. 1 (collecting Earthdivers issues #1-6), the beginning of an unforgettable ongoing sci-fi slasher spanning centuries of America’s Colonial past to explore the staggering forces of history and the individual choices we make to survive it.
Review: I recently read this author’s Night of the Mannequins and fell for his clever brand of slasher horror. When I saw he had a comic series, I knew I needed it. Earthdivers is a raw and brutal takedown of colonialism, but it’s also a sci-fi adventure with more than its fair share of love and community. It’s powerful, with characters who latch on and refuse to let go. Tad and his friends are unforgettable, and their desperation feels authentic. You want their half-baked plan to work. You want them to kill Columbus.
Art: The illustrations and coloring in this volume are excellent and perfectly match Graham Jones’s writing. At a certain point in the story, the plot turns particularly dark. When this happens, the artwork keeps step throughout, matching those dark tones. My favorite part of the art, though? The lettering. The simple hand-scratched notes above specific objects made it feel like I was reading an adventure journal.
Final Thoughts: Kill Columbus is a solid first entry in the Earthdivers series. I’ll have a review of Vol. 2 coming in the upcoming few weeks, so stay tuned. As a whole, Earthdivers is full of grit, heart, and well-deserved indigenous rage. Since Emily is the best character of the bunch, I am beyond excited for Earthdivers #11, which features her and is set in 1776. All in good time.
Rating: A giant 5/5 stars for this first volume.
All art belongs to IDW.
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