I was reading reviews on Goodreads of The Marrow Thieves. I read a 1 star review where the reviewer complained that it was bad because it broke post-apocayltipc/dystopia conventions: there is some kind of mystical element to it. This reminded me that no one says The Stand--

*isn't* a post-apocalypse narrative even though the literal Devil and forces of God seem to be fighting for a thousand pages and there's a big spiritual/magic quest.

The difference is The Marrow Thieves is an Indigenous novel. I mean, there's more differences than that since it's a YA narrative, but The Stand is literally one of the big narratives of this type and it's loved. We seem to accept some stuff from white creators,not from others.

I know part of this is also that SFF readers can be bizarrely terrified of the peas touching the mash potatoes (don't let the sci Fi near the fantasy, Etc), but I also think there's something about viewing innovations by POC writers not as achievements but as drawbacks.

Part of what works in favor of The Marrow Thieves is, after all, that rather than playing like The Handmaid's Tale, it tells its story differently. Throwing away its 'unexplained' parts and filling it with Hard Science as this reviewer wanted might have erased its charm.