Oracles — Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel

In this futuristic novel, the natural wilderness is disappearing due to human incursion and urbanization. Small pockets of nature remain and are used for tourist visits and historical interpretations. Television broadcasts pictures, sounds, and smells, and space travel is commonplace.

The Yantuck Indians must find a way to preserve the natural environment that survives on their eastern United States reservation and yet participate in a global economy. This dilemma creates factions within the tribe: the Yantucks who believe in a more traditional way of life and those who seek to enhance tribal finances by marketing and selling "Indian-ness," first through a casino and then a new age movement.

Ashneon Quay, a young medicine woman-in-training, is herself caught between two worlds. Growing up with elderly family members, both medicine people, she attends a local college where she studies anthropology. Quay struggles to find a balance between the traditional and the new and identify a path that's right for her.

Vividly rendered with strong characters and a dose of magical realism, this innovative glimpse of one Indian family trying to maintain tribal culture in the midst of rapid transformation resonates with issues Native peoples currently face.