Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.
This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is Hole in the Sky by Daniel H. Wilson!
Genres: Adult, Sci Fi
Representation: Native American cast
Published on: 7th October 2025
Goodreads
A gripping sci-fi thriller—and Native American First Contact story—from the New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse, Daniel Wilson, who is a Cherokee Nation citizen and works as a threat forecaster for NASA.
Heliopause is a real place—the very outer edge of our solar system where the sun's solar winds are no longer strong enough to keep debris and intrusions from bombarding our system. It is the farthest edge of our protected boundary (it was recently crossed by Voyager), and the line beyond which space experts look for extraterrestrial presences. This is where Daniel Wilson's fascinating novel begins. Weaving together the story of Jim, a down-on-his-luck absentee father in the Osage territory of Oklahoma, and his daughter, Tawny, with those of a NASA engineer, a misfit anonymous genius who lives in military isolation analyzing a secret incoming "Pattern," and a CIA investigator tasked with tracking unexplained encounters, Hole in the Sky explores a Native American first contact that pulls all five characters into something never before seen or imagined.
First Contact always has the potential to be fascinating, but a Native American perspective isn’t one I’ve seen before!
I’m immensely curious about what exactly a Native American – presumably Cherokee? – perspective changes about the idea of First Contact. Does it make it even more terrifying, given how First Contact went so horrifically for indigenous peoples before? Or would people guided by Cherokee philosophy approach talking to aliens in a very different way than, say, Washington? (Maybe being less adversarial about it?) I’m vaguely aware that some of the Ancient Alien conspiracy theorists tie some Native American myths to aliens, but that probably isn’t where Wilson would take a story…?
I don’t know! But I’m looking forward to finding out come October!
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