This first line hits like a bat.

"Eleven months after her husband Arthur swerved around a stopped school bus and mowed down two first graders and got sentenced to twenty years, Millie Two Bears went to war against the prairie dogs."

There's so much going on with Millie. This story is character driven, which is Jones's strength. This one gets weird, even for Jones, but it never fails to entertain.

Creepy, but I expect no less from the author of My Heart is a Chainsaw. Jones's stories are more alive than any other current authors. And his style is so distinct. Jones never lets us get our feet underneath us. From the opening line to the prairie dogs to the ending, this is a great read.

The Backbone of the World is a wonderful little story. Ever-surprising, chilling, moving. Great stuff! Stephen Graham Jones does not disappoint!

I will be honest, I am extremely biased for reviewing this book since Stephen Graham Jones is my favorite author.
I enjoyed this - comparable to Jones's New Weird/sci-fi stories "To Jump Is To Fall" and "Wait For Night" but with the family trauma of "Growing Up Dead in Texas."
"The Backbone of the World" is mysterious and Lovecraftian, with a distinctly Blackfeet slant. I look forward to reading the other stories in the series - I wish they had been published together as a single volume collection, because this would have been something to handsell to customers.

Millie Two Bears is a Blackfeet woman who, through no fault of her own, has had her life thrown into turmoil. I cannot think of any other Lovecraft adjacent stories with a lead like this. Throw in the cosmic horror of Lovecraft embedded in the land of the Blackfeet and the story takes on greater cosmological possibilities and ramifications. Millie is not merely a pawn in the site if an angry God, but a human being trying to restore a sense of balance to her world.
Read it in one sitting. Highly recommend.

A short, brilliant little book that pulls you in and doesn't let you go. If you think you know how this one will end, trust me - you don't. Strong recommend for anyone who likes a little weird in their fiction.

This review is of the audiobook. Charlotte Flyte did a great job of bringing Millie Two Bears to life. This war on prairie dogs goes all the directions you would expect a Stephen Graham Jones story to go, and a couple of extra. One of things I love about his characters is the interweaving of old tales and magic, the casual acceptance of the supernatural elements in life they convey. Millie is no different. What might send an average person screaming into the night she meets with stoic consideration.

There are also some good old horror tropes twisted into new knots, and some adventures, apparently, with ducks and berries. One of my favorite books this year, though (I think) more of a novelette.

Unsettling in tiny ways and as you read the story those tiny bits build and you’re not ready for the realization of what they add up to.

4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 for NetGalley and Goodreads.  Millie Two Bears has a husband in prison, is facing eviction, and is fighting a losing battle against prairie dogs invading her property.  Enter a young woman named Frog and things really start to get strange!  I would categorize this as a blend of  contemporary fantasy and horror, and is easily one of my favorite short stories by SGJ to date.

Stephen Graham Jones is an unparalleled voice in fiction. A recommended purchase for all fiction collections in whatever formats Amazon makes available for libraries.

Really enjoyable novella with indigenous horror elements. I loved Millie and her world. Actually, I've loved everything I've read by SGJ so far and this is no exception.

Nearly every SGJ story I read makes me look at a different animal group with a new, yet wary, respect. I'll never think about the cute little prairie dogs the same.

I really wanted more of this. Don't get me wrong, it ends weird and great, but I still want more!

I love Frog! I want to see her again somewhere, somehow!

Read this free on NetGalley.

This short story was a rollercoaster. It is amazing how much depth, exhilaration, and existential terror, Stephen Graham Jones is able to convey in a short story that clocks in just under 55 pages. The plot appears to be simple enough: A woman, carrying the weight of a recent tragedy involving her husband goes to war with the Prairie Dogs wreaking havoc on their property.
Not only does the story weave a complex and engrossing tale of loss, and regret, but it also gets downright Lovecraftian. Without giving too much away, I will simply leave it at the fact that this is one of the most delightful surprises I’ve ever read. 5/5

How does the world end? With a whimper? A bang? Or, with a prairie dog? A lot of prairie dogs, ALL the prairie dogs?

Who knows where this all'll go, and how it will along the way. These questions and more, yeah, they're tying brain knots in Millie Two Bears, tangling her heartstrings.

Millie Two Bears, she's having a time and a half.

Seems every entity, known and un-, is haunting her. Her imprisoned husband, the two first graders he mowed down, a questionable lodger, and, yes, very much yes, the prairie dogs. Just a handful or two of prairie dogs. Right? Surely. Must be.

What begins as merely taking care of the land will guide Millie to a place, a heart, a mind, a home she'll never want to leave.

Jones shows us the backbone of the world, takes us there, drops us off and goes, "here you go, best of luck," but on his way out, just as he's about to disappear, he nods ever so slightly to the way out, through.

Millie Two Bears is at war. Her enemies are the consequences of a horrible and deadly mistake made by her husband, Arthur, and a colony of prairie dogs. It will take all her wits and a little luck if she’s to prevail.

Millie and Arthur lived together on Arthur’s family’s land until Arthur killed two children in a traffic accident and was jailed. Now alone, Millie knows she’ll be displaced from their trailer soon and the last thing she wants is for her Arthur’s already sullied reputation to be made worse by the impression that he didn’t take care of the property which has suddenly been encroached upon by a colony of prairie dogs.

As she seeks advice from a game and fish officer, off the record, of course, she gains a boarder. An unusual young woman called Frog comes to stay in the small trailer she and Arthur shared before obtaining the larger trailer.

To Frog’s apparent amusement, Millie’s best efforts at ridding herself of the prairie dog colony are unsuccessful. The prairie dogs also get the better of their natural predators, hawks and a ferret. In the midst of all this Millie sees Frog putting an odd dish antenna on the little trailer, and it becomes clear that Frog isn’t who she said she was.

Then things really get weird. Who is Frog? Who is Frog communicating with? Why won’t poison and hawks and a ferret and gunfire thwart these pesky rodents?

You’ll have to read this unpredictable little story yourself to find out. I will warn you that this close to the backbone of the world, anything, terrible and wonderful, is possible.

Wow. Just wow. This story took a totally unexpected turn, yet it was all foreshadowed very neatly.
It has blood, guts—and heart. Another masterpiece by SGJ.
I highly recommend it.