
HAIDA GWAII
by: STÉPHANE C. ROY
When cedar in his shed begins to map a face of its own, an expert carver with more reverence than certainty must reconcile craft, tradition, and a spreading forest intelligence before the waiting pod and the island itself force a reckoning.
- ENGLISH
- CANADA
Description:
James has spent thirty years carving cedar on Haida Gwaii. He knows every scent, every grain line, every hidden flaw a tree can carry. So when a piece of cedar begins to grow a pattern that shouldn’t exist, he notices.
At first it looks like a defect buried deep in the wood. Then he finds the same structure in the roots of an ancient cedar — the same geometry spreading through the forest floor. And offshore, the local orca community begins gathering in numbers no one can explain.
James has a ceremonial transformation mask to finish. A family is waiting. The deadline is real. But beneath the surface of the cedar, something is building. Something that may already know how to speak.
Set among the old-growth forests and coastal waters of Haida Gwaii, and within the Warriors of the Last Days universe, this is a short story about a carver who goes looking for a flaw and finds something else entirely.
Reader's Review:
The cedar grain dividing into an organized branching pattern with nodes that read "more like a circuit than a root," the inner face already forming a face before James cuts it ("the wood had a face before I touched it"), his decision to carve the ancestor face over the network's face rather than fight it, and the closing pivot from "this is what we protect" to "the cedar bore its own story", but the journal format wins on texture and loses on arc (five sections accumulate detail but the emotional turn is all in the last few lines), the Orca-counting is haunting but only loosely integrated into the plot, and the Light itself stays an abstraction that James observes but the scene never makes you feel.
Author Details:
STÉPHANE C. ROY
Stéphane Roy is a lifelong reader and writer with a deep love for science fiction, apocalyptic worlds, and tightly constructed mysteries. This is his first novel. He lives in the Yukon with his dog and his aquarium, where long winters, silence, and wide, sometimes glowing, skies leave plenty of room for imagining the end of the world, and what might come after it. He is also waiting, with cautious optimism, for the aliens to finally reveal themselves and straighten us all out.
More books by STÉPHANE C. ROY:

CURSED

PECHBLENDE

QUADRIPED

THE MOVIE

TORONTO SEWER MONSTER

MOLYBDENUM

THE OLD HAG

COLE’S TYPE

THE NEWLYWEDS

GOING POSTAL

COLE’S TRAIN

COLE’S CALL

THE HEARTBREAK

COLE’S WAY

WHITE RAVEN

THE STONE

DEFROCKED

SANDRINE

THE HONEYMOON

THE STEPMOTHER

THE MOTHER

THE KRAKEN

THE BUCCANEERS

THE ANCHOR

THE HOLY SEA

THE SIREN

POST-MARKED: MAIL ORDER BRIDES

POST-MORTEM

COLE’S TIME

COLE’S SHOULDER

COLE’S RUN

SHIELDS OF THE NORTH

VICTORIA, NEWFOUNDLAND

VICTORIA ISLAND

VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA

POST-DATED

THE DIVE

THE STORM

THE TARGET

THE DRAINING

THE RED HILLS

THE SHIELD

ALERT

NEON WINTER

THE LONG-TAILED BEAST

COLE’S GIRL

COLE’S POND

COLE’S FEAR

THE RIDE

PIE IN THE SKY

THE DATE

ANTIBIOTIC ITERATION

NIGHT OF THE LIVING TOES

THE WALLED CITY

THE TREK

DISCOLOURATION

THE NETWORK

OGOPOGO/N’HA-A-ITK

MOKSGM’OL

SOPHISM

THE ORPHAN

THE NURSE

THE BRIDGE

RED

THE HILL

THE FLESHING

THE DAM BUILDERS

VICTORIA-BY-THE-SEA

THE SPUD

THE FAMINE

THE QALUPALIK

THE KINGZ DAUGHTERS

TIRED

SAINTE-ANNE

THE SILENCE

THE BORE

ULRIC THE GREAT

CRITICAL WEATHER REPORT

THE SEWER

THE CARRIONS

JOB HUNTING

CORNY

THE APOTHECARY

SOPH

DEAD WATER

THE WHALE

TUCKER

SANDRINE’S CROSSING

IJIRAIT: TOO FAR NORTH

SUNLESS CITY

THE EXPECTED

FLIN FLON’S HOLE

TOWING THE LINE

THE SAHTUGOT

ADLIVUN

MEAT COVE

TRIOXIDE

COBB

NOMI

CLARENCE

THE STILLNESS

REGINA: QUEEN CITY

THE LEGACY

SPECIAL DELIVERY

RIBS – A TALE OF THE LAST DAYS

THE HUNGER

THE WOLF

THE VALLEY

BERNA

THE SECRET

THE COLONEL

ZONING WARS

THANKSGIVING APPERCEPTION

THE PEN PUSHERS

THE LULLABY

THE CARVER & THE STONE

HEADING WEST

RENÉE FROM THE SUMP

THE PENGUINS

THE SUB

OSMIUM

THE TOE

GLOOSCAP: THE AWAKENING

THE SHEPHERDESS

LIGHTS OUT

ANTITHESES

EASTERN LIGHTS

THE DAM

WATERLAND

THE MAILMAN

COLE’S LAW

THE WEDDING

THE DELIVERY

THE BUNKER

SHALLOW GRAVE

THE CHEMIST

THE MISSION

ENGORGED

FUNGI

OF MARSH AND MEN: CHIGNECTO SEA

A MARI USQUE AD MARE COMPILATION IV

THE LONG LIGHT

THE TRAIL

COLE’S WAR

DOMINION OF DAMNATION

POTATO WARS

THE LONG WALK: STEEL MIGRATION

ICE-GRITTERS

SLIMED

CORNERED

THE MALL

FOG-BLEEDERS

TALES OF THE LAST DAYS VOLUME I

THE FINAL QUARTET

A MARI USQUE AD MARE COMPILATION VI

A MARI USQUE AD MARE COMPILATION III

A MARI USQUE AD MARE COMPILATION II

A MARI USQUE AD MARE CYCLE I COMPILATION

LAST PROTOCOL

MILE ZERO

THE MAID

COLD STORAGE

THE FRONT

THE LAST ISLANDS

DEATH ROW

TETRALOGY BUNDLE

THE SPARK

DAY OF THE CHRYSALIDS

IRON SHEPHERDS

THE DRIFT

THE EXODUS






Stéphane Roy is a lifelong reader and writer with a deep love for science fiction, apocalyptic worlds, and tightly constructed mysteries. This is his first novel. He lives in the Yukon with his dog and his aquarium, where long winters, silence, and wide, sometimes glowing, skies leave plenty of room for imagining the end of the world, and what might come after it. He is also waiting, with cautious optimism, for the aliens to finally reveal themselves and straighten us all out.