The Marrow Thieves series is set in a near-future dystopia that has been ravaged by climate change. In the first novel of the series, which bears the same name, water sources have been poisoned by toxins and have dried up due to shifting weather patterns. Resources have become scarce, leading to a breakdown of law and order. A series of plagues has killed millions of people; the worst of the plagues causes people to lose their ability to dream. The loss of this ability profoundly alters survivors, who must grapple with the inexorable effects of physical and mental decay. Because Native peoples do not develop this symptom, a belief spreads that their marrow can heal the sick. The Canadian government reopens its shut-down residential schools and uses them as facilities to harvest the marrow of Native people. Bureaucrats designated as Agents and Recruiters capture Native people by force and bring them to the facilities. Native families are broken apart, and people are forced to hide in the woods to evade the Recruiters. In Hunting by Stars, it is revealed that the marrow extraction process often costs patients their lives, as bone marrow is essential for the body to heal.