THE FIFTH SEASON by N.K. Jemisin - Book Review

Rating: 5/5 - So delicious that I read until my eyes went blurry!

Title: The Fifth Season

Author: N.K. Jemisin

Format:  paperback

Published: August 2015

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher:  Orbit

Landed in my hands: purchased it myself


Summary (from cover blurb and inside cover):

It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun.

It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter.

It starts with betrayal and long-dormant wounds rising up to fester.

This is the Stillness, a land familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

This is what you must remember: the ending of one story is just the beginning of another. This has happened before, after all. People die. Old orders pass. New societies are born. When we say “the world has ended,” it’s usually a lie, because the planet is just fine.

But this is the way the world ends.

This is the way the world ends.

This is the way the world ends.

For the last time.

Review:

You know when you read a book and you’re giddy with the thought of singing its praises and spreading word of your fabulous find to all your reader friends?

Enter N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season.

It wasn’t until July hit and I stumbled upon an upcoming releases list that I realized Jemisin even had a new book on the horizon. This would also be the moment where I discover that Jemisin hasn’t just rocketed up my favourite authors list, but she has also landed squarely in the category of “no need to hear the pitch, just blindly (deafly?) order the book.”

Yes, I jumped right in, and was well rewarded.

The Fifth Season solidifies what I’ve already learned about Jemisin’s storytelling prowess: there's intriguing concepts, solid and intricate worldbuilding, and she manages to freshen a genre that easily goes stale for me.

And this book—this series? please let it be more than a duology!—has sprung forth with all those elements that make me salivate:

- It begins with strong hooks in all three points of view.

- It has a diverse cast of complex characters with a spectrum of relationships between them, and not simply to check mark some “diversity in fiction” box, but (and this is where I get giddy) because it is integral to the plot, and lends realism to characters' motivations and reactions.

- It has such a depth to the worldbuilding that by the time I discover the appendices of terms, I don’t need them because the jargon has been so skillfully placed I’ve picked it up by context.

And the part of this book that puts me in the most awe of Jemisin’s talent—aside from the breathless run that was this unpredictable gem that will have me reading and rereading this series for years to come—is a well-wrought twist that made me put the book down and walk away for a moment in surprise because it so thoroughly blew my mind that I needed the time to reconcile the reveal. (Which she effectively sprung on me twice, by the way. And I can’t even go into detail without spoiling the entire book for any potential readers.)

So yes, I am eagerly anticipating the next installment of The Broken Earth series, and begging for it to be more than a duology. If Ms. Jemisin ever manages to find her way to JordanCon, well, I will most certainly be there to greet her in speechless, geeky adoration (in the least creepy way possible, naturally).


TL;DR: N.K. Jemisin tackles the Fantasy genre with an innovation that is intoxicating. If you like Fantasy, track down this book. You can thank me later.

THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS by N. K. Jemisin - Book Review

[Note: This review was originally published March 9, 2011, on PostWhatever.com.]


Rating: 5/5 - So delicious that I read until my eyes went blurry!

Title: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (book one of The Inheritance Trilogy)

Author: N. K. Jemisin

Format: mass market paperback

Published: 2010

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher:  Orbit Books

Landed in my hands: purchased myself

Summary (from opening page and cover blurb):

Gods and mortals, power and love, death and revenge. She will inherit them all.

Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle.

Review:

I have a confession. One of the reasons I’ve had such a fabulous luck with my reads lately is because I follow some book bloggers who have impeccable taste and opinions I can trust. While my own To Be Read pile is pretty steep, it’s nice to have someone to wade through prospective titles before they're added to the tower. Thus, it was through Rebecca’s review at Dirty Sexy Books that my attention was drawn to N. K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. And once again I owe her a big thank you! (Thanks, Rebecca!)

Godlings chained and a mortal unfamiliar with their complexities and dangers as the source of their hope? — It’s the stuff I drool over, and this book was delicious! I’m surprised I didn’t burp when I finished it, I devoured it so fast. It has so many of the qualities that draw me into the fantasy genre: living myths, intricate world-building, epic danger, and the added extra of an otherworld romance. All well done and combined to create an instant hook for me — this book will be on the keeper shelf!

Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for a well-drawn romance (I’ve somehow grown into a hopeless romantic, though I’m not entirely sure how that happened?). And I’m a big sucker for the entanglement the heroine, Yeine, finds herself in: a fierce and dangerous version of Belligerent Sexual Tension (warning: that link is to TV Tropes, and if you’re unfamiliar with this wiki, you might find yourself lost for hours... good luck!). My point being, I eat up those “I love to hate you” relationships that evolve into true romance. I don’t know why, I just do. And poor Yeine is grabbed by a primal lust that leads to a vicious and foreboding partner who is known for killing his lovers. Talk about tension!

In the future I'll probably be rereading this book to look deeper into the gender roles and the way they play out. There was an interesting matriarchal society known as barbarians — of course the source of our heroine. It was so subtly drawn that I didn’t realize there was a female-dominated society until they were speaking of war, when this passage leapt out at me, the leader speaking of amassing an army in preparation, and Yeine’s subsequent observations:

“We’ve resorted to asking for volunteers — any woman with a horse and her own weapons. Men as well, if they’re not yet fathers.” 

It was very bad if the council had resorted to recruiting men. By tradition men were our last line of defense, their physical strength bent toward the single and most important task of protecting our homes and children.

Perhaps it is this straightforward logic to the matriarchal leadership that allowed its existence to slip beneath my notice until this point (it’s just so logical!), or maybe it was the fact that I blew through the story in less than 24 hours. I dunno. It hardly felt like a screaming subversion of the male-dominated generality, and really didn’t feel like a clue by four statement at all (good!) — and this book has some wonderfully strong female characters, even some in absentia. I think it’s simply a testament to Jemisin’s writing that it all feels so natural.

Another (at times polarizing) subject of interest: sexuality. I really enjoyed that The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms contained a variety of pairings, and I took it as a statement about love being above the form you take. Being male, female, god, mortal, or something in between, there’s a place and a someone (or someones) for you. It’s refreshing, and I appreciate a story that exemplifies love as a true virtue, regardless of source. It doesn't scream moral message, and yet, it settles in the soul heavier than if it had been delivered thus... and that’s probably why it resonates so strongly with me.

Now me? Big anti-spoiler flag waver. Not a page flipper. Please don’t tell me how it ends before I get there. I like to savour my books, and with that in mind, I also don’t flip to the back to skim or read how things end. So I didn’t realize going into this story that there’s a glossary of terms hidden at the back. Nothing big, but four pages to help readers with the world-building terms. Having read the book without knowing of the glossary, I can adamantly say you won’t be lost without knowing of it beforehand, but it would have been nice to be aware of its presence, is all I’m sayin’. And that, my friends, is basically my only negative critique of this book, so take that as you will...

Jemisin’s next book in the trilogy, The Broken Kingdoms, is already out, and it’ll soon be parked proudly on my To Read Shelf. I’ve a few other books to read before I’ll get a chance to crack it, but it might just jump the line...