The Obelisk Gate

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This book won the Hugo award for best novel. If it deserved the win then the competition was pretty feeble. By approximately page 10, I was ready to award it one star but as it progressed things improved - at least a bit.

The best thing about this book is the world building. That is masterful. The story takes place at least 20,000 years from now on an Earth that is seismically unstable. Periodically eruptions of some sort or other create great dust storms that black out the sun and create winters that last for hundreds of years. Humans have somehow adapted to this and survived although their long-term survival is questionable. Some people are normal, some have magical talents that enable them to control some of the seismic activity, and some are barely human. Little is known about the latter but they can move through earth and stone like someone swimming through water - except faster. Those who have magic are hated and feared - with some reason because they cannot always control their magic and when they don't the people around them die. That's the good part.

This is the second book in a series and I haven't read number one so it was a little confusing. Fortunately the author included an appendix so that most of the terms are explained. I've seem some criticisms claiming that the work suffers from 'second book syndrome'. Frankly I don't believe that this exists. A book is either worth reading or it isn't. Just because certain character and plot elements are laid out in the first book has no bearing on how the second should or should not appear. I suspect that 'second book syndrome' is what you get when a reader who has read book number one fails to have his or her expectations met and is unrelated to the merits of the story at hand.

There were a number of things I disliked. The author uses mostly second person present tense to tell the story and it doesn't work. It comes across as stilted and pretentious. In addition, the pacing is painfully slow at times. It does improve as the book progresses but long about page fifty the reader needs to continue reading more from stubbornness than from interest.

All the characters are damaged. I realize that is the fad these days among 'artistic' works and is probably how this book managed to win the Hugo but one is tempted to pat the protagonists on the head and give them a lollipop.

If you wish to see world building at its best then I can recommend this book but that's all it is - a technical exercise - masterfully performed. If, on the other hand, you're looking for an entertaining story then is book is probably not for you.



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