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The Fifth Season

(The Broken Earth #1)

N.K. Jemisin (Goodreads Author)

4.28 · Rating details · 163,017 ratings · 18,260 reviews

Original cover edition here

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS. AGAIN.

Three terrible things happen in a single day.

Essun, masquerading as an ordinary schoolteacher in a quiet small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Mighty Sanze, the empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand ...more

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Paperback, 471 pages

Published August 4th 2015 by Orbit

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Mar 16, 2014 Cezara rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Yes, 5 full stars for this one because it's everything I want in a fantasy book. I will explain.

I don't read fantasy and sci-fi because I like magic or space ships or laser swords or what have you. I read fantasy and sci-fi because I want to see something new, and there's no other genre that allows this much freedom of imagination, this much flexibility and bending of reality and this much room for "what ifs". The genres are ripe with tropes and cliches even so, and I'm at that point where it pa Yes, 5 full stars for this one because it's everything I want in a fantasy book. I will explain.

I don't read fantasy and sci-fi because I like magic or space ships or laser swords or what have you. I read fantasy and sci-fi because I want to see something new, and there's no other genre that allows this much freedom of imagination, this much flexibility and bending of reality and this much room for "what ifs". The genres are ripe with tropes and cliches even so, and I'm at that point where it pains me to have to read again through a story about the noble hearted what's-his-face who saves the land of medieval-Europe-plus-elves-and-dragons with the help of the wise mentor and the pretty princess. Show me something else, something truly weird, I say! And N. K. Jemisin delivered.

Let there be a world wracked by earthquakes and volcano eruptions, she says, restless and hostile. Let there be apocalypse-level events every hundred years or so. Let this world be inhabited by people who believe the Earth hates them, who value survival above all else, and have organized their society around making sure some of them will make it through the years of darkness, and famine, and poisonous air and water that follow such geologic disasters. Let there be among them those who have the power to control the earthquakes, to start and stop them at will, and let that society hate them, while doing their best to exploit them at the same time. Let there be another sentient species, strange creatures of stone whose motivations are unknown, who share this world with humans.

Then come the the details. The mysterious ruins of the many civilizations that came before this one, some considerably more advanced. Their artifacts endure to this day, their purpose unknown and maybe unknowable now that their makers have been dead for thousands of years. The harshness and ruthlessness of a society living on the brink of extinction, where value is based on usefulness and where, come Seasonal Law, those deemed useless are left to die in the wastelands. The purely utilitarian approach to building in a world where a balcony is unquestionable proof of foolishness or privilege, where decorations are a waste of time and resources since they'll be wiped out in a few years without fail. The surprisingly advanced science, focused - unsurprisingly - on geology, chemistry and physics. The hatred and exploitation of the orogenes, those who have power over the earth itself, by a society that both fears them and desperately needs them if it is to survive. The secrets and the lies and the rewriting of history and the suppression of lore by those who want to keep the orogenes willing slaves. The horrifying abuse, and the inescapable brainwashing, but the training and education too. A system meant to make them more powerful and more powerless at the same time so that it may better make use of them.

And then Jemisin pushes further. She goes so far out of the medieval Europe setting that she ends up on the Equator. She makes the other sentient race truly alien, as a different sentience should be, lest you end up with just stranger looking humans. She makes the humans different races, and *gasp* doesn't put the paler one in charge. Just as the characters span the gradients and combinations of human races, they span human sexuality too, from straight to gay with blurry boundaries all over the place. There's love and family and sex, but they're not the kind of relationships you're used to. Why should they be? This is not our world with some magic, mythical creatures, and sword fighting mixed in. This is something else. Something new.

And yet, as you read, you get the feeling that this could be our world with some magic and some mythical creatures mixed in. You get the feeling that it was this sort of world at some point, and then something maybe went wrong, and everything had to change, to adapt, and this is the inevitable result. The world is strange, but it's not strangeness for strangeness's sake. It all makes sense, everything fits together, and while you can see that some things could be different, you understand perfectly well why they're not. It's like a gnarled and twisted tree growing on a rocky windswept mountain top. It's not like other trees, but not because someone decided to take an ax to it and make it as different looking as possible. No, once the seed was planted, there simply was no other way it could grow.

I can't say more, especially about the characters and the story line, without spoilers, even though I feel I could rant about this book for days on end. Go read it. I can't begin to imagine the level of skill required to create a world so different, and then make it feel so real. N.K. Jemisin deserves your attention. ...more

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Nov 26, 2015 Rick Riordan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I picked this one up because I greatly enjoyed Jemisin's Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, but this novel was even better. Jemisin blew me away with her world-building and beautiful writing. It's the tale of an alternate earth called the Stillness, which is plagued by constant seismic activity. This leads to frequent near-extinction events called "Fifth Seasons" that keep humans on their toes. The evidence of past civilizations litters the planet -- ruined cities, incomplete 'stonelore' handed down fro I picked this one up because I greatly enjoyed Jemisin's Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, but this novel was even better. Jemisin blew me away with her world-building and beautiful writing. It's the tale of an alternate earth called the Stillness, which is plagued by constant seismic activity. This leads to frequent near-extinction events called "Fifth Seasons" that keep humans on their toes. The evidence of past civilizations litters the planet -- ruined cities, incomplete 'stonelore' handed down from earlier generations, and strange obelisks that float through the atmosphere like low-altitude satellites and serve no apparent purpose. The civilization that we meet in this book, the Sanze Empire, has survived for centuries by harnessing the power of orogenes -- people born with an innate ability to control their environment. The orogenes can stop earthquakes or start them. They can save cities, or draw power from living creatures and "ice" them. Their powers are terrifying yet essential, so the empire develops a caste of Guardians who have the power to neutralize the orogenes when necessary. The orogenes are held in contempt and called "roggas" by ordinary humans. Despite all their power, they cannot control their own lives. They are either hunted down and destroyed or sent to the Fulcrum to be trained and used by the empire. Imagine Hogwarts, if Hogwarts treated its students like chattel. The world Jemisin creates is as horrific as it is brilliant.

My advice is to give the book at least fifty pages before passing judgment, because it takes a while to understand what is going on. There is a lot of terminology to get used to, and the book is told in three intertwining narratives that at first don't seem to match up, but once you get into the world and into the story, it is a fantastically rewarding read. I can't say much about the plot without giving away some of the wonderful surprises, but if you want to read about a truly dystopian world that holds a mirror to the darkest of human motivations, this novel will haunt you long after you finish it. ...more

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Sep 28, 2018 Emily (Books with Emily Fox) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

O.M.G.

Post-apocalyptic mixed with Fantasy? My two favorite genre? Hell yes! This was such a good read!

The writing does take some time to get used to (one section the narration is told at the second person for example!) but I didn't find it slow and found myself immersed into it very quickly but more time was clearly put into it than the average Fantasy so it might be why it can take a bit more time to get used to it!

Totally recommend it and I'm planning on reading the whole trilogy pretty much ...more

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Jun 25, 2017 Melanie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: buddy-reads, read-in-2017, lgbtqiap, dystopian, sci-fi, fantasy, favorites, own-voices

This book is beautiful, this book is smart, this book is oh so heartbreaking, and this book is a masterpiece. This is one of those books that make you feel absolutely guilty for giving out five stars to other books. This book is unlike anything I've ever read, but it felt so seamlessly woven. This book mirrors the society we live in today and makes you think about all those uncomfortable topics you'd rather ignore and pretend do not exist. This book has the best representation I've ever read in ...more

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Feb 11, 2018 Elle (ellexamines) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Elle by: Melanie

Shelves: z-2018reads, favorite-characters, z-2018favs, genre-experiments, sff-high-fantasy, lgbtq, x-series, characters-of-color, mental-illness-disability, y-2000sreleases

—for all those who have to fight for the respect others are given without question.

I'm re-reviewing this because I accidentally used up a full page of my last essay ranting about it and now I really desperately want to reread. (It's September 8th, why are all of my books still in California.)

The fact that this series won the Hugo award three years running should very quickly establish its degree of quality but I'm going to quickly point out the things that Wowed Me anyway. The writin ...more

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Aug 09, 2017 Petrik rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Mix of high fantasy & Sci fi fans

4.5/5 Stars

I will not start my review for this book with some praises. Don’t get me wrong, this is an amazing book (oh shit I just did), but I’d like to start this review instead by saying patience is virtue is apt here.

“For all those that have to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question.”

This book and my review will be dedicated to all of you.

The Fifth Season, the first book in the Broken Earth trilogy is, in my opinion, a book that will truly require some ...more

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Jul 07, 2017 Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: unhauled, fantasy-all, paperback

Deleted my old 4 star review. I didn’t like it so much this time. Not rereading the rest. Unhauling.
The end!

Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾 ...more

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Feb 08, 2020 Caz (littlebookowl) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: buddy-read, owned, hachette

Rating: 4.5 stars

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Aug 21, 2016 Twerking To Beethoven rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: load-of-wank

New updated review.

I'm told N.K. Jemisin won YET another ((probably) deserved) Hugo Award this year. Her third in a row.

As some of yaz are probably well aware of, I'm not fond of her writing style nor of her ~~bullshit~~ books. What can I do? I just don't like her stuff. Anyways, where was I? Oh yes, when I tried to read the first installment of "The Broken Earth", I just failed to finish it and ended up throwing the bastard on the barbie along with some shrimps and prawns... ruining both the shri ...more

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Twerking To Beethoven Athena wrote: "I just wrote my review finally LOL i think I am with you on what you're talking about, was not appreciating the second person either"

I' ...more
Dec 13, 2020 07:30AM

Cecile I’m not quite in the middle of the book yet. I like to look at the range of reactions here in GR. The book. A metaphor? Without reading, say, Toni Mor ...more
Jan 22, 2021 09:30PM

Feb 03, 2016 Nnedi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A beautiful haunting tale told in the way that I love, with little regard for the linear illusion of time. And the voices, oh the three voices.

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Aug 31, 2015 Bradley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, dystopia-yes-pls, transhumanism, sci-fi, 2016-shelf, top-one-hundred, reality-bending, worldbuilding-sf, fanboy-goes-squee

Edit, 10:52 pm, tonight. :) N.K. Jemisin is the WINNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :) :) Was there any doubt?

Old Review (from a few hours ago):

Re-Read 8/20/16, the day the Hugo Awards Ceremony is to take place for the novel I voted for. :) Coincidentally, I'll be reading the sequel tomorrow. :)

So was it as good as I remember? Actually, better. But that's mostly because I'm in on the trick and the secret of the MC is is laid bare and the whole novel then becomes a character exploration for me as we ...more

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Sep 14, 2019 jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

this book started off a bit rocky and slow, but i am so relieved that it eventually grew on me. i didnt love it as much as i wanted to (mainly because i misread the synopsis, so this was completely different than i thought it would be) but there is still much that i enjoyed about it.

- this story blends both sci-fi AND fantasy. i know many books are lumped into the SFF genre, but this is the first story where both elements are present and coexist seamlessly.

- the representation in this is endle ...more

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Mar 29, 2017 Lyn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Really good.

N. K. Jemison’s 2016 Hugo Award winner’s world building is as good as Frank Herbert or Ursula LeGuin and with magic rules as well thought out as Brandon Sanderson and with an intimate talent for complex characterization as good as Octavia Butler.

All comparisons aside, Jemisin’s work is wildly original and she has created a far future fantasy that provokes thought and entertains. Evoking Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth, this is far, far in the future (if it is even Earth) where some peop ...more

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Feb 27, 2017 ✘✘ Sarah ✘✘ (former Nefarious Breeder of Murderous Crustaceans) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, machalo-tbr-cleaning-challenge-2018, my-friends-corrupted-my-soul, br-2018, cure-for-insomnia, dnf-graveyard, emotional-flatland-inc, someone-please-pass-the-booze, diversity-is-slightly-scrumptious, boredom-fest

💀 DNF at 38%. Please someone give me a medal.

The gif is strong is this one. Consider your little barnacled selves warned.

This was such a delightful read.

Just kidding. Bloody stinking fish, this was painful as shrimp.

99,99999% of you People of Despicable Book Taste (PoDBT™) thought this was deliriously mind-blowing and scrumptiously original and fantabuliciously well written and all that crap, which can mean only one thing: ~~you~~ I read the book terribly wrong. Strange. That has rarel ...more

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Aug 30, 2019 Merphy Napier rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, five-stars, adult

Full video review here https://youtu.be/04wHHH-IBdQ ...more

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Aug 19, 2015 Alienor ✘ French Frowner ✘ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi, reread, my-kindle-challenges-me, 2016-reads, fantasy

4.5 stars. What you know for sure is that you're not a child. You don't want to know what would happen if you were (this world is nasty). But you walk. Restlessly, you walk. At this point you're not sure it means something. You go on, though, because you're intrigued. Orogene, guardian, pirate, commless, you're part of the humanity anyway (they don't think you are). You're no stranger to rules (death awaits if you are) yet life destroys them at times (this is the way the world ends, again). ...more

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Jul 10, 2020 Chelsea (chelseadolling reads) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Even though I struggled with it at times (we all know fantasy is not my usual genre, lol), there is no question that this book is a masterpiece. Wow. Wow wow wow. I can't wait to read everything else Jemisin has ever written. ...more

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Jan 03, 2020 Hamad rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-books, 2020-reads, fantasy, paperbacks, book-club

This Review ✍️ Blog 📖 Twitter 🐦 Instagram 📷

“Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.”

★ This is my first pick for my book club “The Book Clinic” and after finishing it, I am so glad that I did choose it. I think it is a book that can be enjoyed by YA and adult fantasy readers, which was the main reason that made me pick it up.

★ This is my first novel I read by the author, I read her short story Emergency Skin last y ...more

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Apr 08, 2019 Markus rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, put-some-brakes-on-the-hype-train

"Every time the earth moves, you will hear its call."

The Fifth Season is another interesting experiment by N. K. Jemisin. And while I would argue that it has been tremendously overrated, it is still overall a pretty good book with a lot of qualities. It reads more like an unpolished, interesting debut novel than an award-winning piece by an experienced author, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Let’s start with the criticism, why don’t we? (That is my attempt at paraphrasing the book’s o ...more

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Aug 15, 2015 Althea Ann rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

OK, I'm going to have to shell out for my WorldCon membership just so I can nominate this book for a Hugo.
____

I recently noticed that Nora Jemisin's Goodreads profile lists her "influences" as Tanith Lee & Ursula K. Le Guin. I'm not sure if she put that in there or someone else did - but those just happen to be two of my most favorite authors; and yes, I can see the 'influence' on this book.

Previously, I've only read Jemisin's Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - her first book. It was good enough that ...more

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Mar 21, 2014 Mogsy (MMOGC) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: arcs-and-galleys, fantasy, review-copy

4.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.com/2015/07/20/b...

This book had the distinction of being on both my most anticipated SFF lists for 2014 and 2015, due to the publisher’s decision to push its release date back a year in order to give N.K. Jemisin more time to work on the sequels. So it was with no small amount of excitement when an advance copy finally made it into my hands. Proof that it was really happening.

And oh boy, was it TOTALLY worth the wait.

Initially though, my 4.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.com/2015/07/20/b...

This book had the distinction of being on both my most anticipated SFF lists for 2014 and 2015, due to the publisher’s decision to push its release date back a year in order to give N.K. Jemisin more time to work on the sequels. So it was with no small amount of excitement when an advance copy finally made it into my hands. Proof that it was really happening.

And oh boy, was it TOTALLY worth the wait.

Initially though, my feelings were mixed after the first few chapters. There was that cryptic prologue, with its smattering of information about the world (then right away saying that none of these places or people I just read about actually matter – wait, what?) as well as the curious narrative style, including one character whose chapters were written entirely in the second person. That choice eventually makes sense, by the way, but at first I really wasn’t sure what to make of the book.

But then gradually, everything started to come together. I watched as connections were made, questions were answered, and blank spaces were filled in. The final result was this unique and wholly imaginative novel that delighting me to no end. The world-building elements which so confounded me at the beginning of the book eventually became clear, and I came to recognize the sheer ingenuity behind it.

The Fifth Season takes place on a continent known as The Stillness, ironically named given the instability of its geology and tectonics. The world would have fallen to pieces many times over if not for the Orogenes, a group of people with the powers to manipulate earth energies and shape the land. In reality though, The Stillness has actually gone through multiple apocalyptic events called “Seasons”, each one characterized by its specific end-of-the-world effects. It’s the norm for this world, but Orogenes do what they can to make it better, preventing many earthquakes or volcanic eruptions by catching anomalies in time before they can cause widespread destruction.

Yet for all that they do for humanity, Orogenes are feared, shunned and subjected to hostility and violent treatment. Their powers can be as unstable and catastrophic as the disasters they try to prevent, especially if the individual cannot learn control. Orogeny is also unpredictable. There’s a genetic predisposition for it, though theoretically anyone can be born an Orogene, so children discovered with the trait are immediately taken away for harsh and rigid training. However, there are also the unfortunate ones that don’t even make it that far before they’re murdered by their scared or panicky neighbors – or even by their own parents.

Essun experienced this in the worst way possible, coming home one day to find the lifeless body of her young son, beaten to death by her husband. An Orogene in hiding, Essun realizes with grief and horror what must have caused the father to kill the boy. Now Essun fears for the life of her daughter whom her husband has kidnapped, and she is determined to go after them. This is her story, a heartbreaking and beautifully written narrative of a woman’s journey taken upon for love and revenge. Jemisin may have created a world here full of mind-blowingly fantastical elements, but she hasn’t left us wanting in the character department either, giving us an emotionally raw, very human tale.

I have to say the characters are truly wonderful. The Fifth Season follows three perspectives: Essun, a rogue Orogene whose only quest now is to get her daughter back; little Damaya, taken away by an Orogene handler called a Guardian to Yumenes where she will be trained to control her powers; and Syenite, a young woman paired with a more experienced mentor in order to learn from him and breed with him, ensuring that the next generation will have talented Orogenes to keep The Stillness safe. All three threads are so engaging and poignantly detailed, each one giving the reader a distinct reason to care about these strong yet conflicted characters. It was also wonderful to see the bigger picture they formed in the end.

Finally, I have a confession to make. While this is my first Jemisin novel, years ago I actually started to read A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms around the time it came out, but for whatever reason I put it down and didn’t get a chance to pick it up again. I have every intention of going back to the book one of these days, but for obvious reasons I didn’t count it as being “read”. I did, however, feel like I got enough to get a feel for her writing, and now reading The Fifth Season in 2015, I can see how far her skill has come since her debut. With such rich world-building, relatable characters and compelling storytelling, I just knew I had to see all that through to the end, and the conclusion was a real surprise, both marvelous and disquieting.

I’m so glad I read this. The Fifth Season is the first novel of The Broken Earth trilogy, and it’s a strong introduction to a brand new world featuring some very fascinating, very special characters. Highly recommended. It’s definitely not going to be an easy wait for the next book. ...more

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Jan 31, 2018 J.L. Sutton rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

From its ominous opening, "This is the way the world ends. Again", N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season offers an original and amazingly immersive experience! Jemisin's world-building exists side by side with a world teetering on the brink of destruction. But this has happened before. Natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanoes have wreaked havoc on the Stillness, the super continent and only land mass of this world. Previous generations/civilizations have been unable to avoid the destruction ...more

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Dec 29, 2015 Tatiana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Tatiana by: Catie

Shelves: nebula, locus, 2016, fantasy, hugo

Updated 8/23/16 Even better second time around. I think it deserves a bump up to 5 stars.

It took me a few chapters to get into the story, but once I did, it was a smooth, fun ride. Awesome mythology. The polyamory scenario wasn't bad either. ...more

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Mar 10, 2016 stormin rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is my first novel by N. K. Jemisin. I found her writing and characterization excellent and her world-building second to none, but the book is just too darkly misanthropic for me. This is a book, after all, that opens up with a scene of a woman kneeling distraught by the corpse of her toddler son who has been beaten to death by his father, and it goes downhill from there. Far, far downhill.

There is one scene, roughly half-way through the book, that really conveys the essence of what it feel This is my first novel by N. K. Jemisin. I found her writing and characterization excellent and her world-building second to none, but the book is just too darkly misanthropic for me. This is a book, after all, that opens up with a scene of a woman kneeling distraught by the corpse of her toddler son who has been beaten to death by his father, and it goes downhill from there. Far, far downhill.

There is one scene, roughly half-way through the book, that really conveys the essence of what it feels like to read The Fifth Season. The protagonist for this section (there are actually three, although they end up being the same person, which is far too obvious far too early on to count as any kind of spoiler) is a young girl at a militaristic school for magic kids. She is by far the most talented of her gifted classmates, and this talent has brought jealous tormentors. The stakes are high, because any lapse of self-control on the part of the students is ground for harsh retribution. But the main character knows she will only survive the coming years if she is able to identify the ringleader of the group that is sabotaging her. So she reaches out to one of the other misfits, a girl with vast talent but who is on the ragged edge of losing control due to her temperament and her own bullies, and together they team up and hatch a clever scheme to unveil their common persecutors.

This setup lulls you into cheerful complacency. It’s a textbook YA setup and—for a moment—you might forget that this is not a YA novel. More than that, it’s so similar to Ender’s Game that you’re sure that the hero’s scheme—though it might have some unexpected repercussions—is basically going to work.

And, at first, it does. Together with her new friend, they successfully force the bullies’ hands, revealing both the ring-leader and the specific bully who (in this case) stole the main character’s shoes while she was bathing to cause her to fail an inspection.

And then it all goes to Hell. The kid who took the shoes starts arguing with the ringleader—right there in the room in front of all the other kids and the adult supervisors—and the next thing you know the ringleader is describing how the kid had to allow an adult to molest her as part of the plan to sabotage the main character. The child who was molested is sobbing and saying, “You promised not to tell,” while the ringleader accuses her of enjoying the molestation, imitating the sounds that she made as an adult sexually abused her. As if that wasn’t bad enough—and it’s pretty bad—the next revelation is that the main character’s new friend ends up being implicated as the one who had brought the idea to the ringleader in the first place. So much for a couple of loners finding out that they can rely upon each other, this misfit friend shows not a hint of remorse as she tells the main character that she did exactly what she had to do: find someone else for the bullies to torment so that they would take the pressure off of her.

That, in a nutshell, is how reading this entire book feels. (It might feel like I’ve given you a lot of detail, but—as I said—none of it is plot relevant. This kind of emotional carnage is just scenery in The Fifth Season.) All the ingredients are there for an exciting story, but then it all gets twisted in the darkest and evilest ways possible. There are no true friends. There is not true love. Everyone is betrayed. Everyone lies. The main character, of course, is no exception. But luckily by the time she gets around to drowning her own child (not the one that gets beaten to death later) the routine has become so predictable that you’re not surprised or horrified, just detached. (And by the way, these are far, far, far from the worst fates that are graphically depicted as falling upon the children of the characters in this book.)

Is a book bad if it’s unrelentingly grim? I’m not sure. I am not the kind of person who necessarily needs a happy ending. The Road and The Handmaid’s tale and 1984 and Brave New World and Never Let Me Go are all sci-fi books with grim worlds and ambiguous or outright tragic endings, and I love them all. But I would say that at a certain point it is possible for depiction of evil to cross a line into a kind of, if not commission, at least an enabling via desensitization. Barring that, it’s also certainly true that any literary device—pressed to the extreme—become a kind of self-parody. By the end of this novel I had far, far passed the point of caring and had arrived at the point where I found each successive revelation of horror veering closer and closer into humor. Honestly, this book is only one or two tragedies short of becoming A Series of Unfortunate Events.

I am very, very glad that I read it because—if nothing else—N. K. Jemisin is an important writer for understanding so much of the political feuding that is happening in the science fiction community, and I wanted to get my own assessment of her skills as a writer. The accusation is that her writing is the beneficiary of some kind of informal affirmative action. My assessment is that this is not the case. N. K. Jemisin, as far as I’m concerned, can write. And I don’t mean “is literate” I mean “is a very skilled author.” I hope to be able to write that well myself. That being said, however, she doesn’t write the kind of book that I want to read. The monotonicity of The Fifth Season’s downward spiral blunts and then degrades its impact on this particular reader. ...more

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Sep 14, 2017 Bibi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

So clever.

I've been on a reading binge of mostly sci-fi/fantasy fusion and let me tell you, this book will rock your world.

Hats off to Ms Jemisin. In all honesty I can't fathom how the idea and execution for this series could have originated from someone's brain.

A must read for lovers of sci-fi fantasy!

...more

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Dec 25, 2019 Always Pouting rated it really liked it · review of another edition

So I started reading this book in the evening before bed but I got really into and I just stayed up reading it and then I bought the other two and just spent the next day finishing them. I really enjoyed this but I think it might have blurred together with the other two and I'll try not to talk to much about the details in case I forget what happened when. I don't know how I felt about the second person point of view parts of the book, that felt less strong to me than the rest of the book. Also ...more

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Jul 14, 2017 Robin (Bridge Four) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-reads, awesome-audio, chick-i-want-to-hang-out-with, buddy-read, 4-5-stars, bb-b-2017, fantastic-fantasy

Sale Alert: Amazon Daily Deal 19Jan18 $2.99

4.5 Dystopianesk Fantasy Stars

“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.”

This was pretty different. It there is such a thing as dystopian fantasy then this is that. Not only are you on a world where there are the regular humans and lands and society. But there are also people wh ...more

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Sep 12, 2020 Elle rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book is intimidating. I’ll just get that out of the way. I was genuinely scared I’d fail at reading this the same way I did for my expedition into Dune. N.K. Jemisin is an absolute titan of the genre(s), though, and so many authors I love admire her in return. And while I was able to successfully read the first of the series, I don’t want to understate the immensity of this book and world. It’s a big venture to begin, but utterly worth it by the end.

In the beginning, though, there can be a This book is intimidating. I’ll just get that out of the way. I was genuinely scared I’d fail at reading this the same way I did for my expedition into Dune. N.K. Jemisin is an absolute titan of the genre(s), though, and so many authors I love admire her in return. And while I was able to successfully read the first of the series, I don’t want to understate the immensity of this book and world. It’s a big venture to begin, but utterly worth it by the end.

In the beginning, though, there can be a bit of a learning curve. It’s one of those books where not everything is explained right away, which means there isn’t a dump of boring exposition right off the bat, but you also just kind of have to go with it. The story alternates between three perspectives: Damaya, a young orogene who’s whisked away from her small comm by a Guardian to be trained, Syenite, a young woman of the Fulcrum sent on missions at their command and Essun, an 42 year-old mother who’s searching for her husband after he killed their son and kidnapped their daughter.

Each character is grappling with their roles as part of a larger struggle for humanity’s survival. The Fifth Season takes place on a supercontinent referred to as The Stillness. This world is a harsh one, where every couple of centuries a catastrophic disaster takes place, which is called the Fifth Season. The season is the ecologically devastating result of climate change, though the people of the Stillness don’t seem to know the cause of it beyond that.

In order to survive during these deadly periods, people have organized themselves into different ‘comms’ spread out over the continent. Among the humans, (sometimes called ‘stills’), live the orogenes, which is a race of people with the power to shape and shift the earth, if occasionally at a deadly cost. Humans have turned to Guardians to protect them from orogenes, who once discovering a child with orogeny, take them away to train into becoming tools of society, instead of as potential threats. That’s the idea, anyway.

“Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall; Death is the fifth and master of all.”

Though the world of The Fifth Season is thorough and expansive, there’s more here than just a science fiction/fantasy (it’s genre-bending like that) adventure. Jemisin is able to critique and analyze our own societies through the exploration of this fictional one. The topics of race, climate change, otherness, slavery and more can be observed without some of the personal biases we might bring into it. One of her strengths as a writer is in how applicable the truths garnered from examining the people of the Stillness can be to figures in the real world.

This is a book that will stay with you for a long time. I’m going to be thinking about it all the way up until I read the next one in the trilogy, The Obelisk Gate. And afterwards, I’ll likely be thinking about that one as well.

“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.” ...more

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Dec 07, 2017 Riley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, polyam, lgbtq-fantasy

This is by far the best book I've read all year. I don't even have words right now ...more

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Mar 11, 2019 Angelica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, action, read-2019, four-star, read-2015

Well, shit. I now see why this won all those awards.

This book has won all the awards for fantasy. The Hugo, the Nebula, the Locus, everything! If there is an award for fantasy writing, this one has it! So, as you can imagine, I was pretty nervous to read it. What if it didn't live up to all the hype? What if it wasn't the masterpiece everyone claimed it was? What if it wasn't everything that I wanted it to be?

What if all the hype was for nothing?

Thankfully, my fears were for nothing, because bo ...more

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