The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) in The Toast

Sep 27, 2016 Adam rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, ecofiction, audiobook, geology

The Fifth Season is billed as fantasy, but it almost feels like a pastiche of classic scifi. It's got a school section that is basically a riff on Ender's Game, its magic users are a naturalistic take on Jedi, and the world feels very reminiscent of Dune, in both the knife-edge risk ecology of its human settlements and its political and social structures. This impression is heightened by Jemisin's (IMO inexplicable) tendency to use scifi-isms where normal words would do, like saying 'gyneer rath The Fifth Season is billed as fantasy, but it almost feels like a pastiche of classic scifi. It's got a school section that is basically a riff on Ender's Game, its magic users are a naturalistic take on Jedi, and the world feels very reminiscent of Dune, in both the knife-edge risk ecology of its human settlements and its political and social structures. This impression is heightened by Jemisin's (IMO inexplicable) tendency to use scifi-isms where normal words would do, like saying 'gyneer rather than engineer. There's a lot of Capital Letter castes and social roles and it feels like Capital W Worldbuilding, all of which I could do without and are hardly integral to the book.

But those are superficial complaints, and they were quickly swept away for me by the immediacy of the prose and the extent to which it matches my expectations for an ideologically modern series. If it evokes classic scifi, it does so not so much in nostalgic aspiration as in confident, progressive modernization of all of their ideas. It's dramatically inclusive of queer relationships and has maybe more trans characters than the rest of the fiction I've read combined. It's both matter-of-fact and kind about this, in the same way that it is about everything. It's grindingly realist, full of hardship and hard choices, but void of the performative cruelty and cynicism of the Grimdark subgenre. There's no destiny or morally aligned factions; just history and survival and deep-time mysteries.

Orogen abilities resemble the Force in their ability to move objects telepathically, but they're constrained by entropy and conservation of energy. Those abilities are heritable, if unpredictably, but they're not cosmically aristocratic. Interestingly, they're not tied to puberty, as such superpowers almost invariably are--the explanation that seems implied is more evolution than predestination.

As a geology minor, the geological nature of the history and magic was extremely satisfying. It could perhaps evoke more of a sense of deep and layered time, but it has been revealed only in myth and cryptic hints so far, so I'm sure that will come as the series progresses. What is clear already, though, is that human history and biology are deeply defined by the planet's geology and ecology, and that history has shaped the planet in turn. It's an intriguing backstory.

The worldbuilding is good, but it's the narration that really puts The Fifth Season over the top. It's tremendously rich and empathetic, despite prose that tends toward terse restraint over indulgent lyricism. It gambles on two experimental (or at least unusual and challenging) devices and pulls them off with grace, and both are central to the novel's success. The audiobook is excellent (with the exception of the reader's unfortunate Southern accent for Tonkee (sp?)) and really sells the intimacy of Jemisin's writing.

I know I've been saying this about a lot of books lately, which is awesome, but Fifth Season is another in the contemporary fantasy books that are doing exactly the kind of materialist, progressive fantasy I'm looking for. In this case it comes with the added benefits of an intricately geological and environmental history, and an ambitious and effective narrative voice that digs into rich emotional territory. Surely worthy of its Hugo. ...more

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Apr 27, 2016 Amanda rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, poc-authors, fiction, kindle, library, read-harder-2016, black-authors

A little slow-starting for me (though maybe that was that I started it, and then had to return it to the library and wait for it to be available again). Once it picked up, though - the first Damaya chapter, for me - I was hooked. I can't wait for the next two to be available, and I definitely want to read more N.K. Jemisin! If you're reading the ebook, be aware there's a glossary in the back and it's definitely helpful, though I was able to figure out most things from context.

(Bookriot Read Har ...more

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May 17, 2018 Flora rated it it was amazing

Shelves: scifi-fantasy-speculative, lgbtqia

Really engrossing, well written, well thought out, diverse fantasy. It has such a cool concept and the worldbuilding is so cleverly done. I can't wait to read the rest of the series. ...more

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