The Fifth Season (Broken Earth Trilogy, #1)

by N. K. Jemisin

John Anthony Di Giovanni (Illustrator)

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS . . . FOR THE LAST TIME. 
IT STARTS WITH THE GREAT RED RIFT across the heart of the world, 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 long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

• Publish Date: 2023 (first published 4 August 2015)
• Publish Status: Forthcoming
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Curious King
• Edition: Curious King Standard Ed.
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 512
• Language: English
• Special: Exclusive Design Signed Collector's Edition

Reviews

[booksandcats]

It took me quite some time to get into the story. I didn't like the writing style at first and there were far too many characters for my taste at first. It made it really hard getting attached to any of them, to build up a connection and care about what happens to them. Additionally, it got confusing in the beginning with the timeline. When did what happen? This book made it really hard to make sense of the story at first.

I honestly just stuck around because first I don't like not finishing books, and second, the world Jemisin described sounded intriguing.

And I got a pleasant surprise, when it started to get so much better after the first third of the book. I got invested in the storyline and the characters, and even though the timeline was a bit difficult to figure out until almost the end, it started to come together.

The characters are very well built up and you can see amazing developement, it almost broke my heart every time you realized who they really were and that they were not going to get a happy ending

This review is very hard to write without giving away any spoilers, so I am going to leave it at this and just say, if you don't like the beginning, it is absolutely worth sticking through it! All in all, one of the best discoveries I have made this year.

[inlibrisveritas]

Oh wow, what to say about the Fifth Season?! This is a unique little gem that tells the story of a world tearing itself apart, where some have the ability to move the earth beneath them and things are far more complicated than they initially seem. It’s intricate and bizarre and so so good!

The story is told from three perspectives: Damaya, Syenite, and Essun. All three are women who are considered Orogenes, those that can feel the earth beneath them and manipulate it as easy as they breathe. Each of these perspectives is incredibly different in tone giving us a pretty wide view on what it’s like for an Orogene in The Stillness (the world they live in). Each of these women is at different stages in life with different connections, and it just adds so much to the story to see how each one responds to oppression, abuse, and family. It’s truly difficult to pick a favorite perspective because each one adds something vital to the story and they work together to create this much wider picture slowly but surely over time.

The style of the story is where I think most people will have issues, and admittedly I did at first when I attempted this solely in print. Essun’s perspective is told in 2nd person, which is something rarely attempted in books, and you are placed into her story directly. It’s kind of bizarre at first, but I think it served to really add a level of emotion that I’m not sure would be there otherwise. We get a sense of how orogeny feels and how Essun struggles with her personal identity and loss. There is also the matter of world-building, which is done based on what our characters know themselves with the rare exceptions of the interludes which give you just a touch more than you should know. As a result we don’t get a clear picture of the planet’s history and culture surrounding Stonelore, because most of the characters we spend a lot of time with either don’t know the answers or keep them heavily guarded. This reads like a post-apocalyptic book set on our own Earth, which is never explicitly stated but I think kind of adds a level of wonder to the story. How did it get to this point? Why has the world and it’s people changed so much?

The audio version of this book is absolutely excellent! While the print copy has a very helpful glossary of terms that I think is worth a little extra money to have on hand, I think the audio version is the way to go. Robin Miles the narrator, who I listened to for the novella Binti, does such an amazing job! She has an excellent range of voices and some fantastic pacing.

For a book that has such an iffy start it quickly became one I didn’t want to put down. I’m super excited to move onto The Obelisk Gate and see just where these characters’ stories lead us, because after the intense ending it would be impossible not to continue onward.

[littleread1]

That was kind of what I thought was happening, but at the same time I am still very confused.

[arronkau]

Beautiful world building, interesting characters that you come to care about and written with a unique voice that takes some getting used to but works well.

Often in books with multiple viewpoints/interleaved characters, I find myself looking forward to some of the story arcs and slogging my way through others. In this book, every time I came to a perspective change, I found myself looking forward to reading the next section.

[viking2917]

Liked it. Wasn't enthralled by it. The world building was very fun and the characters interesting, but that's certainly not unprecedented in fantasy books. The author's style of writing is often oblique or makes it hard to understand what's happening - not in the macro sense - rather in the conversational details. It often seemed to me the author had a very clear visual sense in her head, but wasn't letting me see the details, or was omitting them, so that I was confused rather than intrigued... Some very interesting twists toward the end.

[celinenyx]

Tired of the endless slew of Tolkienesque fantasy, I asked for recommendations of fantasy-loving friends. N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy came up again and again. It’s actually a surprise it stayed off my radar for so long, as it is well-loved in the bookish community as well as by the broader public.

The world knows five seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall, and death. Comms are always prepared for the inevitable fifth season, where the sky darkens and life is uncertain. Told from three perspectives, this novel reveals a world where the earth itself has become angry. It shudders and heaves, and it is only orogenes that can still it. Yet they are feared and ostracized, often killed before they reach puberty. Their awful power can kill thousands of people with one thought, but is at the same time essential for humanity’s survival.

The Fifth Season contains many elements which are brought together skilfully by Ms Jemisin. Points of view span different times and places but never become confusing; little seeds promising future events fully come to bloom later on; the world feels fresh and interesting and there is always more to discover beyond the next turn. The earth as envisioned in The Fifth Season feels familiar quickly, but our understanding of its workings deepens as our protagonists discover more about it. What I especially liked is that it stays clear of the magic-apprentice trope: a typical fantasy plot where we are introduced to the magic system and the character’s surroundings through an exceedingly naïve and sheltered child. Ms Jemisin’s characters are generally already familiar with orogeny (a form of earth-moving magic), leaving space for more interesting developments.

Perhaps my favourite element of The Fifth Season is its acknowledgement that human nature is not simple. We do not all want the same thing, no matter in what groups or communities we collect ourselves. This same courtesy is extended to the other races in this universe, such as the mysterious stone-eaters. Everyone has their own agenda, and it is not always clear what it is. Additionally, the book lightly touches on non-monogamous and non-heterosexual relationships in a way that is accepting and loving. Even though romance is of little consequence as a whole within the book, it was great to see it being handled respectfully. All too often the sexually unconventional are demonized in fantasy.

A common thread throughout the novel is a commentary on race and Othering. To give a quick summary, theories around Othering try to explain how groups of people can be made to seem inhuman, not one of us, the Other. Throughout history, racial difference has often been used to treat groups of people horribly, a rhetoric employed to justify acts up to and including genocides. In The Fifth Season the racial Other is displaced unto the magical/powerful Other. It is not skin colour that sets people in this world apart (what we now would see as blackness or a mid-African phenotype is a point of beauty) but what they can do. While the characters face terrible injustices because of their capabilities, the reader feels that their powers are actually amazing and should be cherished. This emotion reaction of pushing back against discrimination of orogenes subtly points back to racial Othering. However, because that anxiety and tension is displaced onto a category of people which does not exist in our reality, it allows all people who feel like they have ever been excluded from society to identify with the plights of these characters. This is truly very well done – I can’t imagine it being handled more skilfully by any other writer.

Perhaps the only element that was missing for me was an emotional connection with the characters. A tighter connection would have catapulted this book from “wow, this is great!” to an all-time favourite. As it stands, The Fifth Season was everything I was looking for when I asked for diverse fantasy recommendations, and I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.

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Trigger warnings: physical abuse of children, discrimination, implied genocide, forced sexual relations*, off-page execution of children, forced captivity, inter-species cannibalism.
* Regarding the forced sexual relation, it was surprisingly low in rape triggers. The female character is an active participant, seeing it more like a chore that needs to be done with low emotional repercussions.

[wyvernfriend]

very interesting with unique ideas.