The Fifth Season

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Book – The Fifth Season

Author – N.K. Jemisin

This is the way the world ends. Again.

Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter. – Goodreads Synopsis

The Broken Earth series has come very high recommended to me so I figured I would take a stab at it. (Instead of getting to anything else on my TBR pile.) I originally though that this was a sci-fi story that won a Hugo award, but I was pleasantly surprised at what it turned out to be – Fantasy!

New Ideas

The best thing that comes out of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy worlds are the new ideas that I never GS-headerwould have thought of before. The premise that there are types of people that can control the earth’s seismic events is absolutely incredible. I do not think that I have ever read anything quite like that before. It’s these things that get me excited and push me to keep reading all through the night.

The world building that ties into the story is equally amazing. One of the most satisfying feelings is when you can tell an author tied in everything together. The world building just makes sense when combined with the the “magic” system that was created. I am a big fan of seeing how all of the puzzle pieces fit together in the backdrop of the story, and Jemisin seems to be a master of that.

Post-Apocalyptic is an easy win for me too. I love anything that has to do with surviving FifthSeason-Map-Pncls-V5during end of the world scenarios, so you mix that with my other favorite love fantasy, and then baby you got yourself a stew going. 

Mystery

I have talked about this in previous reviews (Usually Brandon Sanderson…), but I love when an author can set up a sense of mystery that wants you to keep guessing what is going to happen throughout the story. I’ve seen it done poorly, and I’ve seen it done well. Jemisin does it well. You wonder who the characters are, what they can do, and what is coming next.

Prose

Prose is something that I feel like I do not notice much until it is terrible or terrific. A lot of books I read just fall right in the middle, so I never think about it too much. Reading The Fifth Season made me think of poetry. A lot of the narration and interludes just have this language that flows together like water.

Spoiler Section

A the beginning of the novel I struggled a bit trying to keep all of the characters de7a614d93e06b5cf838e3b1baa57a3dseparated. I was trying my best to remember every name and place, but it ended up being a little foggy at some points. Once I finally got everything down, Jemisin dropped huge character reveals! It was awesome to find out that the characters that we have been reading about, were actually just the same character, but in different timelines. I think I may have got goosebumps when I tied all of that together. Truly a big payoff in that setup. Then she finished with a big cliff hanger that has to do with the moon and more obelisks?! (I had to drive to Barnes and Noble and buy the rest of series right after that!)

Should I Read It?

Hell yeah you should.

 

LIFE OF CHAZ (1)

25 comments

  8. I’ve read the book, and agree, this series is phenomenal. Like you, I struggled to figure out who all the characters were, and how they tied together, but it was worth the time to power through the first part.

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  11. I was really sad about being almost done the third Mistborn novel — but this has honestly made me much more hopeful that I won’t immediately fall into a slump when I’m done my current read!

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  16. Was interested in your review of this book because on the advice of another blogging friend, Sarah of Brainfluff, I read this one. As a matter of fact, I ordered all three of the Broken Earth Trilogy books, and My Better Half and I read this first one aloud together. The writing is stunning! And, I base that on lots of advising of writers as a university writing instructor. I am not a writer but an appreciator of good writing. I continued on to The Obelisk Gate alone when My Better Half went back to westerns, and am planning to start the final book sometime this summer. If you are interested in my”take” on this one, see http://powerfulwomenreaders.wordpress.com We are close in agreement.

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  17. Enjoyed the review. My favorite part?: “Post-Apocalyptic is an easy win for me too. I love anything that has to do with surviving FifthSeason-Map-Pncls-V5during end of the world scenarios, so you mix that with my other favorite love fantasy, and then baby you got yourself a stew going.”

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  20. I absolutely love this book and hope TNT does well by it! It did pretty good by the Alienist….. hope it does even better by Angel of Darkness. So I am keeping my fingers crossed for the Fifth Season. Great review! Thanks for the like on my Game of Thrones Tag… hope to see you take a stab at it … ok that is probably a real bad choice of words lol.

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  25. Does your website have a contact page? I’m having problems locating it but, I’d like to send you an email. I’ve got some recommendations for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great blog and I look forward to seeing it improve over time.|

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