The Broken Earth Trilogy: The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky Paperback – August 4, 2015

When I was about six, my reading obsession began with hard sci-fi. Tom Swift Jr and Mike Mars let to Asimov, Pohl, Dick, Heinlein, Clarke and a host of others. Fantasy was never really a thing, although [book:The Lord of the Rings|33] got me through middle school. But I fully engaged with <i>The Broken Earth</i> trilogy and its potent world of invented science and palpable magic, of four races of humans living on a conscious and somewhat malevolent earth. Earth’s malignant, seismically driven ‘Seasons’ are ash or wind or heat or earthquake or volcano or tsunami, over and over, with the Fifth Season often wiping out the civilization of the time along with most of its inhabitants. This pattern has been repeated for forty thousand years. How humans associate and evolve and behave in this unforgiving world lets Jemisin explore love, anger, generational resentment, oppression, racism, motherhood, parricide, duty and destiny. Human suffering is painful, real and repeated. Grief is woven into the character’s choices. The earth and its inhabitants are misanthropically bound together; the novels eventually explain why and offer a possibility of changing the outcome.Jemisin is interested in the moral quandaries that arise in her protagonists from having vast power, painfully conflicting duties and impulses, and having to then live with the consequences of any resulting decisions. She doesn’t baby her characters, always giving them greater challenges to overcome despair the burden of ever greater handicaps. Essun and Nassun are orogenes, a race of humans able to reach into the earth and control/manage seismic events. Orogenes are feared and hated by the mass of society, disowned or even killed by their families despite the fact that their skills are necessary for civilization to exist. A race of long-lived Guardians takes orogenic children to raise in a central location, in a way protecting them but controlling them with ruthless methods. The Stills, normal people, do their best to survive when they aren’t resenting orogenes or dying from seismic disruption. The mysterious stone eaters follow an agenda of their own. The tensions between all these races playing against the backdrop of the disintegrating earth give the plot plenty of momentum.Essun is all too human. She seeks love and connection, but being an orogene can require actions that have horrible consequences. She suffers unimaginably before she finds a purpose worthy of all her sacrifice. Her ten-year-old daughter Nassun, from whom she is separated for much of the story, just wants to feel safe, yet is faced with the same quandary as her mother. How each navigates their interlocking hero’s journeys kjeepts the story moving while illuminating Jemisin’s questions.Most of the trilogy is narrated in close third and alternates between Essun’s and Nassun’s points of view, though there are interludes of a first person narrator speaking in the second person. This adds to the unsettling quality, as we can only surmise who the narrator and the “you” are until fairly late in the tale. This is disquieting but feels mimetic of the shaky state of the Broken Earth. Many chapters end with historical asides that illuminate and provide greater context for the current action. Again, though, this tale is driven by character more than plot, and the empathy I developed for each of the characters was both surprising and salutary. A great read and fully deserving of all its accolades.

Love this trilogy. A strange combo of post apocalyptic, sci-fi, and fantasy. The main character is older (which creates a rich history). This is adult, not YA. I've read a lot of epic fantasy and this was a unique approach but retains the world building and complicated relationships.

I have never left a review for anything in my life. But for these books I had to.First, let me start by saying that these books are breath of fresh air in the sci fi/fantasy (SFF) genre. Our hero is a middle aged mother, the main characters are largely people of color, there’s well done LGBT (yes T!!!) representation, and, FINALLY, this is a SFF book that doesn’t rely on the tired and overdone magic systems that typically include dragons and castles and spells all thrown together only to feel like a poor Lord of the Rings regurgitation. Jemisin’s world of the Stillness is wholly original, expansive, and captivating.Second, the writing itself is perfect. Some second person narration feels a bit strange at first, but you easily adjust (not to mention, it is hugely satisfying when you find out why so much of the story is told from second person) and the interwoven storylines only become more engaging as the story continues. Jemisin’s prose is simply poetry; a “whole snack,” if you will. Here is an author who has mastered her craft and created something breathtaking.Finally, I was blown away by what these books are truly, deeply about. These books are a rallying cry for compassion, justice, and revolution. These books force us to ponder our right to exist at all while in the very same breath commend our resilience and determination to fight for a better world. These books plead with us to reconsider our collective complacency with global systems of slavery, exploitation, and degradation. These books beg us to heal our relationships with each other, and the earth itself. This story might be happening in a fictional world, but it is firmly grounded in humanity; the absolute worst of us, but also the best of us.I’m well aware that I’m a giant nerd and I accept that many people don’t enjoy the SFF genre. However, I would argue that these books far transcend any one genre. Indeed, these books are written for folks who simply enjoy art and literature of the highest caliber. This is a raw, powerful masterpiece.