The Fifth Season brings us to the end of the world in three different times, with three orogene women at different stages of life and loss…Essun's story, told in the present, begins in the moment of the larger cataclysm and is the most intimate; her agony and its second-person voice demand our close sympathy. All three narratives are urgent and deftly interwoven to reveal their far-future earth, a world that has buried our own civilization and many others in its lower strata…The Fifth Season invites us to imagine a dismantling of the earth in both the literal and the metaphorical sense, and suggests the possibility of a richer and more fundamental escape. The end of the world becomes a triumph when the world is monstrous, even if what lies beyond is difficult to conceive for those who are trapped inside it.
The New York Times Book Review - Naomi Novik
★ 06/29/2015
"Jemisin is now a pillar of speculative fiction, breathtakingly imaginative and narratively bold."— Entertainment Weekly The New York Times The Fifth Season is] an ambitious book, with a shifting point of view, and a protagonist whose full complexity doesn't become apparent till toward the end of the novel. ... Jemisin's work itself is part of a slow but definite change in sci-fi and fantasy."— Guardian NPR Books Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) Library Journal (starred review) RT Book Reviews (Top Pick!) "The Fifth Season is a powerful, epic novel of discovery, pain, and heartbreak.... It is a novel that demands much of its readers; it rewards them aplenty and is one of those novels that becomes more powerful after deep consideration and subsequent readings."— SFF World Martha Wells Washington Post B&N.com The Fifth Season is a tour-de-force. I felt every shock—and the book is packed with them—in my marrow. It's no exaggeration to say that Jemisin expands the range of what great fantasy can be."— Brian Staveley, author of The Emperor's Blades Kirkus (starred review)
"A compelling page-turner."
The Onion A.V. Club on The Inheritance trilogy
"The very best kind of sequel: as lush and evocative and true as the first, with all the same sense of mystery, giving us the world and characters we already love, and yet with a new story and a wonderfully new perspective on the whole dazzling world and pantheon the author has built."
Naomi Novik on The Inheritance trilogy
"N.K. Jemisin has written a fascinating epic fantasy where the stakes are not just the fate of kingdoms but of the world and the universe."
sfrevu.com on The Inheritance trilogy
This is a book that readers won't be able to put down...A magnificent novel and one of the best books this reviewer has read this year."
RT Book Reviews on The Inheritance trilogy
"Jemisin proves yet again that she is one of the important new writers in the sff scene." -
★ 06/15/2015
The first in a new trilogy, called The Broken Earth, is set in a world that is always on the verge of the apocalypse. It’s held together through the work of Orogenes, who travel the world and use magic to stabilize geologic anomalies. The storylines are set in differing time periods that weave together and cross one another. Robin Miles has an affinity for the three female narrators, who have varying points of view and distinct personalities and challenges. Her relaxed style helps to move along the world-building explication at a good pace and contrasts with the more intense segments in which she draws out the suspense and drama. Her sparing use of accents emphasizes the outsider status of some of the characters. J.E.M. 2016 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
The first in a new trilogy, called The Broken Earth, is set in a world that is always on the verge of the apocalypse. It’s held together through the work of Orogenes, who travel the world and use magic to stabilize geologic anomalies. The storylines are set in differing time periods that weave together and cross one another. Robin Miles has an affinity for the three female narrators, who have varying points of view and distinct personalities and challenges. Her relaxed style helps to move along the world-building explication at a good pace and contrasts with the more intense segments in which she draws out the suspense and drama. Her sparing use of accents emphasizes the outsider status of some of the characters. J.E.M. 2016 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
★ 2016-06-14
