The Fifth Season blew my entire weekend. I had plans. I was supposed to, at least at some point, get out of bed and take a shower. Instead I stayed in my blanket fort and devoured this book. The most I managed to accomplish was feeding the cat and tweeting about how much I loved this novel.
This was my first Jemisin, but lordy, it will not be my last. Not least of which because I cannot wait for the sequel to this book to come out. I need it in my hands RIGHT NOW.
Back in the day, I read a lot of epic fantasy. It started out with CS Lewis, and while I felt Aslan was kind of a judgey bastard, child-Elyse desperately wanted to live in Narnia and hang with the other animals. Lucy was my soul-sister. Then I graduated to Margaret Weis, George R. R. Martin, Terry Goodkind and Terry Pratchett, and (with the notable and understandable exception of Westeros), I wanted to live in those worlds too.
The thing is, all of that epic fantasy was basically set in medieval Europe, and while sword-and-sorcery fantasy is totally cool and still my jam, had a younger me been exposed to Jemisin’s world, it would have blown my damn mind in all the best ways.
The Fifth Season takes place on a future (or alternate) Earth that’s plagued by extreme weather and seismic events. There is one continent, and humanity is primarily clustered along the equator, with some comms (communities) existing in the outer reaches, an area known as The Stillness. Time is broken up into Seasons, periods when disaster (be it from earthquake, volcanic eruption or pole shift) causes mass causalities and usually atmospheric occlusion. Humanity has learned to survive through the storing of food caches, communal support and Stonelore–societal rules passed down through generations. Humanity has even evolved another sense that allows them to feel vibrations in the earth, a process known as sessing.
Adrift in this turbulent world are the orogenes, people capable of harnessing the earth’s elemental energy and redistributing it. These are people of tremendous power–they can cause an earthquake or quell it, depending on their training and inclination. Orgenes are feared as they have the potential to (even unknowingly) cause mass casualty. They are cast out or killed, the only exception being the orogenes trained by a government group called The Fulcrum. These orogenes travel through the world, preventing disaster and disruption, but their lives are carefully monitored and while they are, on the surface, granted freedoms, they are not free.
The Fifth Season follows three women: Essun, a secret orogene searching for her lost daughter; Syenite, a Fulcrum trained and owned orogene who is questioning what she knows of the world; and Damaya, a young orogene being taken to the capital for training. These three storylines are deeply interconnected and lead to a literal breaking point for the world. I’m hesitant to reveal any more plot because it unravels so beautifully and there’s a mystery to it that I think everyone should experience.
Jemisin’s world-building is so deep and immersive that I found it impossible to pull away from the book. There’s almost no exposition–everything you learn about this unique world happens through action, through story, but never once did it feel confusing or obscure. Jemisin has this remarkable way of peeling back the story layer by layer, making you think you understand where things are going, then revealing another key piece, another plot twist that makes the book all the more delicious.
Even after 500-some pages, there’s much I don’t know and want to know about the world she’s built. For example there are giant stone obelisks that float–yes float–in the sky, remnants of a dead civilization. No one is sure what they are or what they do, but they are clearly important and I NEED TO KNOW RIGHT NOW! There is a race of statue-like creatures known as stone eaters that is largely a mystery. There are adorable otter-like domesticated animals and I need one of them to be my friend.
Everything about Jemisin’s world is different and fascinating, and everything makes total sense within the context of the world she’s built. There are no monsters for the sake of monsters, for example. Jemisin takes everything about our world and turns it on its head. Beauty standards are changed in accordance with society shifting its focus. Brown skin is more common than white due to the fact that predominately white areas of the world didn’t thrive while equatorial societies did, so, for the most part, white folks are not in power. Wide hips are considered a mark of beauty since they suggest fertility and civilization is always on the brink of extinction. Coarse, thick, gray hair (“ashblow hair”) is valued for it’s ability to resist water, acid rain and even filter ash in “extreme circumstances.” Communal responsibility is valued over individual “specialness,” since the only way to survive a Season is in a group. In some way this world strips away the bullshit and fabrication of our own, and in some ways it’s just as steeped in its own idiosyncrasies and useless conventions.
The Fifth Season is also a relatively quick read. It opens with a cataclysmic disaster and doesn’t slow down its pace. Its characters travel widely. My only word of warning is that the book ends on a massive cliffhanger. Fortunately the sequel, The Obelisk Gate, will be released in August. After finishing this book I’m making desperate grabby hands for the next one.
If you like immersive, action-driven fantasy and if you want a fantasy world that’s not Euro-centric–or if you just love a really, really good story–I cannot recommend The Fifth Season enough.
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Thanks!
I just finished this too. 🙂 Fortunately, she seems to be good at keeping to schedule, so the cliffhanger doesn’t bother me too much.
I did figure out how the three storylines were going to connect pretty easily, but that that didn’t detract from anything.
I would add a warning for dead children and some brief mentions of CSA though.
I love this book and I’m so happy that it’s been nominated for both the Nebula and the Hugo Award.
I just finished The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and I really enjoyed it, the world felt dark and mysterious and different. And I loved the casual references to the matriarchal society the protagonist was raised in (throwaway lines like “our men are our most treasured possessions” – paraphrased, not an exact quote). It’s book one in a series, but does not end in a cliff hanger, it could work as a stand-alone.
This is moving to the top of my TBR list. Thanks for the review, it helps push future reading forward.
This sounds super amazing, so I got on the wait list from the library (I feel like someone else in my small town checks this site as often as I do, because it’s remarkable how many times I go to check out an ebook or request a hold based on a review here and someone has checked it out that same day or has placed a hold and not picked the book up yet). I also bought The Inheritance Trilogy by Jemisin for my kindle; I stopped reading as much high fantasy because of the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) racism/lack of diversity and sexism. I miss it though, so this author sounds like a great way to dive back into the genre!
My, that sounds good.
I loved this book. My husband was actually the grabby hands pre-order person when this book first came out and I was like “meh I’ll pick it up (never having read Jemisen before)” Two days later it’s 3 am and we’re negotiating who’s on the couch because me? I’m getting ready to make a bad book decision and stay up for just one more chapter.
I read this a few months ago, and liked it, and can’t remember much about it at all. So I’ll probably read the sequel with fingers crossed hoping that things make sense.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms series was awesome. I read it a while back after reading a news story about diversity in fantasy. Highly recommended. (Can’t really remember much about the series plot wise though, a recurring theme in my life.)
I looooooooooooooved this book, but The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is possibly my favorite fantasy ever (maybe second to The Steel Remains, which, by the way, if you’re interested in fantasy that is LGBT-inclusive, I cannot recommend that book hard enough). I didn’t love the rest of the THTK series, and I really didn’t like her Dreamblood series, but the love came back strong with The Fifth Season.
I read this book and wrote a review of it for Carrie S’s website https://geekgirlinlove.com/2016/05/02/the-fifth-season-by-n-k-jemisin/ To say that I loved it is an understatement.
Oh god, you made me add another author to my ridiculously huge TBR list.
sounds like someone took the “California has four seasons: earthquake, fire, mudslide, and smog” and ran with it. 🙂
Love love love Jemisin’s writing. I feel like she catapults you into these worlds where you have to figure out the rules as the story goes along, which is so different from the medieval-Europe fantasy world. And the way she plays with our cultural assumptions makes her books the kind of books that make you look at the world you thought you knew kind of sideways when you’re done. Thanks for this review – makes it clear I need to reread this book before the sequel comes out! BTW I’d also recommend Max Gladstone for Jemisin fans – also diverse fantasy set in a post-apocalyptic world.
I am reading this book for my multi-cultural sci-fi class and I thoroughly enjoyed how your broke the important pieces that make the story so complex but also your own personal reactions and sentiments about the book was helpful. Great post! I am also excited about the sequel as I am now a new fan of sci-fantasy literature.
i picked up this book over the summer and while i completely share your awe at the quality and ease of the worldbuilding – the writing was amazing!! – i couldn’t get through the second-person present tense. i just couldn’t.