Title: The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1)
Author: N.K. Jemisin 
Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Dystopian
Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date: 2015
Format: Paperback
Length:  468 pages

Read if you like: inequality and oppression, supremely unique magic system, heavy foreshadowing, significant tension, power dynamics, apocalyptic fantasy

Rating: 

The Fifth Season is one of those books that’s been in the back of my mind for years. I’ve only ever seen good things about it, but it never reached the top of my to-read list. When I saw it was available immediately at my library, I took it as a sign that I needed to finally pick it up.

This book was a real feat. The very original-feeling premise, the gorgeously drawn-out world-building, and the slow unfolding of the characters and story all combined to create a narrative that had me feverishly turning pages. Every time I felt like I saw where things were going, something unfolded that shocked me, providing another piece of the picture and leaving me wondering how I’d missed it in the first place.

This was a stunningly good start to a fantasy series. I loved this one and can’t wait to continue with the next book. 

The Book Synopsis: The Fifth Season by 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 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.

The Review

This was an absolute masterpiece of fantasy, it’s difficult to even decide where to begin the review.

First and foremost, the world-building in this was next level. I loved Jemisin’s style and the way that she built the world over time as the characters interacted with it. It felt extremely foreign at the start, but over time some familiarity began to weave itself through and I slowly felt like I had a better picture of the scope of the universe without ever feeling overwhelmed by it. It was also exceptionally unique to anything I’ve read before, with pieces that sometimes felt sci-fi and sometimes felt fantasy in nature, but not squarely either. I honestly feel like I’m very much still wrapping my head around the whole concept in a good way, it feels like the surface was just scratched and that there’s so much more to discover.

The characters were a masterclass in development. It was such a jarring and intense start that they all feel very distinct from each other until the story slowly unfolds and then all of a sudden, all the pieces start to click together. The way that the narrative unfolded allowed for Essun/Syen/Damaya to be exceptionally complex respectively and together. I loved that you understood her at three distinct eras of her life. It demonstrates the capacity for change that people have, how long a life can be, and how many lives you can live within it if you survive even the worst imaginable things. I blew past the foreshadowing related to the characters without a second thought until it came back to kick me in the teeth and then I found myself sitting there reeling over what I’d discovered. 

The suffocating oppression that the characters experience from start to finish is so difficult to watch. The erasure of the orogene’s humanity, and their persecution over time, it’s extreme but also feels parallel to the story of oppression that many people feel and have felt across real-life histories.  Most of the time, this novel feels very fantasy/sci-fi driven, but the experiences in discrimination that the characters have felt very relevant and universal. Jemisin has a talent for evoking the emotions that these circumstances warrant and it leaves you feeling varying degrees of angry, frustrated, and devasted at different times. 

In the end, the big twists of the narrative still felt like a huge mystery to me. I feel like I have a minuscule amount of understanding of the obelisks and stone eaters which, in turn, leaves so much opportunity for future books. 

I can’t wait to read the next novel in this series. A very easy 5 stars for this book.