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[skygiants]

The Fifth Season is by far the most depressing of N.K. Jemisin's books and I think I like it best of all the ones I've read? Perhaps in fact because it is the most depressing, like, everything is certainly terrible and I and N.K. Jemisin wholeheartedly agree on everything that is terrible, which is a change from past N.K. Jemisin books where some things are definitely terrible and some things are just the author's id angling a few degrees off from mine in small but significant ways.

...I really want to emphasize that everything in The Fifth Season CERTAINLY IS terrible though. Like, a small child dies on the third page, and things go downhill from there. The apocalypse is kind of the least of it.

The Fifth Season is actually set in a world (which I suspect is probably far-future our world, but that's not confirmed) where smallish geological apocalypses happen every few hundred years and people have sort of learned to cope with them. In one strand of the book, a woman named Essun lives through the start of what's looking like an extremely epic apocalypse, but is not so concerned about that as she is about the fact that her husband has just murdered her small son and run off with her small daughter into the apocalyptic night.

Essun is a secret orogene, a person with the power to manipulate geological forces. Orogenes are considered highly dangerous; they're hated and feared by the general population, and, if discovered, are liable to be murdered by mass mobs unless sent for training to an official centralized location called the Fulcrum where they learn to do important geological work on behalf of the proper human members of civilization. This system is definitely not coercive, abusive, or exploitative in any way!

In the two other threads of the book (not taking place during the apocalypse) a little girl named Damaya discovers she is an orogene and is brought to the Fulcrum on a road trip that is no fun at all, and a young orogene named Syenite is paired up with an extremely powerful but kind of batshit orogene named Alabaster for another road trip that is no fun at all. Essun's murderous-husband-hunting post-apocalyptic road trip is also kind of by its nature no fun at all for Essun, but she does get a creepy possibly-inhuman child and an eccentric scholarly genius hobo as travel buddies, who are both WAY more fun than Alabaster. (Tonkee the hobo genius is my favorite character in the book, possibly because she spends the least amount of time being miserable; this is especially nice because Tonkee is a transwoman and frequently trans characters are narratively assigned to be the most miserable. Though admittedly Alabaster, who is very beautiful and very tortured and very gay, is there on the other end taking up significantly more than his fair share of misery. Which, again, is kind of impressive in a book that starts with a woman mourning the death of a child.)

Anyway. It's a very good book, a very dark book, and a very unflinching book which is deeply concerned with the consequences of treating people as not-people. I super want to find out what happens next, though I don't expect it will be much happier than what came before.

Comments

[jain]

which I suspect is probably far-future our world, but that's not confirmed

Word of God says no on that one: "The Fifth Season isn't set on Earth. That's not a spoiler. I don't intend to ever write that kind of 'but it was our world all along!' gotcha into any of my novels, because at this point it’s a badly overused trope."

And I agree it's a very good book, though I still love The Killing Moon best.

[skygiants]

Oh good, that means I can stop staring at the worldbuilding and Trying To Figure It Out and go back to focusing on the story. :D

[musesfool]

Yeah, I did that a lot during my reading too, trying to map it to our world somehow. Good to know I can stop doing that going forward.

[schneefink]

I'm glad to hear it's confirmed it's not our world (which I never suspected), makes it easier. Also I now feel better about not seeing the missing moon coming at all: after I finished the book I read others' reactions and saw that apparently many figured it out after that one scene that described the sky and didn't mention the moon, but that didn't ping me as odd because it's easily possible that a planet in a fantasy universe doesn't have a moon for no specific reason.

[jain]

I figured it out based on the myth about Father Earth's only child, but even that was more of an educated guess than a sure thing. It definitely makes sense to me that that plot point might come out of nowhere for some readers.

[skygiants]

Yeah, I was assuming our-world-probably and therefore the moon thing stood out to me, but I can definitely see what it wouldn't if that's not an assumption that one was already making!

[cofax7]

It is depressing! And yet I like it best, too. I think she's gotten better at the narrative momentum, and as I am structure's bitch, I adore the structure of this novel. I think her skills are beginning to match up with her ambition, and everyone wins that way.

ARCs of The Obelisk Gate are beginning to make the rounds, so I think that means we'll get the next one in a couple of months.

[skygiants]

The structure suuuuuper worked for me except maybe a bit towards the end when the narrative inevitability means you KNOW everything happy that's going on with Syenite is all somehow going to go down the toilet, and you're just sort of sitting there waiting for horrible things to happen like 'DO WE HAVE TO.' I mean it's very effective! But I might have enjoyed the illusion of happiness for, like, a chapter. ;___;

[starlady]

By far her best and my favorite of her books. I am also surprised to hear that it's not Earth, because I was 200% sure that the ur-apocalypse was the sufficiently technologically advanced civilization (i.e. us) bringing down the moon as part of a failed attempt to stop climate change…somehow.

[skygiants]

Yes, that's also what I was thinking! But it is kind of a mental relief to hear that it's not and stop trying to contort things to make it fit. I guess fictional worlds can also have moons and people who are stupid about climate change.

[dimestore_romeo]

I'm about 20% through and struggling because it IS so dark, but I am totally going to get through it. I think it's actually the Syenite thread that I'm finding by far the most difficult.

[skygiants]

The Syenite thread is definitely the hardest, I think. Because, like, Essun starts out at rock bottom, things for Essun are ONLY GOIN' UP (maybe) (possibly not actually) (that's not a dare N.K. Jemisin I swear) but Syenite's Terrible Road Trip is only the beginning.

[rymenhild]

It's odd. Everything is terrible and I want to know more. Tell me everything, N.K. Jemisin. I mean, I don't understand how the human race is going to survive the next fifty years in Essun's timeline, and I'm not even sure the human race deserves to survive the next fifty years, and I would be totally unsurprised if survival involves cannibalism. And with all that, the geological/apocalyptic story isn't even the main story.

The real story is the nested set of family tragedies. SPOILERS HENCEFORTH IN ROT13 SERIOUSLY DO NOT TRANSLATE THIS IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE WHOLE BOOK.

Jr zrrg Rffha jura fur'f ybfg ure vqragvgl orpnhfr ure uhfonaq xvyyrq ure fba, ohg gur npgvba gung znqr ure Rffha jnf ure xvyyvat ure svefg fba. (Fb znal rpubrf sebz Gbav Zbeevfba...) Naq Flravgr-Rffha xvyyrq Pbehaqhz gb xrrc uvz sebz orvat n fynir yvxr Nynonfgre'f cerivbhf puvyqera, ohg Pbehaqhz jnf Nynonfgre'f svefg serr fba naq gur bayl bar jubz Nynonfgre gehyl nyybjrq uvzfrys gb ybir. Naq haqre nyy gung gentrql vf Qnznln'f bevtvany nonaqbazrag ol ure snzvyl, naq ure tenqhny qvfpbirel gung ure Thneqvna, jub vf va znal jnlf ure sbfgre cnerag, vf nohfvir naq vzcbfvat na nohfvir flfgrz hcba ure. Cneragf orgenlvat puvyqera, cneragf orgenlvat puvyqera gb fnir puvyqera, puvyqera orgenlrq, bire naq bire ntnva va n gentvp plpyr. Naq V qb zrna "gentrql" va gur shyy yvgrenel-gurbel frafr bs gur jbeq.

THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH HAS SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST CHAPTER OF OBELISK GATE, WHICH I GOT THROUGH JEMISIN'S PATREON.

Gur plpyrf bs cneragny orgenlny nera'g bire lrg, rvgure. Anffha qrfcrengryl jnagrq gb rfpncr Rffha sbe fbzr ernfba. Jung unccrarq gurer? Jung jnf Rffha rira yvxr nf n zbgure? Jung vf Wvwn yvxr nf n sngure jura ur'f abg xvyyvat uvf fba? Jung jvyy unccra gb Anffha jura fur trgf ure bja Thneqvna? Rirelguvat vf tbvat gb xrrc orvat ubeevoyr, naq gur avtug jvyy bayl trg qnexre.

[rymenhild]

Also, it's all very well and good to support a Patreon so I can get Jemisin out of her day job and also read the first chapter of Obelisk Gate, but everything is terrible because now I don't have the second chapter.

[skygiants]

OK QUESTION FROM WHAT YOU SAY OF THE FIRST CHAPTER (following your lead in re: spoiler-text):

V'z trggvat gur frafr sebz guvf gung jr zvtug trg Anffha CBI? Vf gurer nal pbasvezngvba gung Wvwn VF, va snpg, gur crefba jub xvyyrq gur bgure xvq? Orpnhfr gung'f fbzrguvat V'ir orra fhcre jbaqrevat nobhg -- vg znxrf gbgny frafr gung Rffha jbhyq nffhzr guvf onfrq ba ONFVPNYYL RIRELGUVAT va ure cnfg, ohg V pna qrsvavgryl vzntvar cbgragvny nygreangr fpranevbf.

[rymenhild]

Lrf, Wvwn xvyyrq Hpur. Vg'f abg rknpgyl Anffha CBI, ohg jr yrnea zber nobhg ure naq jung unccrarq gb ure ba gung qnl, naq zber nobhg jung Wvwn qvq naq jul.

[frith_in_thorns]

This is a book I kind of really want to read... but also I have a knee-jerk DNW reaction to grimdark, because it often just feels like so much of a not-fun chore to read. (This has definitely been my experience of Kameron Hurley's Mirror Empire books, for example.) I've read Jemisin's Kingdoms books and really loved the second one but not nearly so much the other two.

[skygiants]

It is WAY more depressing than the other two Kingdoms books. Like, I think it's better than those books, but if the depression factor was difficult for you then I would be a little leery about The Fifth Season. That said, although this book is grim, I would not at all say that reading it felt like a chore.

[batyatoon]

I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH *FLAILYHANDS* and I need to reread it because I think I have forgotten about half of it?

and yes I seriously can't wait to find out what happens next