The Fifth Season Cracks Post-Apoc Fantasy Wide Open

photo: www.npr.org

The recent spate of earthquakes on the West Coast sent ripples down my spine, as I sat on my porch baking in the summer sun, thousands of miles away.

That's because I was reading the first installment of N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy, The Fifth Season, in which certain people can both quell and create earthquakes, saving or killing thousands without much thought.

These orogenes, as they're called, sound dangerous. They are. But they're also persecuted heavily for their powers, degraded, and seen as non-human entities when they know that that isn't true.

Civilization as we know it has collapsed. It's been gone for thousands of years. The earth is comprised now of a small hunk of land called the Stillness, an ironic choice as it's never still. The earth is always shifting, with micro-shakes and full scale quakes forever endangering the lives of those who live there. But humanity has endured and survived, even through multiple Seasons, or full-blown quakes that trigger atmospheric changes, drop temperatures, and cloud the air with ash. Humans became adept at hunting, storing piles of food, and favoring the traits best needed for survival.

Of course, they also survived because of the orogenes, who are forcibly employed to quell shakes and deal with other problems throughout the land. Disobedience is punishable by death.

We're dropped into the life of Essun, a woman who comes home to find her son dead on the floor and her daughter and husband missing. She sets out to find them, encountering friends and foes along the way.

Damaya is a young orogene who's taken to the Fulcrum to understand her powers and how to use them. She's ambitious, but she can't help the promise of uncovering a secret.

Syenite is a mid-level orogene training under the highest level orogene in all of the Stillness. They form a bond, it isn't love, and this connection and their shared distrust of the Fulcrum holds them together.

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This novel is a page-turning plot-driven adventure and quest, but it also touches on important topics without being too heavy-handed. The central theme is the dedication of the book: "For all those who have to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question." This is a book about the inequalities and injustices of life based on how one is born, whether that's superpowers or the color of one's skin.

Education, the role of the female as lover and mother, and humanity's impact on the natural world all play significant roles within this novel's pages. Jemisin's writing is also clear, sometimes funny, and often poetic. She has an ear for the rhythm of words. At times, the writing becomes too casual and conversational for me (it kept throwing me off), but that's just a personal preference.

The character development and structure was also unlike anything I've seen before, which garnered it immediate points in my book. It is intertwining and unexpected (you'll just have to read it to know what I'm talking about), and the next two books of the trilogy are just as good.

(In fact, I can't help but rave about Jemisin a bit. Not only is the plot quick and intriguing, the world-building solid, and the writing superb, this book features a black female protagonist, normalizes non-heterosexual relationships, and cleverly imparts wisdom about racial struggles and injustices in our society.)

Don't wait for an earthquake to knock these books into your lap. Jemisin is a gem.

8/10 📕