The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Posted on April 1, 2022 by pagesofjulia

I got sad that there’s still no sequel to The City We Became, so I chose one of Jemisin’s sci-fi trilogies to try while I wait. And it is so good, you guys. I’m already feeling withdrawal from this fictional world.

The Fifth Season is set in a world that keeps ending. It appears to be much like the world I live in now, only much later? (Or earlier? Sometimes the two can blur.) This world has just one continent, as far as its inhabitants know, and it is a very active one. “Like an old man lying restlessly abed it heaves and sighs, puckers and farts, yawns and swallows. Naturally this land’s people have named it the Stillness. It is a land of quiet and bitter irony.” There are ruins scattered around from previous civilizations, that preceded earlier Fifth Seasons, those times when the puckering, heaving land goes a little nuts (tsunamis, blows [volcanic eruptions] and shakes [earthquakes] being the most common issues) and life becomes extra difficult for a period of years. (The book offers two helpful appendices, one a catalog of Fifth Seasons and the other a glossary of terms, most of which were easy enough to suss out by context clues, anyway.) Such an unstable world has sprouted an empire (naturally), a caste system, numerous injustices, and policies meant to help its subjects weather the Seasons: storecaches of food, clear divisions of labor, Seasonal Law. This world is peopled by different kinds of people, too. Some of them are “still,” but others have the power to move the earth. These are orogenes (or the derogatory ‘rogga’), and they can use thermal, kinetic and other forms of energy to control and even cause seismic events. Some of them are controlled and wielded in turn, so to speak, by a class of persons known as Guardians. And then there are the stone eaters…

Jemisin’s narrative centers around three characters, three woman orogenes, in three different, distressing points in their lives. We learn about the possible paths for orogenes from their experiences. One of them is navigating a Season after having just lost a child. Another has been trained at the Fulcrum, and is now being sent out on a humiliating assignment. And one is just a girl, frightened of her own power and identity, newly embarked on the world. As each woman’s story advances, we learn more about the single world they share. There are secrets to be revealed, but not much goodness. (When I say I miss this fictional universe, it’s not because it’s pleasant.) I love a big, complex otherworld. And I loved these characters – not just the main three, but a few others as well. Jemisin’s characters have facets and nuance. I appreciate characters who can be flawed and problematic and maybe not people I’d even want to be friends with, but with whom I can feel such strong connections. That’s true to life.

Also, there are pirates.

Lovely worldbuilding, full and complex and deeply layered, plenty deep enough to get lost in. Despite the presence of those two appendices, which I didn’t find until the end!, I was always more or less clear on what was happening (also true to life: when are we ever on entirely solid ground?). Great characters, beautiful writing, opportunities for philosophical pondering, and some superlatively clever plotting. This book has it all; what’s not to love? Jemisin is a rock star (no pun intended).

I’ve already ordered books 2 and 3 in this trilogy, obviously. And somebody had the very clever idea to include, at the back of this book, snippets from the first books in two other Jemisin trilogies as well, so I ordered one of those at the same time. Good thing she’s written plenty. Stay tuned.

Rating: 8 kirkhusa.

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The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

Posted on August 3, 2020 by pagesofjulia

What a glorious book. N.K. Jemisin is a wonder.

I loved the fantasy/sci fi version of our world presented in The City We Became. When cities have achieved something like a critical mass of culture or soul, they sort of come to life in the form of a human avatar, a preexisting person who best possesses or encapsulates the qualities of that city. It takes a long time, a lot of history and life, for a city to become. There have only been a few in the Americas to get this far. New Orleans and Port-au-Prince were stillborn. Sao Paolo, as the newest city in the worldwide community, is on hand to help with the next birth to take place: that of New York.

New York is unique in that it has multiple souls, one for each of the boroughs as well as one for the city as a whole. Like London; except that something went wrong in London. So New York’s becoming is unprecedented and fraught. The novel opens with the perspective of the unnamed man who will, hopefully, be New York: “too slim, too young, and entirely too vulnerable,” Black, talented, homeless. His voice blew me away in these first pages, before I had any idea what was going on. (It also reminded me of the voice of a friend of mine, a talented young writer. You’re in good company, B.) Here’s the thing: in the birth moment of every city, the Enemy is near at hand, threatening. This is why some cities don’t come to life at all. It’s why some are killed: Pompeii, Tenochtitlán, Atlantis. Oh, yes: it’s not that Atlantis wasn’t real. It just isn’t real anymore.

Something is different about New York: the city’s main avatar may be precocious, but the Enemy (“squamous eldritch bullshit”) is much stronger here, too. The risk seems greater than ever. Luckily, New York (and his helper, Paolo) has the boroughs to rely on. Or does he? Manhattan has never set foot in the city before. He can’t remember his name–the name from before–or what he did, but he thinks it wasn’t good. Brooklyn grumbles that she is “too goddamn old to fight transdimensional rap battles in the middle of the night,” but she’ll do it anyway. The Bronx is always ready to rumble; her people have been here since before there was a New York. Queens would rather return to her studies (she hates financial engineering, “which of course is why she’s getting a master’s degree in it”). Staten Island is a real mess, downright antagonistic to her fellows. And what is Jersey City doing here?

As you may have realized, the idea of a place being personified in an individual is right up my alley; I bought into this concept immediately and whole-heartedly. I love the challenges it presents the author. To choose an individual means choosing a gender, a race, personality traits. It means committing: Brooklyn to be contained within one woman? If she’s a rapper, or a city councilwoman, that’s a commitment to one way of expressing all of Brooklyn: it sounds like a losing proposition from the start, but Jemisin knows her stuff. Here’s where I say that I know little of New York and the personalities of its boroughs; but I know how tricky it is to try and sum up a place, and I respect the complexities of The City We Became. (Also, I can attest that this story works even for the reader unfamiliar with New York.)

This book introduces a rich panoply of fascinating characters, with backstories, histories, cultural and ethnic heritages, professions, personalities, sexualities and gender expressions, to represent a richly varied New York. It is completely absorbing. The science and fantasy of the world in which cities become struck the right balance, for me, between sufficient explanation and satisfying mystery. (I don’t show up to sci fi for the science.) The whole thing is fully-fleshed, compelling, the kind of story to lose yourself in, both clearly related to the one I live in and weird enough to take me out of this one. Jemisin gives each character their own compelling voice, and plenty of sensory lushness to her settings–which are, pretty literally here, characters unto themselves. They are all, in their own ways, so smart. “There’s a lot to consider: particle-wave theory, meson decay processes, the ethics of quantum colonialism, and more.” Lovecraft is often present, “equal-opportunity hater” though he was. I had a fabulous time. And this is just the first in a trilogy! I’m so excited.

Unqualified recommendation: if you appreciate imagination, or a person’s connection to place, or cities, or cultures, or fine writing, get to know The City We Became.

Rating: 10 brigadeiro.

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