The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
I’ve heard a lot about this book, or at least have seen the headlines and hoopla about the series, so I decided it was time to see what the Hugo award winner was all about. The story follows a far future post-apocalyptic Earth where every several generations a massive eruptions cause a “fifth season” where the sun is blotted out, crops die, and society has to endure for a few to a few hundred years until the sun returns. The world’s cultures have developed to survive these events though not every strategy survives intact. The world is littered with the relics of lost civilizations and there’s a sense that much of human knowledge has been lost. Coupled with this interesting Earth is that there are mysterious stone creatures that rarely interact with humans, and a few humans called orogenes have an ability to manipulate rock and seismic events, though society views them with distrust and keeps them as talented slaves under the guidance of Guardians who can somehow negate these otherwise awesome powers.
It’s hard to talk about the book without spoilers so bear with me. There are three threads to the story, one of a underground orogene mother whose son was killed after he displayed his orogene gifts, a young orogene being collected from her family and taken in for formal training by her Guardian, and a journeyman orogene sent on a mission with an eliete orogene who may or may not be crazy. All these threads resolve into a single storyline in the end, and if you’re a seasoned Sci-Fi reader, you’ll probably guess how.
Jemisin tells a good story here, a solid fantasy that is also speculative fiction exploring how humans might act under the constant threat of cataclysms. The magic system is interesting, though you might also call it psionics, kind of like what I remember was all the rage in Science Fiction in the 70’s. From a writer’s perspective, she’s doing something interesting with second person POV in the beginning but knows when enough is enough so it doesn’t overstay its novelty. It’s hard to find fault with any of it and supposedly the rest of the series is just as good. It’s epic but centered on just a few people so you don’t get lost in all the details. My kids love it.
Is that damning with faint praise? Maybe. I can see why it’s Hugo-worthy and there are times that a good book just doesn’t hit you as hard as it does others. Like I said, I can’t find anything wrong with it but there isn’t anything to make me want to pick up book two and see what happens next, though my kids both do and they’re picky readers. I guess that there just wasn’t anything in the story that made me want to know more either about the world or about the characters. They’re sympathetic, flawed, and have some problems that need solving, and these are all traits of good characters but they didn’t resonate with me. The world is corrupt and needs setting to rights, normally something I love to dig into, but by the end of the story I shrugged at the fate of the Earth. Perhaps I felt the depicted Earth itself wasn’t worth saving. It’s worth reading book one and decide if it works for you. It didn’t for me, but your mileage may vary.
