Hello, person who is reading this review. If you have seen what I DNF-ed last, this title won't be a mystery for you at all. All of you have most likely seen it, but for those who haven't, today I'm going to share my full thoughts on N. K. Jemisin's most popular book, The Fifth Season. Let's waste no more time and begin with this right now.
A book that is highly regarded in fantasy circles and which has won a Hugo a while back should have been one that I could enjoy immensely as well, or at the very least understand and respect the fact that it won an award (just like Northern Lights/The Golden Compass did, which I loved and picked up the sequel to). This is not a book where I can just shrug it off and say: "Well, that was a popular book that didn't work out for me. Happens all the time." This is awarded, which I will be getting into very soon.
But first, let's talk about the positives. The concept - the struggle of an oppressed people who are oppressed due to their unnatural and fearsome magical powers in a world that has Death as its fifth season, in which everything falls apart and has to be repaired again and again - is not only strikingly original but also harrowing and filled with endless possibilities, able to open up thoughtful discussions about important matters because the author is part of them with fantasy as its backdrop, which allows her to not sound like someone who's writing a preachy non-fiction book way more easily than it would have been possible in a conventional setting, a. k. a. there was lots of potential here. The worldbuilding is well thought-out with lots of history, a deep magic system, information on how communities work, how the people are adjusting in this post-apocalyptic setting, the educational system, and it is one that you can't find anywhere else in fantasy. This is what partially saved the book for me, and I said partially for a reason.
Even from the perspectives of The Broken Earth's equivalent of POCs, I learnt nothing new about racial oppression, and I have only started learning about it. It's not like the author was very subtle and thus I have failed to catch up on it either - the metaphors are much too obvious for that to possibly have happened. But this is merely a minor nitpick, you say. Well, I have more.
The characters are flat, and sometimes they're the completely same person with a different name. Yes, I heard that the three leading women turn out to have been one the whole time, but this just sounds like a cheap trick to justify Jemisin's lack of distinction between not only the personalities but also the voices of the characters. And it's not just the women, either. Everyone sounds exactly the same, and the people around one woman are eerily similar to those around another as well. I don't know how she could ever provide a sufficient explanation for that. Also, the events happening to them are almost exactly the same, as if the writer wanted to have one protagonist in one sticky situation, but couldn't write enough story around them, so she thought that up. I suppose that this shouldn't have been a trilogy due to that, but it's not the only reason.
The prose itself is passable (although there are some annoying quotes), but the quirks in writing Jemisin uses often serve solely to irritate me. All the protagonists have equal screen time, and, as I said, they are the same person, but she uses the second-person point of view in her writing, and merely with one protagonist. She also uses the present tense for a reason I haven't understood before, but now it is clear to me why she might have used those quirks. She was insecure about whether or not her writing could convey enough emotion to the reader, so she used the second person with the protagonist she obviously wanted the reader to connect with the most and present tense with all to create the effect of feeling as if we were there. Telling the reader how to feel is one of the key things you should not use in your writing, as it does nothing more than distracting someone from the story and making you, or at least your book, seem pretentious. Speaking of pretentious, the prologue consists of throwing exposition right at the reader, a. k. a. info-dumping. I let it slide, for I thought that this would disappear after the prologue was over. It didn't. There were times where she carefully put bits of the worldbuilding in the dialogue, but there are also excerpts from made-up history books from the world of Broken Earth once every chapter and times where she would spell out certain aspects of the world to us as if we wouldn't understand otherwise. The world should be explained to the reader slowly and subtly, through some little bits in dialogue and the lives of the characters and the things around them, and she respected this rule only sometimes. The length of the book could have been cut, or at least used more efficiently, if she would have respected it more. From what I have read, I suppose that she continued doing it not only throughout the first book but the rest of the series too because half the first book can surely be counted as acquainting oneself enough with the writing style used in a trilogy. Of course, it can improve a little, but it will largely stay the same.
The plot consists of travelling and living as an oppressed person. There is a little more to it than that, but those two things are most of the plot. The oppressed mother Essun goes on a journey to get revenge on her missing husband for killing her son and save her daughter before he can kill her too because they both wield orogeny, a. k. a. the power that makes the oppressed people oppressed. Syenite goes on a trip with the man she has to make babies with in the name of the Empire and the Earth since he has orogeny as well to clean a port. Damaya has to go to a military academy-like school to learn how to control her orogeny. They all face discrimination from a lot of the people and otherwise mostly one-dimensional bullies. I love reading about those things (mostly travelling, Lord of the Rings is my favourite fantasy book and one of my favourite books of all time), but no matter how many good elements a book has, it means nothing if they are not executed well. When I said that the plot consists of travelling and living as an oppressed person, I meant that literally. The book just goes on and on about describing the details of all the main characters' travelling, to the point when you wonder if some actual plot is going to happen any time soon. But when the plot does not consist of boring travelling. the characters face one horrible situation after another. I love dark stories, and Notes From Underground, my favourite book, is quite dark and depressing. I also like dystopias, for example, 1984. Miserable stories can be good if the miserable situations that happen in them are placed in the right moments, if you care for the characters that go through them, if there are several moments of hope and levity to balance the misery out, if you care about the setting, if the plot is intriguing, if the misery is there to serve as a vessel for an important message, and/or if the author doesn't try tugging at your heartstrings too hard. But something horrible happens every few pages. Even when something hopeful finally seems to arrive, it is turned on its head as soon as possible. Nothing is good, everything is dark, almost as if an edgy teenager had written the book. I started dreading the next terrible thing that would happen on every page, to the point where I eventually had to return it to the library after trying to read it for a few weeks. And I love both fantastical elements and darkness in my stories. See my problem?
In conclusion, I understand why this book is awarded, and I am not going to judge you for it. We are all tired of stories where the main characters face no real hardships and everything is handed to them on a silver platter like the perfect little angels that they are because of some prophecy or something, and darkness can help with adding depth. N. K. Jemisin is also clearly a competent writer from what I can see, even though I do not agree with some of her choices in the writing of this book. I also believe in second chances, which is why I will start reading her other popular dark fantasy series, Inheritance Trilogy, at some point in the future. Goodbye and have a nice day.
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