The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Resonant. Powerful. Distinct. The Fifth Season is all these. A dystopia with the depth of a fantasy epic, this book is potently unlike most anything I’ve read.
I mean that mostly in a good way. The story is unexpected, spooling out in three strands to unwind the central problems. My issue: I liked two of the three story lines, which left the one I liked less because it switched to second-person and felt gritty and weird in the flow. But that was probably intentional.
The story is about a place that is dramatically geologically unstable. It also has people with the power to stop—or cause—these tremors and volcanos. The world is harsh, and so the people are harsh, especially toward these oregenes. They are afraid and so they act out, and the oregenes suffer. Author N.K. Jemison is creative in her torments: another reason I both liked the book and can’t give it my full “I loved it” endorsement. This book will make you uncomfortable even while it wraps you in beautiful prose. I highly recommend it—to most, but not all, audiences.
M.E. Kinkade 