The Broken Earth Trilogy: The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky

Only read the first book so far, but loved it. Very creative writing style, world is fantastical and wonderful. Characters are complex and interesting. Can't wait to see what comes next.

When I was about six, my reading obsession began with hard sci-fi. Tom Swift Jr and Mike Mars let to Asimov, Pohl, Dick, Heinlein, Clarke and a host of others. Fantasy was never really a thing, although [book:The Lord of the Rings|33] got me through middle school. But I fully engaged with <i>The Broken Earth</i> trilogy and its potent world of invented science and palpable magic, of four races of humans living on a conscious and somewhat malevolent earth. Earth’s malignant, seismically driven ‘Seasons’ are ash or wind or heat or earthquake or volcano or tsunami, over and over, with the Fifth Season often wiping out the civilization of the time along with most of its inhabitants. This pattern has been repeated for forty thousand years. How humans associate and evolve and behave in this unforgiving world lets Jemisin explore love, anger, generational resentment, oppression, racism, motherhood, parricide, duty and destiny. Human suffering is painful, real and repeated. Grief is woven into the character’s choices. The earth and its inhabitants are misanthropically bound together; the novels eventually explain why and offer a possibility of changing the outcome. Jemisin is interested in the moral quandaries that arise in her protagonists from having vast power, painfully conflicting duties and impulses, and having to then live with the consequences of any resulting decisions. She doesn’t baby her characters, always giving them greater challenges to overcome despair the burden of ever greater handicaps. Essun and Nassun are orogenes, a race of humans able to reach into the earth and control/manage seismic events. Orogenes are feared and hated by the mass of society, disowned or even killed by their families despite the fact that their skills are necessary for civilization to exist. A race of long-lived Guardians takes orogenic children to raise in a central location, in a way protecting them but controlling them with ruthless methods. The Stills, normal people, do their best to survive when they aren’t resenting orogenes or dying from seismic disruption. The mysterious stone eaters follow an agenda of their own. The tensions between all these races playing against the backdrop of the disintegrating earth give the plot plenty of momentum. Essun is all too human. She seeks love and connection, but being an orogene can require actions that have horrible consequences. She suffers unimaginably before she finds a purpose worthy of all her sacrifice. Her ten-year-old daughter Nassun, from whom she is separated for much of the story, just wants to feel safe, yet is faced with the same quandary as her mother. How each navigates their interlocking hero’s journeys kjeepts the story moving while illuminating Jemisin’s questions. Most of the trilogy is narrated in close third and alternates between Essun’s and Nassun’s points of view, though there are interludes of a first person narrator speaking in the second person. This adds to the unsettling quality, as we can only surmise who the narrator and the “you” are until fairly late in the tale. This is disquieting but feels mimetic of the shaky state of the Broken Earth. Many chapters end with historical asides that illuminate and provide greater context for the current action. Again, though, this tale is driven by character more than plot, and the empathy I developed for each of the characters was both surprising and salutary. A great read and fully deserving of all its accolades.

An excellent series that I somehow missed when it came out 10 years ago. I had intended to check out the first book but decided to get all three based on the price (and the awards they won). So far, I've just read the first one but can tell they are winners. The strange world building is unlike anything I've read before, and I look forward to seeing how it develops.

Alright, so, I got this trilogy on audible about a year ago on a crazy sale. I believe each title in the trilogy cost about 4usd at the time. AND each of them had the HUGO, so I figured, even if I don't get to them now, they should absolutely be worthy of the purchase. I just recently picked up the physical to add to my favorites collection alongside the Space Odyssey series, the Hyperion/Endymion series, The Rama series, The Scythe series, Imajica ect. I tend to do this, Ill buy audiobooks, and when they sufficiently please me I must own the physicals. Typically I tend to lean more towards the Sci-fi genre over fantasy, but I do enjoy a good fantasy. Though I do lean towards the darker side of this, with things like Weaveworld, Imajica, the Art trilogy, so this was a bit outside of my typical. I will start by saying, when I first started The Fifth Season, I got about 1.5 to 2 hours into it, and, surprisingly, hated it. Well, I'm not sure hate is the right word, but I was very much unimpressed and put this series on my back burner for over a year. About a month ago I pretty much dried up my library in audible, so I decided to give this series another chance. I mean, it couldn't have won all this praise for nothing right? What a good call. Once I got past that initial hump in the beginning, I couldn't stop. I cleared the first title in literally 4 days at work. I was in. I wont go into any spoilers or try and describe what happens in the books, as it would, 1. ruin it for you, and 2. not be able to do justice enough to it to justify point 1. At the end of book 1 I waited exactly zero minutes to start 2. Loved every second of it. And again, zero minute cool down between book 2 end and starting 3. Book 3 answers just about every question the series leaves you asking. I couldn't be more satisfied. I will say, from some of the negative reviews, I can understand where a lot of them are coming from. ESPECIALLY if you didn't give the series a chance, read the first 50 pages and decided you hated it. I was right there with you. But trust me, its so much more than they gave it credit for. I can understand where some might read into the "agenda" that the author is trying to "push" as overly aggressive with the racial overtones, and the powerful female protagonist aspects being heavy handed. I get why at face value it would seem like something you'd roll your eyes at. BUT, its not that at all. I am a 32 year old heterosexual white male and BOY if you can get over that initial feeling of some kind of PC propaganda, you'll see that these parts of the story are anything but superficial and are so integral to the story that no matter how much you might want to roll your eyes at first, YOU'LL GET OVER IT. And it rewards your time with such a deep story and amazing characters you'll be mad at yourself for being so quick to judge it as something its not. I will say, hands down, this will be in my top 5 for book series for decades to come. I cant even imagine the possibility of something coming along anytime soon that would surpass this for me. I was so anxious to learn more and see into the past with this series. I listened at work. I listened at the gym. I listened at home cooking dinner. This series is a 10/10 and you owe it to yourself to get lost in this world.

The series is absolutely phenomenal, one of my favorites. I got this because I had only listened to the audio book of the third installment many years ago after reading the first two. So, when rereading the fifth season, I decided to finally buy the third one and saw that this box set was almost as cheap the individual books and figured I would use this set for display reasons since my original two are pretty worn in by now. The reason im rating four stars is because unfortunately the third book came with some slight damage, on the spine. Purely visual so not really a big deal, but I do feel a sense irony since it was the ONLY one damaged. At least it matches the two I bought several years back... Overall I highly recommend the series even if you don't purchase this specific one

It has been a long time since I let myself take a fiction break but somewhere this trilogy caught my attention and I got it right before leaving on a week's vacation. I was half way through the first book by the time the plane landed - it made an almost 5 hour flight so short - and was done the first day. But I only brought the first book with me! What a mistake. I had the wait the whole vacation to devour the other two in the 3.5 days since I got back. I feel refreshed by the storytelling though what it speaks eloquently of is prejudices, agonies and suffering, rationalizations that keep us from seeing truth, and the moral peril of facing the world as a survivor rather than working to make it better. Among the perils is the need to subjugate and control "others" and the need for and justification of horrible violence against mostly innocent or at least unaware people. Fear is the powerful motivator for much of this, wielded against orogenes, those tuned to the earth, in years of the books but infused in the pre-modern culture of 10s of thousands of years past. The protagonists' story is one of perseverance amid so much loss, and much of it at their own hand, growth as new information unfolds, and sacrifice to try and make things better. Though written several years ago, these themes resonate today as much as ever. Even secondary characters echo this, like Ykka, trying to hold together a community ("comm") of different types of humans that don't ordinarily mix and getting them to work together with mutual interdependence. The most challenging concept to pull off from my perspective was the earth as a sentient planet, at war with its inhabitants. It is as it should be that it takes until the last book, and late in that, to finally learn what happened to start the whole chain of events that unfolded over 10s of thousands of years to bring us to the current cataclysm everyone faces. In some ways reading this was like reentering my childhood and adolescence when I devoured science fiction the way I devoured this trilogy.

I have never left a review for anything in my life. But for these books I had to. First, let me start by saying that these books are breath of fresh air in the sci fi/fantasy (SFF) genre. Our hero is a middle aged mother, the main characters are largely people of color, there’s well done LGBT (yes T!!!) representation, and, FINALLY, this is a SFF book that doesn’t rely on the tired and overdone magic systems that typically include dragons and castles and spells all thrown together only to feel like a poor Lord of the Rings regurgitation. Jemisin’s world of the Stillness is wholly original, expansive, and captivating. Second, the writing itself is perfect. Some second person narration feels a bit strange at first, but you easily adjust (not to mention, it is hugely satisfying when you find out why so much of the story is told from second person) and the interwoven storylines only become more engaging as the story continues. Jemisin’s prose is simply poetry; a “whole snack,” if you will. Here is an author who has mastered her craft and created something breathtaking. Finally, I was blown away by what these books are truly, deeply about. These books are a rallying cry for compassion, justice, and revolution. These books force us to ponder our right to exist at all while in the very same breath commend our resilience and determination to fight for a better world. These books plead with us to reconsider our collective complacency with global systems of slavery, exploitation, and degradation. These books beg us to heal our relationships with each other, and the earth itself. This story might be happening in a fictional world, but it is firmly grounded in humanity; the absolute worst of us, but also the best of us. I’m well aware that I’m a giant nerd and I accept that many people don’t enjoy the SFF genre. However, I would argue that these books far transcend any one genre. Indeed, these books are written for folks who simply enjoy art and literature of the highest caliber. This is a raw, powerful masterpiece.

The Broken Earth trilogy is extraordinary. Jemisin builds a world shaped by catastrophic geological violence, then populates it with characters whose pain and power feel utterly real. The structure is bold, the prose is sharp, and the emotional payoff is enormous. This box set is a great way to own the whole arc. Deserves every award it won.

Bought for a present and was excellent value compared to buying the books separately.

Amazing series! If you like sci-fi and fantasy blending together in an incredible creative work of written art - this is for you

Great books

amé

This series will plunge you in a world where magic is not as straightforward as it usually is in most fantasy books. The characters are complex and credible, the plot teasingly convoluted and the Broken Earth's cosmogony immersive. The writing is original and refreshing. A must read for fantasy amateurs !