The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemisin

The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1) – N. K. Jemisin –

Audio Narrated by Robin Miles

This is the way the world ends. Again.

Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.

My Review of The Fifth Season

Captivating and unique, this complex fantasy sure was something else. I listened to the audio version and I thought it was great!

Essun finds her young son, murdered by the hands of her husband, and he has taken her daughter. Now she has to travel the land to find them, get her daughter back and enact her revenge. However the giant continent that spans the world has been split in half, and oozing from the earth are gases that will now render all of the world uninhabitable. The world is called “The Stillness” and it has been overcome with earth movements and tremors for generations. However there are individuals, not entirely human, who can control the movements of the earth below.

This one is NOT for the faint-hearted fantasy novice. It takes a while to get into. For the first part of the book you are literally thinking WTF is going on!! Nothing seems to be melding together, and for some reason every chapter with Essun is written in second person, making it feel like a choose your own adventure book at times. It takes a little while to get used to. But then, all of a sudden, as if seamlessly – everything comes together. The paths that the chapters and characters take are fascinating, the pace and intricate weave of the story is mesmerising. It is full of action, adventure, love, lust, violence, comedy, anger and ENTERTAINMENT!

This is the first book of Jamieson’s that I have read and it wont be the last. What an imagination she has! My goodness! I absolutely love the strong female characters and the unique universe that she creates. You can certainly see why each book of this series has won a HUGO award! She doesn’t shy away from some pretty gruesome topics, a lot of which are pretty relevant in this universe too. Her prose is memorable and I loved each one of her characters, even the awful ones.

There is so much more I could say about this book, but I don’t want to delve much deeper and spoil the experience for any potential readers. It certainly was unique and like nothing I have ever read before.

I wasn’t as impressed with the last third of the book as I was with the rest. Yes, I know it was the start of a series and that it would end with a cliff-hanger, but for some reason it didn’t grip me towards the end. I will certainly read the rest of the series, but I couldn’t quite rate this 5 stars. It also had periods where it dragged on slightly. However I am pleased that it was the first book I finished in 2019. Hopefully my year will be filled with more enjoyable reads like this one!

Did I enjoy the audio version?
Yes I really enjoyed this on audio. The narrator was brilliant! Her voices were fantastic!

Would I recommend The Fifth Season?
Yes, absolutely! However as I said it is not for the fantasy novice. It takes a long while to get into the depth of the story and universe. It doesn’t explain as you go, you are just thrown in at the deep end and have to tread water until you find your stroke.

(4 / 5)