The problems with this novel begin with the first paragraph: "Let's start with the end of the world, why don't we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things."

This paragraph is problematic for two reasons. The first is that the end of the world is more interesting than anything else this novel has to offer. That's not necessarily a strike against the novel itself – many stories use the world's end as a jumping-off point for any number of related topics – but this paragraph sets one hell of a high bar for the story, and one it is ultimately unable to overcome. As a narrative device, apocalypses unleash social upheaval on a grand, inconceivable scale. Here, that social upheaval is mostly ignored in favor of a bog-standard trauma narrative that reveals little about its central characters, substituting pain for personality. Yes, it's very easy to tell that this was published in 2015.

The second reason is the prose. I'm not opposed to fantasy stories being narrated in different modes than the highfalutin faux-antiquity register we usually get, but I am opposed to novels being written like they're being narrated by flippant 18-year-old edgelords, unless it's intentional, which is not the case here. The descriptions of geography and earthbending (it's not actually called that, but that's essentially what we're dealing with here) are well-done, and the use of second-person perspective occasionally interesting, but ask Jemisin to describe a human being and she'll tell you about their skin tone, hairstyle, and clothing, then follow that up with, "There was something strange about him, but she didn't know what."

The prose issues aren't confined to description either. A sample line of dialogue, from page 356: "Er... no. I don't – uh. No. Maybe later."

Oh, but that's just the first paragraph. Rest assured, it doesn't get any better. I could talk about the way the narrative condemns oppression while simultaneously smacking of eugenics. Or how it never gets past the surface level of its social dynamics, leaving the story oversimple and inert. Or how one late chapter packs three huge twists into a scant 20 pages, all touched off by mere coincidence. Or how the big questions of the novel are dismissed as inexplicable, then forgotten. Or I could just write about the 2015-ness of it all: the poly relationship between a woman, a bi man, and a gay man; the trans character who presents as such even in childhood; the truly godawful sex scenes; the way there is precisely one gay character, one bi character, one trans character, and so on, as if Jemisin were checking boxes as she went along (though none of them, of course, are ever granted the privilege of becoming a narrator).

But I'm not going to write about all that. I've gotten this novel over with and moved on to more interesting things.

Fifth Season

Loading Description

Bookshelves

Threads

Quotes

Reviews

Lists

Purchasable Editions

The fifth season (2016)

The fifth season (2016)

You May Also Like