The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Liquid Hot Magma!
This is a read that does not disappoint. It’s got some peculiarities and some rather off timed vulgarities but overall I found the entire beginning to this epic fascinating.
The prose is well done. I can feel rocks now. I want to be a geologist. I want to reach into the earth and.. wait.. I can’t do that? Bah.. The way this is written makes you ache with the lost knowledge of many deadcivs and that really fascinates me. How many eons are at work here, how long has this never ending death (or near death) of Earth life gone on? What was forgotten? Why is it happening? Glimpse? Glimpse? No? Little crack? Ooh.. What? TELL ME MORE DAMNIT.
The classic ache of knowledge heretofore is a constant string pulling us forward. Then you have the chapter setup which has no time until you progress and you start wondering how the threads are tied together. Wow. I started hazarding the way it unfolds would be the way it did but it still threw me a bit. I take issue with the Intermissions because they only Intermit one voice and that’s hard to track. Then the be-bopping between timelines gets a little sordid; while I guess the author wants us surprised a chapter starting with the year would have been beneficial to keep my brains continuity map right.
Anyhow. Small things. Small things. Grit.
The world is built solid as rock, the characters and their stonelore are great concepts. This new function of humanity and what it can tap is marvelous and stone eaters. Really? I feel like I got a little Dr. Whovian twist in all of this.
The lives you follow are diversified and well built. As mentioned earlier there is some oddly placed vulgarity and sexuality which feels off because it’s perfunctory. It could have been utilized more but it’s deadpanned in a few places which take this from something PG13 to something I’d have to wait for a youngling to read. I like the passions though and understand the undercurrents.. sometimes. There is a lot of hidden facets in these people and I don’t always want to shake them for understanding but sometimes I do. lol.
Much to learn, much to be curious about. At the end of the book I turned around and read the beginning again because it made so much more sense. Did you?
Digging into book 2 now. Once again finding out the last book isn’t slated till the Summer. Bah!