The Fifth Season

"N. K. Jemisin’s latest novel, The Fifth Season, takes place in a land called the Stillness — a tragically ironic name, since it suffers geographical cataclysms on a periodic basis. Essun, a schoolteacher whose husband inexplicably kills their son and flees with their daughter, undergoes a quest across the Stillness that starts out as a rescue but becomes something else entirely. Jemisin brilliantly illustrates that imaginative world-building is a vital element of fantasy, but also that every character can be a world unto herself."

"I would love to see certain worlds come to life, like the perilous, earthquake-ridden Earth of N. K. Jemisin's 'The Fifth Season.'"

"The world of these books is so unsettling and compelling, really brilliantly drawn. We’re on a planet disrupted periodically by its climate, a harsh period known as ‘the fifth season’. People live within comms; a special sort of person, an orogene, should not stay in a normal comm, and should instead be sent to the Fulcrum and trained by Guardians. They have supernatural control over energy, particularly the seismic, and can be dangerous if uncontrolled. We follow three orogenes with different relationships to this system of governance. It’s deeply unnerving. There’s an image early on in the book, where one of our three protagonists is being taken from her home by a Guardian as a child, and he is telling her a story as they ride. His strong hands are wrapped around hers, and she is starting to feel soothed. Then, at the relevant point in the story, he breaks her hands. This is Jemisin’s gift – finding the unpredictable, creating a fascinatingly uncertain world that will force you not to look away. All three books won the Hugo, one after the other, three years in a row. It’s the only trilogy to win a Hugo for all three books, and Jemisin is the only writer to win it three years back-to-back. It’s a big deal!"