Review: The Fifth Season
N. K. Jemisin has won the Hugo award for Best Novel for the last three years in a row. It’s the kind of thing that eventually catches my attention, and I’m happy that it did. The Fifth Season is the first of these three and a well deserved honor. Jemisin shows off so many of the things I love about SF: careful world building, believable characters, and beautiful writing.
She creates an world that is exotic and intriguing while remaining connected to ours. As most great SF authors do, she twists the world in a few comprehensible ways while keeping closely enough in touch to mirror reality. There is meaty commentary here on both fiction and reality that lands with a light touch. That is to say that the world is immersive and the story crackles along snappily. One can enjoy the ride without deep thought. If you like deep thinking, the world ignites and supports it.
Key to making a believable world is looking out at it through the eyes of a real person and seeing other real people. Nemisin’s people are clearly of her world while being comprehensible to those from ours. While much is indubitably made of the racial and sexual inclusiveness of her players, I find them at least as diverse in their worldviews and social backgrounds. They are all genuine and interesting and complex enough that none of them is completely admirable or static.
True characters in a wide world are the catalysts for a great story but Jemisin’s writing is the cherry on top. Her writing is structurally powerful. It reveals the world and characters in a Salome-like dance, simultaneously enticing, propulsive and deceptive. Plot, character, and theme all appear and deepen with brilliant timing. The specific writing is a delight as well. Individual sentences sometimes twirl as they conclude, bringing insight, horror, or power to the narrative.
And that closer…
Strongly Recommended.