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4.4 AVERAGE
4.4 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This review was originally published on Free (Read and) Write:
The Fifth Season is bold in every sense of the word, and yet it is also so simply just writing observation and truth. As Jemisin has said, “[T]here’s nothing that happens in [The Fifth Season] that hasn’t happened in our own world, in some way or another.”
I didn’t really know I liked fantasy books before I read this one. Fantasy, to me, had always read as European white boy wish fulfillment. Or, at best, something like The Dresden Files, an entertaining little urban fantasy romp that is still steeped in misogyny. Then one day on goodreads every reader whose opinions generally align with my own was reading this book, and I asked my favorite book friend (shout out if you’re reading this Rachel!) what she thought. She said I should set everything else I was reading aside and dig in ASAP, and so I did. In doing so, not only did I read an incredible story, but I also opened myself up to a world of reading wherein fantasy is, at it turns out, actually my favorite genre. I just needed to read the right kind. I read a blog post of Jemisin’s in which she noted how much SFF is out there in this non-formulaic vein, and questioned why it is that people feel blocked in finding it until they come across an author like her. I can only speak for myself, but I had reached a point in fantasy where my immediate reaction was, “In my experience, what I’ve read in this genre hasn’t really been enjoyable.” It was like a punch to the face to realize I’d just been too daft to seek out what I was missing from fantasy books – would have been as simple as conducting a basic google search.
While I would prefer to dissect the entirety of this series (and The Inheritance Trilogy which I tore through immediately after), I focused on this book alone because I hope that, like me, you may find it an introduction to a world you’ve been missing. This is activism in art, activism in writing. The Fifth Season tells the story of three women at different stages of life: Damaya, Syen, and Essun. We follow each of them as they navigate this world called The Stillness that Jemisin has crafted in such detail. Within this world, Seasons (natural disasters of apocalyptic power) occur with some regularity and can be both brought on or quelled by those with magical powers. These individuals are called Orogenes (or the more intentionally-derogatory term roggas), and they are the very essence of “otherness.” At once powerful, and also oppressed by the nature of those who fear such power due to a lack of understanding or perhaps just an inability to wield it. Looking around at our world, I hope I don’t need to spell out for you why this metaphor rings as realistic and important. (And perhaps it is worth mentioning again, this is not only a problem of Trump. The Fifth Season was published well prior to Trump’s election.)
In a quote that could be plucked right out of fantasy or reality Jemisin wrote, “Not that she hadn’t known it before: that she is a slave, that all roggas are slaves, that the security and sense of self-worth the Fulcrum offers is wrapped in the chain of her right to live, and even the right to control her own body. It’s one thing to know this, to admit it to herself, but it’s the sort of truth that none of them use against each other – not even to make a point – because doing so is cruel and unnecessary… he refuses to allow her any of the polite fictions and unspoken truths that have kept her comfortable, and safe, for years.” We tend to debate the death of Black bodies at the hands of police as if it’s an argument, we tend to debate the criminal justice system or that portion of the 13th amendment that still acts as a form of slavery – through a different world, a different but similar Earth, Jemisin pulls our eyes wide open to the fact that such oppression is EXACTLY where we are, no matter what lies we’ve been told that may have led us to believe otherwise.
Perhaps reviews of The Fifth Season, mine included, are so vague because the book can’t quite come into focus until its ending, and to bring it into focus for you now would ruin your experience of its two twists instead of allowing you to feel the weight of them. I will instead say this. For me, the book feels like a rallying cry to say, “SEE US. We are a culmination of all that you have placed on us over our lifetimes and over the lifetimes of our ancestors.” Maybe most importantly, the reactions to the Orogenes by others in The Stillness is not only a reflection of race in our culture; this otherness holds reflections of sexuality, holds reflections of immigration, holds reflections of the people we are gentrifying out of neighborhoods. Very simply anyone we have labeled “other.” We can feel the stings of confirmation bias throughout the book as the crimes of one marginalized character become the crimes of all. “When you’re lazy, we’re all lazy. We hurt you so you’ll do the rest of us no harm. Once Damaya would have protested the unfairness of such judgments. The children of the Fulcrum are all different; different ages, different colors, different shapes. Some speak Sanze-mat with different accents, having originated from different parts of the world. One girl has sharp teeth because it is her race’s custom to file them; another boy has no penis, though he stuffs a sock into his underwear after every shower; another girl has rarely had regular meals and wolfs down every one like she’s still starving…One cannot reasonably expect sameness out of so much difference, and it makes no sense for Damaya to be judged by the behavior of children who share nothing save the curse of orogeny with her.” Our society has consistently used fear to impose the sins of one person onto the sins of all, in many cases where no sin ever existed but rather was created in order to hold an entire group of people back. No one group of people in our culture is a monolith, but we tuck ourselves in at night with false stereotypes to make the world fit a normalized (namely white and primarily male) group’s perception of it.
In a recent interview, N.K. Jemisin said that as a Black woman writing about dragons it’s inherently fucking political. I would go further and say the very fact that characters who are people of color or are sexually fluid appear in this story so matter of factly, without some sort of justification to their very existence, is political (no matter how fucked up that may feel). She has said of fantasy, “The status quo is harmful, the status quo is significantly racist and sexist and a whole bunch of other things that I think need to change. With epic fantasy there is a tendency for it to be quintessentially conservative, in that its job is to restore what is perceived to be out of whack.” When you change the voice of fantasy, you shine a light on marginalization that is no longer willing to be ignored. I like that Jemisin takes this concept one step further, appearing with ease to show you that no, in fact – being a “minority” has nothing to do with physical power or numbers, and rather everything to do with the fears of those controlling institutionalized or normalized power.
The feeling of Jemisin’s boldness also comes from her writing style itself. The book is present tense, and Essun’s story is written in second person. I have never seen this executed well. But in this case it instills so much in the reader. I felt Essun’s pain, that disconnect from her own body and experiences wherein even should you as the reader discover this character is speaking on her own behalf, she might still refer to herself as “you.” I could go on, perhaps about the astounding way Jemisin managed to weave in the complexities of interpersonal relationships like family and motherhood without feeling like she overdid it. Or about the way that I still don’t understand how not a single one of her metaphors comes off as heavy-handed. But there’s just too much. Even in this one book, there’s just too much richness and complexity to break it down. I mean, there’s a reason she has three Hugos.
Daveed Diggs has signed on as an executive producer for the television adaptation of The Fifth Season. He has referred to Jemisin as a realist, saying, “The idea that there’s a certain kind of magic embedded in a race of people that is ultimately to be feared or worshiped or commodified is woven into our times.” And she is a realist. For all the fantastic world building and magic built into its spine, The Fifth Season is at its core a story of the oppressions of the past impacting the systemic institutionalized oppression in the present and the raw emotions attached to that structure.
And it is only because of this that I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Diggs and Jemisin are making art that falls along parallel lines (to say nothing of Diggs directly referencing Jemisin in his own work). I wouldn’t normally bring a movie plug into my book reviews, but Blindspotting (by the powerhouse writing/acting unit of Rafael Casal & Daveed Diggs) is by and large the best film I’ve seen all year. They utilized realistic character studies to produce an intense impact similar to that which Jemisin accomplished through fantasy. Casal and Diggs introduced their film at CinemaCon with a spoken word performance that gives me chills every single time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vweTyy3lZG4
“The art is how we hold the mirror up. Show this fiction to reveal the truth until it’s clear enough.” Do it with Blindspotting. Do it with The Fifth Season. Just as N.K. Jemisin used a second person narrative to make you understand the feeling of oppression and otherness and removal and PTSD (you here being people like me who, while female, are also middle class and white and benefitting from so much privilege), Casal and Diggs used the most common-place everyday moments to portray emotions wrapped up in the tension of systemic injustice. In one of the film’s climactic scenes, a cop car shines a spotlight onto the back of the main character Collin, a Black male who is just getting off probation – finally. Diggs & Casal discussed the moment during a Q&A by explaining that while most Black people understand that feeling, most white people don’t. We – those who are not entrenched in otherness – will never feel that experience, but we may feel FOR that character. They wanted the white audience to gasp and feel a nervous ache, and as a white person in that audience, one in the Bay no less, I definitely did. Just as I found myself longing for Essun and the pain of her trauma as she spoke “you” to me.
We can hear this desperate need for furthering critical social movements in art all around us. When will we take this art we consume and realize it is not just entertainment but its own movement to bring the truth before our eyes, to inspire empathy, to remember we must create a space so that these stories are not only never forgotten – they are also used to create a future with less otherness? Let us treat the art as what it is, both entertainment and an exercise in activism. To call it any less would be to discredit its importance.
Jemisin’s new short story collection How Long ‘Til Black Future Month was awaiting me amongst my Christmas gifts, and I cannot wait to read the reimagining of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, one of my favorite stories of all time. Until then, I recommend you start with The Fifth Season. Let me know how long it takes before you’ve devoured the rest.
The Fifth Season is bold in every sense of the word, and yet it is also so simply just writing observation and truth. As Jemisin has said, “[T]here’s nothing that happens in [The Fifth Season] that hasn’t happened in our own world, in some way or another.”
I didn’t really know I liked fantasy books before I read this one. Fantasy, to me, had always read as European white boy wish fulfillment. Or, at best, something like The Dresden Files, an entertaining little urban fantasy romp that is still steeped in misogyny. Then one day on goodreads every reader whose opinions generally align with my own was reading this book, and I asked my favorite book friend (shout out if you’re reading this Rachel!) what she thought. She said I should set everything else I was reading aside and dig in ASAP, and so I did. In doing so, not only did I read an incredible story, but I also opened myself up to a world of reading wherein fantasy is, at it turns out, actually my favorite genre. I just needed to read the right kind. I read a blog post of Jemisin’s in which she noted how much SFF is out there in this non-formulaic vein, and questioned why it is that people feel blocked in finding it until they come across an author like her. I can only speak for myself, but I had reached a point in fantasy where my immediate reaction was, “In my experience, what I’ve read in this genre hasn’t really been enjoyable.” It was like a punch to the face to realize I’d just been too daft to seek out what I was missing from fantasy books – would have been as simple as conducting a basic google search.
While I would prefer to dissect the entirety of this series (and The Inheritance Trilogy which I tore through immediately after), I focused on this book alone because I hope that, like me, you may find it an introduction to a world you’ve been missing. This is activism in art, activism in writing. The Fifth Season tells the story of three women at different stages of life: Damaya, Syen, and Essun. We follow each of them as they navigate this world called The Stillness that Jemisin has crafted in such detail. Within this world, Seasons (natural disasters of apocalyptic power) occur with some regularity and can be both brought on or quelled by those with magical powers. These individuals are called Orogenes (or the more intentionally-derogatory term roggas), and they are the very essence of “otherness.” At once powerful, and also oppressed by the nature of those who fear such power due to a lack of understanding or perhaps just an inability to wield it. Looking around at our world, I hope I don’t need to spell out for you why this metaphor rings as realistic and important. (And perhaps it is worth mentioning again, this is not only a problem of Trump. The Fifth Season was published well prior to Trump’s election.)
In a quote that could be plucked right out of fantasy or reality Jemisin wrote, “Not that she hadn’t known it before: that she is a slave, that all roggas are slaves, that the security and sense of self-worth the Fulcrum offers is wrapped in the chain of her right to live, and even the right to control her own body. It’s one thing to know this, to admit it to herself, but it’s the sort of truth that none of them use against each other – not even to make a point – because doing so is cruel and unnecessary… he refuses to allow her any of the polite fictions and unspoken truths that have kept her comfortable, and safe, for years.” We tend to debate the death of Black bodies at the hands of police as if it’s an argument, we tend to debate the criminal justice system or that portion of the 13th amendment that still acts as a form of slavery – through a different world, a different but similar Earth, Jemisin pulls our eyes wide open to the fact that such oppression is EXACTLY where we are, no matter what lies we’ve been told that may have led us to believe otherwise.
Perhaps reviews of The Fifth Season, mine included, are so vague because the book can’t quite come into focus until its ending, and to bring it into focus for you now would ruin your experience of its two twists instead of allowing you to feel the weight of them. I will instead say this. For me, the book feels like a rallying cry to say, “SEE US. We are a culmination of all that you have placed on us over our lifetimes and over the lifetimes of our ancestors.” Maybe most importantly, the reactions to the Orogenes by others in The Stillness is not only a reflection of race in our culture; this otherness holds reflections of sexuality, holds reflections of immigration, holds reflections of the people we are gentrifying out of neighborhoods. Very simply anyone we have labeled “other.” We can feel the stings of confirmation bias throughout the book as the crimes of one marginalized character become the crimes of all. “When you’re lazy, we’re all lazy. We hurt you so you’ll do the rest of us no harm. Once Damaya would have protested the unfairness of such judgments. The children of the Fulcrum are all different; different ages, different colors, different shapes. Some speak Sanze-mat with different accents, having originated from different parts of the world. One girl has sharp teeth because it is her race’s custom to file them; another boy has no penis, though he stuffs a sock into his underwear after every shower; another girl has rarely had regular meals and wolfs down every one like she’s still starving…One cannot reasonably expect sameness out of so much difference, and it makes no sense for Damaya to be judged by the behavior of children who share nothing save the curse of orogeny with her.” Our society has consistently used fear to impose the sins of one person onto the sins of all, in many cases where no sin ever existed but rather was created in order to hold an entire group of people back. No one group of people in our culture is a monolith, but we tuck ourselves in at night with false stereotypes to make the world fit a normalized (namely white and primarily male) group’s perception of it.
In a recent interview, N.K. Jemisin said that as a Black woman writing about dragons it’s inherently fucking political. I would go further and say the very fact that characters who are people of color or are sexually fluid appear in this story so matter of factly, without some sort of justification to their very existence, is political (no matter how fucked up that may feel). She has said of fantasy, “The status quo is harmful, the status quo is significantly racist and sexist and a whole bunch of other things that I think need to change. With epic fantasy there is a tendency for it to be quintessentially conservative, in that its job is to restore what is perceived to be out of whack.” When you change the voice of fantasy, you shine a light on marginalization that is no longer willing to be ignored. I like that Jemisin takes this concept one step further, appearing with ease to show you that no, in fact – being a “minority” has nothing to do with physical power or numbers, and rather everything to do with the fears of those controlling institutionalized or normalized power.
The feeling of Jemisin’s boldness also comes from her writing style itself. The book is present tense, and Essun’s story is written in second person. I have never seen this executed well. But in this case it instills so much in the reader. I felt Essun’s pain, that disconnect from her own body and experiences wherein even should you as the reader discover this character is speaking on her own behalf, she might still refer to herself as “you.” I could go on, perhaps about the astounding way Jemisin managed to weave in the complexities of interpersonal relationships like family and motherhood without feeling like she overdid it. Or about the way that I still don’t understand how not a single one of her metaphors comes off as heavy-handed. But there’s just too much. Even in this one book, there’s just too much richness and complexity to break it down. I mean, there’s a reason she has three Hugos.
Daveed Diggs has signed on as an executive producer for the television adaptation of The Fifth Season. He has referred to Jemisin as a realist, saying, “The idea that there’s a certain kind of magic embedded in a race of people that is ultimately to be feared or worshiped or commodified is woven into our times.” And she is a realist. For all the fantastic world building and magic built into its spine, The Fifth Season is at its core a story of the oppressions of the past impacting the systemic institutionalized oppression in the present and the raw emotions attached to that structure.
And it is only because of this that I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Diggs and Jemisin are making art that falls along parallel lines (to say nothing of Diggs directly referencing Jemisin in his own work). I wouldn’t normally bring a movie plug into my book reviews, but Blindspotting (by the powerhouse writing/acting unit of Rafael Casal & Daveed Diggs) is by and large the best film I’ve seen all year. They utilized realistic character studies to produce an intense impact similar to that which Jemisin accomplished through fantasy. Casal and Diggs introduced their film at CinemaCon with a spoken word performance that gives me chills every single time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vweTyy3lZG4
“The art is how we hold the mirror up. Show this fiction to reveal the truth until it’s clear enough.” Do it with Blindspotting. Do it with The Fifth Season. Just as N.K. Jemisin used a second person narrative to make you understand the feeling of oppression and otherness and removal and PTSD (you here being people like me who, while female, are also middle class and white and benefitting from so much privilege), Casal and Diggs used the most common-place everyday moments to portray emotions wrapped up in the tension of systemic injustice. In one of the film’s climactic scenes, a cop car shines a spotlight onto the back of the main character Collin, a Black male who is just getting off probation – finally. Diggs & Casal discussed the moment during a Q&A by explaining that while most Black people understand that feeling, most white people don’t. We – those who are not entrenched in otherness – will never feel that experience, but we may feel FOR that character. They wanted the white audience to gasp and feel a nervous ache, and as a white person in that audience, one in the Bay no less, I definitely did. Just as I found myself longing for Essun and the pain of her trauma as she spoke “you” to me.
We can hear this desperate need for furthering critical social movements in art all around us. When will we take this art we consume and realize it is not just entertainment but its own movement to bring the truth before our eyes, to inspire empathy, to remember we must create a space so that these stories are not only never forgotten – they are also used to create a future with less otherness? Let us treat the art as what it is, both entertainment and an exercise in activism. To call it any less would be to discredit its importance.
Jemisin’s new short story collection How Long ‘Til Black Future Month was awaiting me amongst my Christmas gifts, and I cannot wait to read the reimagining of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, one of my favorite stories of all time. Until then, I recommend you start with The Fifth Season. Let me know how long it takes before you’ve devoured the rest.
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I thought this was pretty good. Damaya's storyline was not fun to read and didn't do a lot for me, but Jemisin blessedly decided to not include many chapters of it which was great. I also like its omission lying that was a lot of fun.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Wow. Epic in the truest sense. Magic is a beautifully composed system and the world is uniquely designed. I loved the story and how it unfolded.
A very intentionally crafted story with clear themes on belonging, ostracization, personal growth, and making the best out of a bad situation- and if your best isn't enough, to change the situation.
This is the first time I've read a book where the author speaks on such 'familiar' terms with the reader. It was a bit startling at first and I warmed to it eventually, but it did feel a tad out of place without a framing story set around it (the whole 'let me tell you a tale- cut to chapter one' sort of thing). All in all I liked the author's prose and approach to story. The pace was a bit slower than I personally prefer but it forced me to spend time in the world she had crafted.
I LOVED how it was set in a fantasy world but felt very sci-fi with its terminology and science of things and explanations behind groups and politics and the like. I think that if I were to choose, I'd put it in the science fiction category.
The first third of this book had me drowning in terms I didn't know and trying to track multiple viewpoints set in different timeframes. The terms issue could have been solved by using the glossary at the back(was reading on a Nook, so I didn't realize it until the end) and the viewpoints sorted itself out in time. I will say that the 2nd person narrative took a minute to get used to, and I could see it seeping out in other chapters that were 3rd person, which didn't impress me, intentional or not.
All in all I liked the book very much, but it was missing a crucial element for me. I found myself wanting to know what happened next rather than actually caring about the plot, world, and characters, if that makes sense. For this reason I dropped it down to a 3/5 instead of 4/5, though that's merely personal preference.
Would recommend to someone looking for scifi/fantasy with strong female presence.
This is the first time I've read a book where the author speaks on such 'familiar' terms with the reader. It was a bit startling at first and I warmed to it eventually, but it did feel a tad out of place without a framing story set around it (the whole 'let me tell you a tale- cut to chapter one' sort of thing). All in all I liked the author's prose and approach to story. The pace was a bit slower than I personally prefer but it forced me to spend time in the world she had crafted.
I LOVED how it was set in a fantasy world but felt very sci-fi with its terminology and science of things and explanations behind groups and politics and the like. I think that if I were to choose, I'd put it in the science fiction category.
The first third of this book had me drowning in terms I didn't know and trying to track multiple viewpoints set in different timeframes. The terms issue could have been solved by using the glossary at the back(was reading on a Nook, so I didn't realize it until the end) and the viewpoints sorted itself out in time. I will say that the 2nd person narrative took a minute to get used to, and I could see it seeping out in other chapters that were 3rd person, which didn't impress me, intentional or not.
All in all I liked the book very much, but it was missing a crucial element for me. I found myself wanting to know what happened next rather than actually caring about the plot, world, and characters, if that makes sense. For this reason I dropped it down to a 3/5 instead of 4/5, though that's merely personal preference.
Would recommend to someone looking for scifi/fantasy with strong female presence.