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The Fifth Season

The Broken Earth, Book 1

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The Fifth Season

By: N. K. Jemisin
Narrated by: Robin Miles
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About this listen

 Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel
Book 1 in the record-breaking triple Hugo-Award-winning trilogy

***One of Time Magazine's top 100 fantasy books of all time***
***Shortlisted for the World Fantasy, Nebula, Kitschies, Audie and Locus Awards***
***A New York Times Notable Book and the inaugural Wired.com book club pick ***

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS . . . FOR THE LAST TIME.
IT STARTS WITH THE GREAT RED RIFT across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun.
IT STARTS WITH DEATH, with a murdered son and a missing daughter.
IT STARTS WITH BETRAYAL, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.
This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

'Astounding' NPR
'Amazing' Ann Leckie
'Breaks uncharted ground' Library Journal
'Powerful' io9
'Elegiac, complex, and intriguing' Publishers Weekly
'Intricate and extraordinary' New York Times
'Brilliant' Washington Post

The Broken Earth trilogy is complete - beginning with The Fifth Season, continuing in The Obelisk Gate (Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel) and concluding with The Stone Sky (Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel and Nebula Award).

Also by N. K. Jemisin:
The Inheritance trilogy
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
The Broken Kingdoms
The Kingdom of Gods

The Dreamblood Duology
The Killing Moon
The Shadowed Sun©2015 N. K. Jemisin Fantasy Fiction

Continue the series
The Obelisk Gate cover art
The Obelisk Gate By: N. K. Jemisin

Critic reviews

Jemisin brilliantly illustrates the belief that, yes, imaginative world-building is a vital element of fantasy - but also that every character is a world unto herself
Fantasy novels often provide a degree of escapism: a good thing, for any reader who has something worth escaping. Too often, though, that escape comes through a fictional world that erases rather than solves the more complex problems of our own... In Jemisin's work, nature is not unchangeable or inevitable. The Fifth Season invites us to imagine a dismantling of the earth in both the literal and the metaphorical sense, and suggests the possibility of a richer and more fundamental escape
Heartbreaking, wholly unexpected, and technically virtuosic, THE FIFTH SEASON is a tour-de-force. I felt every shock--and the book is packed with them--in my marrow. It's no exaggeration to say that Jemisin expands the range of what great fantasy can be (Brian Staveley)
All stars
Most relevant
Be warned. The opening chapter is terrible and doesn't reflect the rest of the story. The narrator loses the weird jokey familiarity, the background music stops and the second person writing style only appears periodically. (Not something I normally struggle with but having an audiobook refer to 'you' doing things is a tad jarring at first.)

The plot focuses around 3 woman who are second class citizens subject to racism. The author has clearly written from a familiarish viewpoint but there's a reason people are told to 'write what you know' and that's because it works.

It is a little confusing working out how technologically advanced the background civilisation is. They have hydro-electric power, tarmac and antibiotics but ride horses, use telegrams, don't have guns and don't know what stars are. You end up having to sort of roll with it and assume pre-medieval tech until told otherwise.

The main characters are all stubborn and excessively close-minded. I think we are meant to put this down to brainwashing but it does grate a bit.

Overall, the story is fairly unique, the plot is compelling, the narration is good and the characters are quite likeable. Other than my minor qualms above there isn't anything too wromg with the story. Give it a go.

Good and enjoyable book.

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This is an odd book. The author does a great job of world building and populates it with some compelling characters but managed to have them do very little other than wander around aimlessly. There's an occasional reveal, which all feel fairly arbitrary, and some slightly strange narrative choices which don't really work.

That said, it's certainly original and the narration is excellent.

Well read, decent characters, plodding plot

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t is sad that fantasy fiction has somehow latched itself to the trilogy format. This lengthy format addiction means that too many authors stretch their material to fit. The Broken Earth story has material for one book - at max two. Being stretched over a trilogy means that it looses its momentum. It keeps going long after the reader/listener has lost interest. It is a pain to listen to plot elements that would have been exiting in a 5-10 minute frame, being dragged out for over an hour.
Authors, editors and publishers - Please start making single novel fantasy stories. Please don't make epics out of a one book novels!

As for the Broken Earth trilogy, a drawn out storyline is not the only problem unfortunately.

They author struggles to make some of the key characters believable. The daughter is particularly jarring. It seems that the author is concerned that the reader/listener will not follow her development - so she over explains. Sadly, for me that just emphasises the wrongness and strains the character's credulity.

Magic and the fantastical is part of the beautiful escape of the fantasy genre. But even magic and the fantastical needs to be consistent. If a rule for the magic has been established - then it can't be ignored half a book later. Changing rules/systems along the way challenges the reader/listener"s belief in the story - and abruptly ends the suspension of disbelief.

For instance - stone eater travel could have resolved all tribulations of the stillness and the characters in the story. As it finally does in the end of the third book. So it finally takes place after two books full of unnecessary ordeals.

The Broken Earth world is a fascinating one. The author has a lot of potential. Her ideas are strong and enjoyable.

I hope she and her editor will avoid stretching her material next time.

One book story dragged into a trilogy

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Classy writing. I won’t explain why.
At first I thought the narrator was a bit too American but that soon wore off and I liked the performance in the end.
Really looking forward to more of this story now.

Loved it

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I first enjoyed this, the first book in a trilogy, as a kindle book. Like the stone which features centrally throughout, it's the tale of a hard life with bright veins and sparkles, and the end is not an end. So if you enjoy this, immediately download the next book! There is joy, and there is grief, and there is weird. N K Jemisin's world building is always credible, if very other. No spoilers about the story - listen, and let the earth move!

Particular thanks to Robin Miles for the excellence of her narration. She reads clearly, and with exactly the right amount of expression. No rushing, no misplaced pauses, no unnecessary stresses. I'm looking forward to listening to the rest of the trilogy.

Excellent!

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