[SciFi/Fantasy] | [Teen Audiences] | [5 stars]

N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season is the first book in the SciFi/Fantasy Broken Earth Trilogy.  It was the winner of the Hugo Award in 2016 (and by the way, the sequels won in 2017 and 2018, respectively, so this was definitely not a one-and-done). 

She has created a fantasy world where people with inherent powers are bred and controlled by overseers.  Despite the amazing powers over physical nature that the Orogenes - those with powers -  have, there are those who hold a still more ultimate power over them.  In her world, recurring cataclysms periodically wipe the majority of the population from the earth in events known as seasons – but each time, there is a recovery and the population grows again.  The problem is that the systemic prejudices between and among different groups of people also grow again.

She’s built an amazing world – one that she describes with care and detail that truly makes you feel present with the characters.  The readers follow three character arcs through the novel and these three parallel stories really give you an understanding of how the predominant themes of the novel - issues of inequality and systemic prejudice - are seen through the lens of a little girl, a young woman, and a jaded mother in search of her remaining surviving child.

In other parts of the story, she explores ideas of sexual identity, free will, and the concept of whether there are things that are worse than death.  Her exploration of these are sometimes funny, sometimes thoughtful, but always carefully crafted and stay with you.  This passage in particular, has stuck in my mind for many months, the idea that a human could be treated so inhumanely: 

While the story survives on its own and can be enjoyed by all scifi/fantasy fans, the parallels between her Broken Earth and the history of race relations in the US are laid starkly bare.  Through her own narrative, the inherent bias and pervasive prejudice that have plagued race relations in the United States for the last three centuries are opened like the wound in the surface of the earth that threatens to destroy all life in her world.

It’s a story that is tough to read if you can see through the veil of fiction – but one that I found was eye-opening, powerful, and -frankly- necessary.  The idea and concept that she reaches at the end is an interesting philosphical one:  is there a way to cure the world of intolerance?