5 ms·

Be warned: the article contains some (imho) significant spoilers for "The Fifth Season", the first book of the "Broken Earth" trilogy. I read the Broken Earth

by jaster 6y ago

Be warned: the article contains some (imho) significant spoilers for "The Fifth Season", the first book of the "Broken Earth" trilogy. I read the Broken Earth books and thoroughly enjoyed them (especially the first). I found Jemisin's worldbuilding and protagonists writing to be very compelling. I strongly recommend to read at least the Fifth Season to see if her writings are to your taste. The fact that some would object that she is a Sci-fi writer seems... rather reductive to me at the least. Sure Jemisin does not write "hard" SF, and the Broken Earth has some strong fantasy tropes. But so did Frank Herbert and Ursula Le Guin, two among the most revered writers of the genre. [EDIT] I should not even say that she does not write hard SF, since I did not read her other books (yet). I should have kept it at "The Broken Earth trilogy is not hard SF"

ketzo 6y ago
Her other books are excellent, too. The Inheritance trilogy has probably my favorite of her protagonists, but they’re all great. I’ve got a deep and abiding love for authors who build unique “systems” for magic / “powers” and so on, and Jemisin’s are really unique and pretty well thought out without becoming tedious.
- chrisweekly 6y ago
  Same preference here. I assume you've read "Name of the Wind"?
  - bpyne 6y ago
    Rothfuss had an imaginative magic system in the Kingkiller Chronicles. I'm hoping that he continues with the system even if he doesn't finish the series.
- chris_st 6y ago
  Indeed. She hits a great balance between explaining enough that it's clear, but not over-explaining to show off her world-building skills.
- bpyne 6y ago
  Jemisin listed Octavia Butler as one of her biggest influences. I read a few of Octavia's books. The influence is clear. If you enjoy Jemisin, you'll enjoy Butler.
cageface 6y ago
Reading a whole book written in second person narrative got really annoying after a while and I couldn't finish it even though I thought there were some interesting ideas there.
- self_awareness 6y ago
  I think only some of the parts are written this way? But still, I found this point of view pretty interesting and I actually liked it.
- jaster 6y ago
  I can understand. I loved it personally. In fact, it is kind of the reason for why I started reading the trilogy in the first place: because Aphyr mentioned the Fifth Season as one of his influences for his series of short stories (posted several times here) also written in this style. (ref: https://www.metafilter.com/166166/Og-to-til-javanissen#6985515 https://www.metafilter.com/166166/Og-to-til-javanissen#69855...)
- tinco 6y ago
  It's not actually the whole book, she uses it as a literary device and explaining it fully would spoil some pretty cool things. The narrative form switches throughout the book, and I agree it's annoying a little bit, but the dissociated feeling it gives you is actually her intention. The fifth season definitely is a series that makes you feel uncomfortable, but I suppose not all stories can (or should) be comfortable.
  - disqard 6y ago
    Second this. It's not done merely as a superficial narrative gimmick.
- armitron 6y ago
  Besides that, I find her to be a horrible writer. I don't get the praise. Have standards dropped this low?
captn3m0 6y ago
+1 on the spoiler-ish part.
Yizahi 6y ago
I liked Broken Earth, maybe it wasn't very consistent and somewhat too long, but overall it was good. I also recommend Ancillary series by Ann Leckie.
- Gatsky 6y ago
  Ancillary Justice was pretty good, very tightly written. I find Iain M Banks' (RIP) books quite a bit more entertaining though, as far as the genre goes. Ancillary Justice also didn't blow my mind like The Diamond Age, which I thought was extraordinary.
tinco 6y ago
I read it as just regular fantasy. If you're going to classify books like that as sci-fi then even wheel of time is Sci-Fi. If all it takes for something to be sci-fi is "there was a civilisation with technology once and this seemingly magic artifact is a remnant of it" then a good 50% of high fantasy might be sci fi :P
- rsynnott 6y ago
  It's clearly not hard SF, but if I had to classify it I'd call it SF based on feel. Similar situation to The Urth of the New Sun; I don't think anyone really considers that fantasy, even though it has a similar (or even more extreme) "lost technology is unknowable magic" setup.
- bpyne 6y ago
  I think Jemisin is moving SciFi/Fantasy toward a point in which the hard line is becoming irrelevant. In general, I can't tolerate SciFi for much the same reason that I'm bored with High Fantasy. Jemesin brings enough of each into her stories that I can enjoy the science and am not seeing an ill-defined magic system bail characters out of poor choices.
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    The "New Wave" authors of the 1960s and 1970s such as Zelazny, Delany (directly mentioned in the article), Aldiss and others already pushed the boundaries of the "hard line" between Sci-Fi and Fantasy to the point of irrelevancy. It's not entirely a new struggle for these "two" genres to play with their boundaries.
celticninja 6y ago
It's more fantasy than sci-fi. I was always expecting that the cause of the problem would be explained by some sort of ancient technology, which it was but the tech was never really well explained, it's like she was trying to but couldn't quite get there. Saying that I did enjoy the books
asplake 6y ago
Outstanding audiobook series too, one of my favourites. Have listened to the whole trilogy three times now and will do so again
naravara 6y ago
> The fact that some would object that she is a Sci-fi writer seems... rather reductive to me at the least. Sure Jemisin does not write "hard" SF, and the Broken Earth has some strong fantasy tropes. But so did Frank Herbert and Ursula Le Guin, two among the most revered writers of the genre. Do people argue that it doesn't count as sci-fi? Just because the core scientific premises revolve around the (supposedly) unsexy field of geology rather than space travel or cyberpunk adjacent (robotics, AI, etc.) stuff? I say that if Star Wars counts as Sci-Fi I don't see why Fifth Season wouldn't. Jemisin clearly has a stronger grasp on the underlying science behind what she's talking about than Asimov did about either nuclear power or statistics/sociology when he wrote the Foundation series.

by jaster 6y ago

ketzo 6y ago

Her other books are excellent, too. The Inheritance trilogy has probably my favorite of her protagonists, but they’re all great. I’ve got a deep and abiding love for authors who build unique “systems” for magic / “powers” and so on, and Jemisin’s are really unique and pretty well thought out without becoming tedious.

chrisweekly 6y ago
Same preference here. I assume you've read "Name of the Wind"?
- bpyne 6y ago
  Rothfuss had an imaginative magic system in the Kingkiller Chronicles. I'm hoping that he continues with the system even if he doesn't finish the series.
chris_st 6y ago
Indeed. She hits a great balance between explaining enough that it's clear, but not over-explaining to show off her world-building skills.
bpyne 6y ago
Jemisin listed Octavia Butler as one of her biggest influences. I read a few of Octavia's books. The influence is clear. If you enjoy Jemisin, you'll enjoy Butler.

cageface 6y ago

Reading a whole book written in second person narrative got really annoying after a while and I couldn't finish it even though I thought there were some interesting ideas there.

self_awareness 6y ago
I think only some of the parts are written this way? But still, I found this point of view pretty interesting and I actually liked it.
jaster 6y ago
I can understand. I loved it personally. In fact, it is kind of the reason for why I started reading the trilogy in the first place: because Aphyr mentioned the Fifth Season as one of his influences for his series of short stories (posted several times here) also written in this style. (ref: https://www.metafilter.com/166166/Og-to-til-javanissen#6985515 https://www.metafilter.com/166166/Og-to-til-javanissen#69855...)
tinco 6y ago
It's not actually the whole book, she uses it as a literary device and explaining it fully would spoil some pretty cool things. The narrative form switches throughout the book, and I agree it's annoying a little bit, but the dissociated feeling it gives you is actually her intention. The fifth season definitely is a series that makes you feel uncomfortable, but I suppose not all stories can (or should) be comfortable.
- disqard 6y ago
  Second this. It's not done merely as a superficial narrative gimmick.
armitron 6y ago
Besides that, I find her to be a horrible writer. I don't get the praise. Have standards dropped this low?

captn3m0 6y ago

+1 on the spoiler-ish part.

Yizahi 6y ago

I liked Broken Earth, maybe it wasn't very consistent and somewhat too long, but overall it was good. I also recommend Ancillary series by Ann Leckie.

Gatsky 6y ago
Ancillary Justice was pretty good, very tightly written. I find Iain M Banks' (RIP) books quite a bit more entertaining though, as far as the genre goes. Ancillary Justice also didn't blow my mind like The Diamond Age, which I thought was extraordinary.

tinco 6y ago

I read it as just regular fantasy. If you're going to classify books like that as sci-fi then even wheel of time is Sci-Fi. If all it takes for something to be sci-fi is "there was a civilisation with technology once and this seemingly magic artifact is a remnant of it" then a good 50% of high fantasy might be sci fi :P

rsynnott 6y ago
It's clearly not hard SF, but if I had to classify it I'd call it SF based on feel. Similar situation to The Urth of the New Sun; I don't think anyone really considers that fantasy, even though it has a similar (or even more extreme) "lost technology is unknowable magic" setup.
bpyne 6y ago
I think Jemisin is moving SciFi/Fantasy toward a point in which the hard line is becoming irrelevant. In general, I can't tolerate SciFi for much the same reason that I'm bored with High Fantasy. Jemesin brings enough of each into her stories that I can enjoy the science and am not seeing an ill-defined magic system bail characters out of poor choices.
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  The "New Wave" authors of the 1960s and 1970s such as Zelazny, Delany (directly mentioned in the article), Aldiss and others already pushed the boundaries of the "hard line" between Sci-Fi and Fantasy to the point of irrelevancy. It's not entirely a new struggle for these "two" genres to play with their boundaries.

celticninja 6y ago

It's more fantasy than sci-fi. I was always expecting that the cause of the problem would be explained by some sort of ancient technology, which it was but the tech was never really well explained, it's like she was trying to but couldn't quite get there. Saying that I did enjoy the books

asplake 6y ago

Outstanding audiobook series too, one of my favourites. Have listened to the whole trilogy three times now and will do so again

naravara 6y ago

> The fact that some would object that she is a Sci-fi writer seems... rather reductive to me at the least. Sure Jemisin does not write "hard" SF, and the Broken Earth has some strong fantasy tropes. But so did Frank Herbert and Ursula Le Guin, two among the most revered writers of the genre. Do people argue that it doesn't count as sci-fi? Just because the core scientific premises revolve around the (supposedly) unsexy field of geology rather than space travel or cyberpunk adjacent (robotics, AI, etc.) stuff? I say that if Star Wars counts as Sci-Fi I don't see why Fifth Season wouldn't. Jemisin clearly has a stronger grasp on the underlying science behind what she's talking about than Asimov did about either nuclear power or statistics/sociology when he wrote the Foundation series.