The Fifth Season - A Review
THE FIFTH SEASON, by N.K. Jemisin, is Book 1 in the Broken Earth Trilogy. As such, it is hard to quantify what the first in the series is actually about. What can be said is that the narrative universe of THE FIFTH SEASON takes place on a planet similar to our own, which is referred to as Father Earth. In this world, there are people who are born with the ability to affect nature. Their power is generally focused upon the earth itself, though they seem to be able to do more than just cause/stifle earthquakes and create volcanic eruptions. These people are called orogene, but are sometimes referred to as rogga, which they consider a slur.
The planet of this narrative universe has gone through Seasons, which are great environmental catastrophes that cause massive destruction and wipe out the comms, or cities that manage to develop between the seasons. Because the orogenes are in tune with the earth, they too can cause destruction and death, so the Stills, or people without such powers who are also the planet’s majority, hate orogenes, hunt them down, and kill them. There is also a group of super powered individuals called Guardians who control the orogenes through violence and intimidation.
THE FIFTH SEASON is told from three point of views. One PoV is a little girl name Damaya; the other is a woman named Synenite; the last is through a second person PoV, and she is Essun.
There is no overarching plot that begins off the first book of this series. Essun is seeking her husband, who has murdered their child when he discovered that the boy is orogene. She wants to kill him for this, and she also wants to rescue her daughter, whom her husband has taken.
Damaya is living in a barn after it is discovered that she is orogene. Her negligent parents give her to a Guardian, who brings her to an academy for oregenes. At the academy, called the Fulcrum, the orogene children are taught to control their powers and be a benefit to the comms living on the broken earth.
Synenite is already a high-ranking member of the academy and has four rings. The rings are a way to designate how advanced orogenes are in their skill of orogeny. The most powerful of them have ten rings.
Whereas Essun has a clear narrative goal (the finding and killing of her husband), both Damaya and Synenite are simply surviving the different events they find themselves in. Because there is no definite narrative direction for two of the three characters, THE FIFTH SEASON has a slowed narrative pace. Readers learn about the characters’ world without there being an apparent end goal to many of the events happening.
There is a lot of death and tragedy in THE FIFTH SEASON. N.K. Jemisin does a good job of making readers feel like they are living on a dying world; or, at the very least, a world where civilization struggles to exist. Mysteries are set up for Book 2 and Book 3, though there is a feeling throughout the narrative that the situation of the humans of this world is not going to improve. An idea that is mentioned throughout the book is that Father Earth became angry with the life on its surface a long time ago and has decided to eradicate humans, whereas once Earth tolerated them and even found amusement in mankind. In this way, THE FIFTH SEASON can be classified as ecofiction. The humans in the past raped the planet, and now the planet is fighting back.
This gives a clear warning to those reading the book.
A tragic ending in the final book, titled THE STONE SKY, seems almost assured, as an angry planet is going to always have the advantage over mere humans. How does one get forgiveness from a planet they have ruined because of their selfish desires?
THE FIFTH SEASON has almost all black characters, which is refreshing in a fantasy book. It won the Hugo award and is a best selling series. For those looking for a genre book that does not feel like more of the same, THE FIFTH SEASON is definitely worth reading for a unique experience.
