Sooooo this is a sequel to the book THE FIFTH SEASON, and the second book in the BROKEN EARTH TRILOGY. I reviewed the first book a couple of weeks ago, here, so rather than indulge in a super-intricate summary, I’ll invite you to check out that review and come on back.
Had a good read? Cool.
So, we pick up almost immediately where THE FIFTH SEASON ended. Essun, our rogue earth-manipulating Orogene, has found refuge, of a sort, in an underground enclave known as Castrima. Uniquely in this fairly terrible society, Castrima is relatively forgiving of the presence of Orogenes…so much so that their leader is an Orogene herself, and not afraid to get a bit boasty about it. Essun still wants to find her kidnapped daughter, but with the catastrophe of the shattered world growing ever more inescapable, and her daughter’s trail grown cold, Essun finds herself settling down and attempting to learn how to trust strangers again.
It doesn’t…it doesn’t work out so well. The fact that she possesses a power that can literally turn everyone to stone should she get pissed off adds a certain…chill…to her attempts at casual hangs.
Meanwhile, Essun’s long lost daugher, Nassun, is being dragged across a crumbling continent by her father (the same father that beat her brother to death when he found out his son was an Orogene). Her father is seeking out a fabled place that might be able to cure his daughter of the same, in his words, ‘affliction’. What they find instead is a remote outpost manned by half-mad imperial overseers, who have their own plans for Nassun’s budding powers…
SO if THE FIFTH SEASON was a wild wide across several time periods and many locales, introducing a host of characters at an almost breakneck pace, THE OBELISK GATE slooooooooows things right down. Essun barely leaves the confines of Castrima, and her daughter also spends most of her time in a single location (in this case a SUPER twisted school for magic users). Where before there were battles, intrigue, and desperate struggles with overwhelming forces, here we have…debate. Conversation. Musings. Recollections…and more debate.
It’s not as if the book is ENTIRELY without incident (Castrima’s struggling with an increasingly aggressive neighbouring community powers a lot of the narrative’s second half) but this is a book that, very deliberately, makes time for expanding backstory rather than physical frontiers, and explores motivations rather than mysterious jungle temples. How well this works for you will very much depend on your love of Jemisin’s characters and, to her credit, I think Jemisin has done a very good job of populating her tale with vivid, well-realized persons with complexity, conflict and a whole lot of doomsday-weary sass. It’s a far more low-key adventure than what you might have been expecting, but it’s clearly setting up for a big finale in the trilogy’s concluding volume, and I for one trust Jemisin to steer this currently easy-going vessel to a worthy destination. Me like books.
Me Like Books 