The Fifth Season
by N. K. Jemisin · first published 2015
48% recommend39% neutral13% critical
Why HN recommends it
Epic fantasy/sci-fi on an alternate Earth where magic runs on earthquakes, with a grim tone and unconventional storytelling. Praised as one of the best recent SFF novels; suits readers who want the Broken Earth trilogy.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A SEASON OF ENDINGS HAS BEGUN. 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 familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy. This description comes from the publisher.
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…Banks: lotsa mustache twirling. Surface details and Player of Games in particular. My view of the culture AI is that they are constantly sarcastically toying with humans, and are thus secretly twirling. - Fifth Season (Jemisin): no twirling. One of the most balanced novel on that front, every faction has believable reason to act the way they do. - Book of the New Sun: no twirling, but OMG, stop what you're doing a…
on “The Hypertext annotated version of “A Fire Upon the Deep” (1993)” ↗Although I very much like hard sci-fi, my favorite this year was the "Broken Earth" trilogy (The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky) from N.K. Jemisin.
on “Ask HN: Best scifi of 2017? (Vernor Vinge/Larry Niven style)” ↗…and explore its effects on society. I'd like to offer some examples: - "Hello Summer, Goodbye" by Michael Coney - "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood (the first book in the Maddaddam trilogy) - "The Fifth Season" by N. K. Jemisin (the first book in the Broken Earth trilogy) - "The Mechanical" by Ian Tregillis (the first book in the Alchemy Wars trilogy) - "Nexus" by Ramez Naam (the first book in the Nexus trilogy)…
on “How Isaac Asimov shaped robotics and space exploration and predicted the Internet” ↗Fifth Season - N. K Jemisin. Epic Fantasy, set in a alternative Earth, where the magic system works on Earthquakes. Won the Hugo this year, which is why I read it. Breaks a lot of core writing rules, and tries hard…
on “Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?” ↗I highly recommend all of NK Jemisin's works. The first novel in her most recent series won this year's Hugo for Best Novel: The Fifth Season.
on “YC's Winter Reading List” ↗…with a Big Dumb Object, excellent Making the Monster by Kathryn Harkup --> Non-fiction about Mary Shelley, disappointing Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer --> Effectively creepy and well written The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin --> Absolutely fantastic, highly recommended [0] https://sheep.horse/tagcloud.html#book
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗Lots of disposable scifi in this thread. And there is nothing wrong with that so let me chime in with the hard stuff: The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin is one of the best scifi/fantasy (it is hard the classify) novels I have read in recent years. Fair warning, it gets pretty grim. I also enjoyed reading Ignition! by John D Clark. It…
on “Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?” ↗The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin (and then the rest of the Broken Earth series) great dystopian sci-fi
on “Ask HN: Read any good books lately?” ↗The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin It’s a recent Hugo award winner. Generally speaking if you like SiFi/Fantasy novels, you can find a trove of excellent books by looking at the list of past Hugo and Nebula award winners…
on “Ask HN: Best books read in 2022” ↗A great fantasy book is "The Fifth Season" by N. K. Jemisin. The whole broken earth trilogy by Jemisin is amazing. Here's to fantasy books!
on “Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?” ↗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.…
on “N. K. Jemisin’s Dream Worlds” ↗…(getting a Hugo award for the first book means people will start the series, and since the awards are popular voting having people read your book is half the struggle). I think the first two books (The Fifth Season and the Stone Sky) were great, but I didn't love the final book. I think Ann Leckie's Provenance should have won that year - it's in the (Hugo award winning!) Ancillary Justice universe, and deals with…
on “N. K. Jemisin’s Dream Worlds” ↗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#69855...)
on “N. K. Jemisin’s Dream Worlds” ↗https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Tongue_(Elgin_novel) A sort of Sapir-Worf hypothesis Sci fi book. Arguably the Fifth Season by NK Jemesin is a geology Sci Fi. And Xenogenesis by Octavia Butler an anthropology and gene editing Sci Fi. All wonderful works.
on “Ask HN: What is your favorite 'soft' science fiction” ↗In case anyone else is thinking about picking up the Broken Earth trilogy, I'll offer another opinion. The Fifth Season still stands out to me as one of the best sff novels I've read in many years and I recommend it wholeheartedly. I remember feeling sorry for authors who had novels published the same year, because The…
on “The 2023 Hugo nomination statistics have been released and we have questions” ↗