Is The Fifth Season Worth Reading?
The Broken Earth, Book 1
by N.K. Jemisin
Ada’s Score
N.K. Jemisin's groundbreaking novel takes place on a supercontinent wracked by catastrophic seismic events called Fifth Seasons, where people who can control these forces — orogenes — are enslaved and feared. Told in an audacious second-person present tense, the novel follows three women whose stories converge in devastating ways. Jemisin builds a fully realized world of geological terror and systematic oppression, using speculative fiction to illuminate questions of race, power, and survival. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2016, the first book in a trilogy that swept all three consecutive Hugo Awards.
Hugo Spotlight“The second-person voice sounds like a gimmick — until suddenly it isn't. Jemisin makes you feel the apocalypse in your bones. Astonishing.”
The World Is Ending. Again.
N.K. Jemisin opens this book with a sentence that stops you cold, and she never once lets up. The Fifth Season is set on a continent that experiences regular apocalyptic seasons, told through a narrative structure so bold it won the Hugo Award — and then she did it again the next two years with the sequels. If you think you know what speculative fiction can do, this book will respectfully, magnificently prove you wrong.
Ada Brief
AI reading intelligence“The second-person voice sounds like a gimmick — until suddenly it isn't. Jemisin makes you feel the apocalypse in your bones. Astonishing.”
The World Is Ending. Again.
N.K. Jemisin opens this book with a sentence that stops you cold, and she never once lets up. The Fifth Season is set on a continent that experiences regular apocalyptic seasons, told through a narrative structure so bold it won the Hugo Award — and then she did it again the next two years with the sequels. If you think you know what speculative fiction can do, this book will respectfully, magnificently prove you wrong.
Book Details
- Publisher
- Turtleback
- Published
- January 1, 2015
- Pages
- 512
- Language
- English
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Affiliate linksISBN: 9780316229296
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Ada’s Score
4.7
Ada’s editorial score — not an aggregate of reader reviews.
Common Questions About The Fifth Season
- Is The Fifth Season worth reading?
- The second-person voice sounds like a gimmick — until suddenly it isn't. Jemisin makes you feel the apocalypse in your bones. Astonishing. Ada rates it 4.7 out of 5.
- How many pages is The Fifth Season?
- The Fifth Season is 512 pages long — around 9–10 hours at an average reading pace.
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