The Fifth Season

The Broken Earth, Book 1

By: N. K. Jemisin

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this "intricate and extraordinary" Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution. (The New York Times)

This is the way the world ends...for the last time.

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 long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the Earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

Listen to the first book in the critically acclaimed, three-time Hugo award-winning trilogy by NYT best-selling author N. K. Jemisin.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2015 N.K. Jemisin (P)2015 Hachette Audio

Not good enough to be interested in the next book.

Interesting way to tell a story, but between the difficulties in rectifying the timeline, understanding the world, and having to struggle to become interested in the main characters, I am satisfied with letting the story rest where this book finishes.

Reminds me of Philip K. Dick/ not my style

I have roughly 1 hour left of this book and I am having a tough time finishing. The author does an excellent job, but the story is not my taste.

I had a tough time with this book. This could be because I usually listen to audiobooks while doing other things, but this book was tougher to follow than others. For one, there are three main protagonists. All of them have different supporting characters with names you are not used to. Of these three protagonists, one of them is told in the second person perspective, the other two are in the third person perspective. The chapter layout is clunky, making it seem like the story shifts without much warning. If you are able to sit down and listen to the story without much else going on, you should be fine (ie long bus/ plane ride). However, if you are like me and have an audiobook on while working in the yard, cleaning or doing stuff in the workshop, you may find yourself having to backtrack more often than you like. This would have been easier if the chapter layout was different. If the chapter changed every time the story switch location/character/time it might have been a little easier for me to follow along.

Secondly, this book is much more inner monologue than it is action, which is generally what I come to the sci-fi/fantasy genre for. The author is excellent, but the story feels slow because of it to me. If you like authors like Philip K. Dick who focus often on characters as opposed to action, you should be right at home with this book.

The world that N. K Jemisin is wonderful, and it has the bones to be an excellent story but seems to never quite get there for me. It felt like a long-winded prologue to a wonderful tale about racism, women's rights, and self acceptance but never turned the corner the way I wanted. This may have changed later in the book series, but I felt like the story itself could have been told in half the time or less. I do not need to know every passing thought a character has. I like to infer that on my own.

I do not think this is a bad book. The writing is excellent and the performance is very good as well. It just did not appeal to me for the reasons mentioned.

Great Read

Very confusing at first. Found a web site that helped me understand the Person places and time line. One of the most Amazing works of fiction. Can hardly wait to read next book of series. Performance was top notch.

Wow. Just... wow. Incredible.

Jemisin has not only created a vivid and carefully thought out fantasy world, and then populated it with interesting and believable characters, but she tells her story in an adult crafted way that draws the reader in and then springs shut. I was totally captured by her. I just finished book one - hopefully by the time I'm done with this review, book two will have finished downloading! Who needs sleep, right?

Overrated

Maybe it is all set up for the next books, but it felt forced and really dragged at times

Like a better, grittier version of stormlight arch

Voice acting was great. This book is traumatizing af, but worth it if you are ready for that.

a new favorite

I'm not sure why this book has so many bad reviews on the top of it's audible page! I wanted to write a short review just to encourage other people to give this book a try. The narrator is very talented and distinguishes the voices of characters clearly. I had no trouble at all getting through the whole audiobook and understanding the plot as I followed along.

I absolutely loved this story. The main characters are flawed and go through painful realizations that both reinforce and strip away what they believe about the world. This book is serious in tone, and what the characters go through is difficult and often sad, but it's also a love story. The love these characters find is atypical but so very human and believable, and I found myself caring deeply about the relationships that NK Jemisin carefully builds throughout the story.

I also loved the world she crafted and the possible future she envisions. Although this future is bleak and magical, through it all I felt that Jemisin understood something very true about humanity and our relationship to the earth.

Yes, the book is dark. It's tragic. If you are looking to totally escape our world and its problems, this might not be the right book for you. I found solace and truthfulness in the dynamics of this book. I felt faith that although it's very difficult, cultures and people can change. People can go beyond their limits and return back to themselves better than they were before, or maybe they don't learn anything the first time and repeat mistakes over and over again until they figure it out. Either way, I loved to hear how NK Jemisin described her world and the people in it.

She creates a fascinating world

The Fifth Season, which I read April 2020, brought me in to another world. I'm definitely going to finish the trilogy. I'm sure read it again next year

An exceptional series!

I loved this series! I highly recommend to anyone into scifi and lore! Great Storytelling!

Shallow fantasy with weak storyline

Jumps around. Characters are confused and poorly motivated. Several times and places with events unrelated to plot. Parts do not become whole.