A review by bookwoods
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

5.0

 One of my favorite moments in reading is when I’ve spent hours believing one thing about the story and suddenly, one sentence makes me view everything I’ve read so far in a completely new light. When I haven’t been able to see that twist coming. When it makes complete sense. When I want to reread the whole book that instant. And The Fifth Season gave me that moment, and so much more besides. 

Like the world building. I love how the book begins by slowly telling the basics. No info dump, nothing too complicated. Just gently introducing you to the setting. The more complex stuff becomes clear later. Not by one character explaining it through pages and pages of monologue, but through little snippets here and there that gradually amount to the required understanding. 

I won’t be able to do as great of a job describing the Stillness (the world of The Fifth Season), but here’s a brief intro: it’s a huge continent reflecting our world, with Arctics and Antarctics, deserts, tundra, coastal towns and a capital. But contrary to its name, it keeps changing. Events called the fifth seasons, started by massive tsunamis, earthquakes and the like, disturb life for years or decades. Communities are prepared for them. To a degree. 

But that’s not all, this is fantasy after all. There’s mystic creatures called eartheaters, giant obelisks floating the sky and people called orogenes, who can ‘manipulate energy to address seismic events’. It’s all quite cool once you begin to understand it. But at the end of the book you’ve only began to understand – orogeny, the history of the land and motivations of the characters. That’s why buying the later installments asap is of utmost importance.