N.K. Jemisin's trilogy, though much better than most current attempts at speculative fiction, shares similar problems, not least being an inability to create nuanced characters and an over-investment in ideological statements at the expense of creativity.
When I read the first book in the series, THE FIFTH SEASON, I was fascinated by Jemisin's thoroughly original take on post-apocalyptic fiction. To be sure, the author never actually says that her "broken earth" is actually a future-version of our Earth, though the narrative has its share of suggestive clues. It's not purely a "science fiction" world, starting with the idea that the Earth itself is sentient, having absorbed the spirit-force of living beings over the centuries. Somewhere in the very distant past, human scientists sought to tap the occult power of the Earth with assorted devices, including floating sky-obelisks and a race of inhuman humanoids called "tuners," who can move through stone like air.
At some point, the moon is flung out of orbit with its parent planet, and the sentient Earth unleashes vengeance of Old Testament proportions. Human beings are constantly subjected to chaotic "seasons," including massive earthquakes and volcano eruptions, making it inevitable that people only exist in small, unstable enclaves. However, some humans are born with a mutant-like ability to manipulate stone through a magic-like process. The main viewpoint character is an older woman, Nassun, whose primary motive throughout all three books is her Demeter-like quest to find her lost, similarly powered daughter Essun. In addition, both females are drawn into the plans of the surviving "Stone Eaters"-- the former "tuners," who live for centuries and are no longer strictly human. Some Stone Eaters want to placate Earth by bringing the moon back to its proper orbit, while others want the whole world eradicated for good.
Jemisin's apocalyptic world is worked out with an amazing thoroughness. The first book is particularly strong in terms of showing how the ongoing cataclysms affect everything humans perceive-- civic organization, codification of time-passage, and-- perhaps inevitably, because Jemisin is a Black American-- the separation of the magic-users, or "orogenes," into marginalized castes, as against amid the more numerous "normals." Indeed, the quest of Nassun and Essun to rebel against their marginalization seems is a far more pervasive theme than the restoration of some degree of stability to the fractured planet.
Though many critics have scorned fantasy-fiction for its lack of well developed characters, I've often argued that the fantasy-author must prioritize the nature of the world he or she creates, with the result that mimetic character-development is usually a secondary consideration. "Realistic" authors need devote no creative attention to the world they describe; it's just "the world as everyone sees it.." Jemisin certainly makes an attempt to get away from the stock image of the fantasy-author as the worldbuilder who can't create rich characters. However, after the first book it becomes increasingly obvious that Jemisin's character palette is extremely limited, not because of her worldbuilding but her liberal ideology.
I could embrace such an ideology if I felt that Jemisin had created at least a cast of characters as rich as Frank Herbert's early DUNE books. However, over the next two books it becomes evident that most of the supporting-characters are merely functional echoes of either Nassun or Essun. The only exceptions are the villainous figures, most of whom are vague at best, with the exception of Nassun's husband Jija, the abductor of Essun, rabidly opposed to having any orogeny in the family. I wanted the characters to be as rich as their world, but they aren't.
Finally, Jemisin's theory of liberation seems to depend on forcing others to give you respect, rather than befriending them. Toiward the end of the third book, the moon has (rather predictably) been rejoined to the Earth, and Essun expresses the opinion that the system of oppression will never change:
"They're not going to choose anything different."
To which another support-character, Hoa, responds:
"They will if you make them."
I suppose it's fortunate for me that I never warmed to Jemisin's characters, for this expression of "by any means necessary" would have made me dislike them for their author's flawed ideology.
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