Well, I failed my 2018 Resolution, but the beat goes on and I still need to finish these books, so here’s the second to last book in Jemisin’s collection. This book has already been reviewed by Lane Robins, and you can read her review here. This post will have more to do with my individual reaction while reading it, as Lane and I had different experiences.
The Obelisk Gate (2016)
Written by: N.K. Jemisin
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 448 (Kindle)
Series: Book Two of The Broken Earth
Publisher: Orbit
The premise:
This is the way the world ends, for the last time.
The season of endings grows darker, as civilization fades into the long cold night.
Essun — once Damaya, once Syenite, now avenger — has found shelter, but not her daughter. Instead there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request. But if Essun does what he asks, it would seal the fate of the Stillness forever.
Far away, her daughter Nassun is growing in power – and her choices will break the world.
There are probably spoilers here.
Discussion: My feelings for this trilogy are complicated. I still haven’t finished the third book so I still don’t know where this journey ends, or how it ends. It’s been a very different experience reading this trilogy than where I began this year, with the Inheritance Trilogy. That was chock full of feelings and a lot, a LOT of tears.
I don’t know that I’ve cried much yet, reading these books. I’m fascinated by the story Jemisin is weaving. I can’t think of anything else I’ve read that’s really quite like her blend of sci fi and fantasy or her enormously strong and complex characters.
When I told friends that I was reading all of her books in 2018, all of them said this was her strongest work. Do I agree? It might not be fair to say until I finish the third one. But I can tell you that Essun has yet to sit with me the same way that Yeine did.
The idea of catching the moon almost felt like jumping the shark. Here I was, so firmly seated in my fantasy, when I find out the world is a mess because the moon was pushed away. Sure, there are floating obelisks and people who can control rocks and magma with their minds, but the idea that all of this evolved because of a three-faction war that pushed away the moon was a lot to take on.
I actually did love figuring out how all three stories were related in the first book, and I kind of missed that style in this book, where we had Essun and her daughter Nassun as the POV characters. But I did love getting to know Nassun, so full of pain and resentment. I love when stories explore the idea of children hating their parents because it’s safe, because they know their parents can weather the emotion. Nassun wants to hate and resent her father for killing her brother, but ultimately recognizes he’s far too weak to bear it and instead hates her mother.
What she actually feels, however, is cold fury toward her mother. She knows it’s irrational. It is no one’s fault except Jija’s that Jija is too afraid of orogenes to love his own children. Once, however, Nassun could love her father without qualification. Now, she needs someone to blame for the loss of that perfect love. She knows her mother can bear it. You should have had us with someone stronger, she thinks at Essun, wherever she is. (Loc 3764)
This, of course, is shortly before she turns him to stone, so not hating him didn’t really save him at all.
I’m also fascinating by the reveal that the intercalary sections are being told in first person by Hoa. I’m really curious as to how that develops in the third book, and where this whole journey has been leading everyone to.
In conclusion: They’re ripping up my emotions the way the Inheritance Trilogy did, but I’m really interested to see where it’s all going. Plus, I can absolutely see why these won back-to-back Hugos. They’re amazing.
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