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” The world of these books is so unsettling and compelling, really brilliantly drawn. We’re on a planet disrupted periodically by its climate, a harsh period known as ‘the fifth season’. People live within comms; a special sort of person, an orogene, should not stay in a normal comm, and should instead be sent to the Fulcrum and trained by Guardians. They have supernatural control over energy, particularly the seismic, and can be dangerous if uncontrolled. We follow three orogenes with different relationships to this system of governance. It’s deeply unnerving. There’s an image early on in the book, where one of our three protagonists is being taken from her home by a Guardian as a child, and he is telling her a story as they ride. His strong hands are wrapped around hers, and she is starting to feel soothed. Then, at the relevant point in the story, he breaks her hands.” Read more...
The Fifth Season introduces an alternate, far-future Earth where a single, Pangea-like continent is wracked with natural disasters. The ‘fifth season’ of the title is what the planet’s inhabitants call recurring periods of catastrophic climate change; we witness the start of one in the opening sequence, wherein a powerful ‘orogene’—a human born with the power to manipulate the Earth’s crust, causing earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and rifts—tears the land in two. In this, and its sequels The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky, N.K. Jemisin offers a rich fusion of science fiction and fantasy, so these books will suit you if you liked the theological and supernatural elements of Dune, like the Bene Gesserit. Notably, all three books in this ‘Broken Earth’ trilogy won Hugo Awards. The New York Times called it “the 21st-century fantasy trilogy that changed the game.”
From our article Books like Dune
