The Fifth Season

N. K. Jemisin

Aug 2015 · The Broken Earth Book 1 · Hachette Audio · Narrated by Robin Miles

About this audiobook

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.

Read the first book in the critically acclaimed, three-time Hugo award-winning trilogy by NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin.

Ratings and reviews

The book itself is great, and the narrator gave me the impression she would be good in a different context, but the two together was a very bad pairing. This book got so much heat for being "heavy handed" activism disguised as sci-fi (which I strongly disagree with). So the pretentious tone the narrator used was not only unpleasant, but also ammunition against the book itself. Do yourself a favor and read this one, but with your eyes - or with text-to-speech if that's not an option.

This gets two stars because the performance rose to the level of mediocrity. As for the book itself, I cannot recommend more strongly that it not be read. The characters are filled with cliches, the narrative structure is nonsensical, and, worst of all, it indulges in that hackneyed JJ Abrams style of mystery box storytelling. if you are looking for satisfying conclusions I suggest you avoid this book.

Short of painful. Found myself really having to fight to get through it all. Never once was it hard to put down or have me excited about getting the next book. Doesn't deserve a one, but doesn't deserve a three either. Just my opinion, but I would tell my friends to pass on this series. Like the author, but missed the mark for me on this one..

About the author

N. K. Jemisin is a Brooklyn author who won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for The Fifth Season, which was also a New York Times Notable Book of 2015. She previously won the Locus Award for her first novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and her short fiction and novels have been nominated multiple times for Hugo, World Fantasy, Nebula, and RT Reviewers' Choice awards, and shortlisted for the Crawford and the James Tiptree, Jr. awards. She is a science fiction and fantasy reviewer for the New York Times, and you can find her online at nkjemisin.com.