This is the way the world ends. Again.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, …
This is the way the world ends. Again.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.
paperback, 512 pages
Langue : English
Publié 7 septembre 2016 par Orbit.
Not my favorite book but well crafted and continuing on with the series. A big part is I didn't really love the viewpoint characters, the side characters tend to be more interesting to me.
Jemisin interweaves three storylines set at different times and places, each helping you better understand bit by bit how the world works, how unfair it is, and why it should end. For the last time. The book has absolutely fantastic worldbuilding, nice pacing, and a bunch of setting-appropriate emphatic curses. The whole book is like a very slow moving tsunami, and only near the end do you get to see the larger picture (but not even the whole picture yet, it seems).
"The Fifth Season" is the first book in the "Broken Earth" series, so I'm happy there's more. Highly recommended unless you prefer having every question answered within a single book.
Took me a bit to get into it, and the changing of character names over time confused me a bit, but once I got past those two issues, it was a really fun read. Looking forward to the next two books to see what happens on Earth in a possible distant future where earth magic is common and nothing is stable.
