The Fifth Season

The Broken Earth, Book 1

By: N. K. Jemisin

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel
Book 1 in the record-breaking triple Hugo-Award-winning trilogy

***One of Time Magazine's top 100 fantasy books of all time***
***Shortlisted for the World Fantasy, Nebula, Kitschies, Audie and Locus Awards***
***A New York Times Notable Book and the inaugural Wired.com book club pick ***

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.

'Astounding' NPR
'Amazing' Ann Leckie
'Breaks uncharted ground' Library Journal
'Powerful' io9
'Elegiac, complex, and intriguing' Publishers Weekly
'Intricate and extraordinary' New York Times
'Brilliant' Washington Post

The Broken Earth trilogy is complete - beginning with The Fifth Season, continuing in The Obelisk Gate (Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel) and concluding with The Stone Sky (Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel and Nebula Award).

Also by N. K. Jemisin:
The Inheritance trilogy
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
The Broken Kingdoms
The Kingdom of Gods

The Dreamblood Duology
The Killing Moon
The Shadowed Sun©2015 N. K. Jemisin

Critic reviews

Jemisin brilliantly illustrates the belief that, yes, imaginative world-building is a vital element of fantasy - but also that every character is a world unto herself

Fantasy novels often provide a degree of escapism: a good thing, for any reader who has something worth escaping. Too often, though, that escape comes through a fictional world that erases rather than solves the more complex problems of our own... In Jemisin's work, nature is not unchangeable or inevitable. The Fifth Season invites us to imagine a dismantling of the earth in both the literal and the metaphorical sense, and suggests the possibility of a richer and more fundamental escape

Heartbreaking, wholly unexpected, and technically virtuosic, THE FIFTH SEASON is a tour-de-force. I felt every shock--and the book is packed with them--in my marrow. It's no exaggeration to say that Jemisin expands the range of what great fantasy can be (Brian Staveley)

great book, good narrator

Really interesting story, but at times a bit hard to follow. The narrator speaks clearly an does a good job keeping me engaged in the story.

Best Read in a Long Time

This entire trilogy was such a joy to read, even if it was quite dark in theme. Was so refreshing to have a true adult, fantasy/scfi storyline that didn't shy away from heavier topics. I was completely emersed until the very end. Best books I've picked up in many years.

Fantastic author meets incredible voice actor

There is a special magic that happens when a really really reeeeeeeeally good author meets their match in a narrator. With this book it happened in the first sentence and then just kept happening until the end.

Unlike anything else

This book fully deserves all its accolades. It's fantasy the likes of which I've never experienced before, with a setting so new and rich and wonderfully realised that I can't stop thinking about it.

And the lush wordlbuiilding of this truly unique fantasy setting sets the stage for genuine characters, genuine drama, and draws from and amplifies real world issues that feel excruciatingly real. It's the best of both worlds, completely alien but utterly human.

I'm used to detailed fantasy settings prioritising plot and worldbuilding over character and theme, but Fifth Season manages them all beautifully as each facet of storytelling flows into the others. It intimately explores its characters' struggles, which often involves larger themes of structural violence, racism and dehumanisation, all informed by the utterly fascinating setting of orogenes and Stone Eaters and obelisks and shakes.

It's pitch perfect fantasy and I cannot recommend it enough.

The performance is also excellent, particularly during dialogue. The different voices and accents of characters all seem fitting and are instantly recognisable, and the tenser moments are executed brilliantly.

A must

It’s a brilliantly written story. Especially the world - it is so well-described, similar enough to ours to make it understandable and different enough to make it intriguing.
I recommend it to anyone who is into sci-fi. You will not be disappointed.