Yados Posted May 12, 2012 Report Share Posted May 12, 2012 (edited) I remember reading an interview with BS where he called The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms one of his favorite books in the recent year. Or something like that. So does anyone else enjoy her stuff? I certainly do. Here's a sort-of review I did for her most recent book, The Killing Moon. This isn’t a book review. This isn’t a book review because I’m at work and don’t have time to do a full book review. Plus I’m tired. Very tired. Eye-achingly, short sentence typing-ly tired. But the reason that I’m tired is that I stayed up too late last night finishing N.K. Jemisin’s new book, The Killing Moon. It’s good. It’s really good. It’s also about as different from her first books, The Inheritance Trilogy, as you could get. Whereas before we had sprawling, snarky, first person narration, it’s a skilled, restrained, third person limited with multiple viewpoints. We’ve moved from the sprawling and huge world of gods and a hundred thousands kingdoms into a Guy Gavriel Kay-esque fantasy Egypt that keeps your eyes close to the people, their troubles, and their souls. There’s a coherent and interesting magic system. Also it’s quite well plotted. Fast paced too. And it certainly maintains Jemisin’s commitment to female characters, lgbt characters, and people of color. In short, pretty much everything I look for in a fantasy book. Plus, the second (final) book in the duology, The Shadowed Sun, is due out next month. Give it a read. You won’t be disappointed. Oh, I forgot to say what it was about: Magical, euthanasia assassin-priests in a pseudo-Egyptian culture begin to suspect that they are serving a much more subtle power than their moon goddess. A power could well plunge the world into war. See? Now you have no excuse. Go read it. http://thecatastrophists.tumblr.com/post/22122787265/the-killing-moon-by-n-k-jemisinI will mention that her first series, The Inheritance Trilogy, has quite a lot of LGBT material and about one semi-graphic sex scene a book. I mean, Wise Man's Fear kind of blows it out of the water in my opinion and most people don't have a problem with that. They're pretty cool though as the whole cosmology of the series breaks with a lot of traditional treatments of such with the (semi-spoiler) aspect that two of the big G god trinity-- The Light and the Void, aspected as two male entities, created the universe not just with their eons long battles against one another, but also with their eons of lovemaking and that both their love and hate for one another have come to a head in the current theological status quo that is present in the first book. It's definitely interesting to see a world where LGBT is built in at a base theological level. I don't remember reading anything like it before. The Killing Moon, on the other hand, is devoid of overt sexual scenes. There's a gay romance/longing that drives a lot of the book, but it doesn't culminate itself in a sex scene. Is that a spoiler? I don't know really how to give content warning. I mean, there's killing and death, but sexual content-wise it's a PG rating... aside from gay people being gay in a PG way. All of them are quite good. I'm quite excited for The Shadowed Sun. Edited May 12, 2012 by Yados 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe ST Posted May 13, 2012 Report Share Posted May 13, 2012 I need to pick up the new one, only realised it was out yesterday Inheritance was AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME! Such a great little universe, oh man I loved it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satsuoni Posted May 14, 2012 Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 Read it. The ending of Inheritance trilogy has put me off her books for good, I'd say.All in all, meh 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yados Posted May 14, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 Read it. The ending of Inheritance trilogy has put me off her books for good, I'd say.All in all, meh Yeah, the everyone dies but then is also gods in a different world ending was weird for me too. My favorite, I think, was the second book. I'd give Killing Moon a shot through. It's really a whole different animal. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satsuoni Posted May 15, 2012 Report Share Posted May 15, 2012 I don't know... The whole third book felt off to me, and in my experience, once the author starts writing books with such flavour, it is a hard habit to break. At the very least, I have yet to read an author whose basic flavour changes over books So maybe she is waiting for the ending to make it weird:) You haven't read the second book yet, have you? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yados Posted May 15, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 15, 2012 I don't know... The whole third book felt off to me, and in my experience, once the author starts writing books with such flavour, it is a hard habit to break. At the very least, I have yet to read an author whose basic flavour changes over books So maybe she is waiting for the ending to make it weird:) You haven't read the second book yet, have you? I haven't. But I think the next book features a new cast. Things ended up pretty soundly on most fronts by the end of the book. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satsuoni Posted May 15, 2012 Report Share Posted May 15, 2012 Why duology, then? Isn't that just two book in the same 'verse? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yados Posted May 15, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 15, 2012 Why duology, then? Isn't that just two book in the same 'verse? Don't really know at this point. Inheritance didn't share much of the same cast each book. It could be that some of the overaching world things set in motion in the first book are picked up by different characters. The personal storylines of KM are pretty much wrapped within its pages. Let me check. *reads amazon entry* Yeah that looks like it picks up a whole lot later than the first book. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yados Posted June 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2012 So Amazon shipped the Shadowed Sun about two weeks early. I'll provide some concrete details/throughts/feels once I finish. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yados Posted June 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2012 Oh, so as to the two books' relation. Same world, same city, same magic, some of the same characters but with a 10-15 year timeskip. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tazren Posted June 30, 2012 Report Share Posted June 30, 2012 I've read Hundred-Thousand Kingdom and its sequals. I really liked them. Especially the third. Will have to check out the other books she's written 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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