The Fifth Season (novel)
| Company type | Novel |
|---|---|
| Industry | Literature, Science fantasy |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Founder | N. K. Jemisin |
| Products | Novel |
The Fifth Season is a 2015 science fantasy work authored by American writer N. K. Jemisin. It received the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2016 and serves as the opening installment of the Broken Earth trilogy, succeeded by The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky.
Setting
The story unfolds on a planet dominated by a single massive supercontinent, known as the Stillness, where inhabitants regularly face devastating climatic disruptions termed "Fifth Seasons."
Society
Within the Stillness, society is organized into distinct groups:
- Orogenes: People endowed with the capacity to manipulate energy, particularly seismic and thermal forces. They possess the ability to both instigate and suppress earthquakes and, when distressed, can lethally extract heat from living beings, leaving visible frost. Orogenes are widely feared and subjected to violence; many are killed during childhood or surrendered to Guardians for training at the Fulcrum located in Yumenes. Those trained don black uniforms adorned with rank rings, with ten rings signifying the highest status. Their role includes managing geological hazards and maintaining infrastructure for the comms.
- Guardians: Officials who regulate orogenes through training, infliction of pain, or execution, responsible for overseeing operations at the Fulcrum.
- Geomests: Experts in "geomestry," an interdisciplinary field integrating geology, chemistry, and physical sciences.
- Commless: People living without protection from any comm, either by personal choice or due to expulsion.
- Stone Eaters: Ancient entities resembling animated sculptures that consume stone.
- Sanzed Equatorial Affiliation: The dominant empire governing the region, also referred to as Old Sanze.
- Equatorials: Dwellers of prosperous and stable cities along the equator such as Yumenes and Dibars.
- Midlatters: Populations residing in northern (Nomidlats) or southern (Somidlats) zones near the equator, regarded as less developed; predominantly multiracial.
Use-castes
- Strongbacks: A labor-focused caste; surplus Strongbacks are expelled from comms during Seasons.
- Resistants: A group believed to have immunity against illness and famine, charged with caring for the ill and upholding sanitation.
- Breeders: Responsible for regulating population growth within comms by permitting reproduction among individuals with favorable traits; children born without authorization during Seasons are excluded from communal resources.
- Innovators: The caste of inventors and intellectuals, including engineers and medical professionals.
- Leadership: Individuals trained to govern comms or major organizations; membership can be mandated when necessary.
Plot
The prologue introduces a formidable orogene who shatters the continent’s stability, initiating a potentially disastrous Fifth Season. The story tracks three female orogenes—Essun, Damaya, and Syenite—across the Stillness.
Essun
Essun is a middle-aged orogene living discreetly in Tirimo, a southern comm. After her husband kills their son upon discovering his orogenic abilities and abducts their daughter, Essun instinctively redirects a massive earthquake away from the comm, preventing destruction but revealing her powers. When she attempts to retrieve her daughter, she is exposed and assaulted by townsfolk; she responds with lethal force by freezing many attackers and accidentally destroys the community’s water supply.
Following her departure from Tirimo, Essun is joined by Hoa, an enigmatic boy with ice-white features, and later Tonkee, a woman without comm affiliation. Together they journey southward through landscapes ravaged by northern rifting until they arrive at Castrima, a concealed comm located inside an underground geode.
Damaya
Damaya is a young girl from a northern community whose parents recently discovered her orogenic abilities. Unable to bring themselves to kill her, they call upon Schaffa, a Guardian, to retrieve her. Guardians are an ancient group endowed with supernatural powers who oversee orogenes through the Fulcrum, an institution dedicated to training them in controlling their abilities. Despite this structured control, orogenes remain a marginalized and feared group, stripped of basic rights.
During their journey to the Fulcrum, Schaffa initiates Damaya’s training by deliberately breaking her hand to test her ability to maintain control despite pain. Successfully enduring this ordeal allows her to continue her education. Damaya rapidly progresses among the young orogenes, known as grits. One evening, she assists a wealthy girl in sneaking into the Fulcrum, where they uncover a perilous pit. Damaya is exposed and nearly killed by a mysterious Guardian; however, Schaffa intervenes and eliminates the attacker. He then compels Damaya to undertake her first ring test prematurely—a challenge typically reserved for more seasoned orogenes—offering her a chance to demonstrate her worth and survive. She succeeds, gains admission into the Fulcrum, and adopts a new name.
Syenite
Syenite is an emerging talent within the Fulcrum who is assigned against her will to work alongside Alabaster, the most formidable living orogene, on a mission in the countryside intended for them to conceive a child. Although initially antagonistic toward each other, cooperation becomes necessary. Alabaster hints at concealed truths regarding the obelisks—gigantic crystalline formations drifting among the clouds—commonly believed by most to be inert artifacts.
He discloses the harsh reality of node stations scattered throughout the Stillness: orogenes placed there are subjected from youth to brutal mutilation and lobotomization so they instinctively suppress earthquakes but remain barely alive. Many of these node orogenes are Alabaster’s own children, providing insight into his unparalleled strength within the Fulcrum—a revelation that deeply unsettles Syenite.
Their assignment involves clearing a reef obstructing a coastal harbor. After an assassination attempt leaves Alabaster gravely wounded, Syenite proceeds alone and discovers that the reef is actually an obelisk submerged underwater. The obelisk reacts to her presence and rises from the depths. The Fulcrum dispatches a Guardian who incapacitates Alabaster and almost kills Syenite until she instinctively bonds with the obelisk—later revealed to contain a Stone Eater—resulting in the town’s destruction before she loses consciousness.
Syenite awakens on an island where she and Alabaster have been rescued by Antimony, a Stone Eater. The island’s leader, Innon—an untrained orogene living openly—welcomes them. Syenite and Alabaster form a loving polyamorous relationship with Innon. Syenite conceives and peacefully raises a child on the island for several years.
When Syenite suppresses volcanic activity caused by the obelisk’s destruction, their location is discovered by the Fulcrum, which sends ships with Guardians intent on capturing them. Before Alabaster can mount a defense, he is taken away by Stone Eaters; Innon is killed by Guardians in front of Syenite’s eyes. Schaffa arrives to seize her child; overwhelmed by grief and defiance, Syenite suffocates the child rather than allow it to endure suffering or lobotomy for node service. Enraged, she connects with a nearby obelisk, destroying the ship and killing many Guardians as well as fleeing islanders.
Essun
When Essun arrives at Castrima, she meets Alabaster, who reveals that Damaya, Syenite, and Essun are the same individual at different points in her life (and that Tonkee was the young girl who infiltrated the Fulcrum). Syenite (the older version of Damaya) and Alabaster survived the island assault; Essun went into hiding to begin a new life, while Alabaster lived in seclusion among the Stone Eaters. Essun discovers that Alabaster was responsible for fracturing the continent, an event that triggered the unprecedented Fifth Season as part of his plan to end these disasters. He inquires, "Have you ever heard of something called a moon?"
Characters
In the Stillness, names follow this pattern: given name + use-caste (profession) + comm (community or town). Orogenes bear geological-themed first names, their caste is Orogene, and their comm is the Fulcrum.
- Damaya: a child identified as an orogene from Palela comm in the Nomidlats.
- Schaffa Guardian Warrant: Damaya's trainer; pale complexion with long black hair and silvery-gray eyes.
- Syenite (Syen): a four-ring orogene from the Fulcrum assigned on a mission with Alabaster.
- Alabaster: a ten-ring orogene with extraordinary power to suppress super-volcanoes; notable for his near-blue black skin and tightly curled hair.
- Essun: an orogene mother who departs Tirimo to pursue her husband and daughter; described as "flabby" with dreadlocked hair and olive-ochre skin.
- Jija: Essun's husband who murders their son Uche and abducts their daughter Nassun.
- Hoa: a mysterious boy with white skin and icewhite eyes who accompanies Essun; later revealed as a stone-eater and serves as narrator for her chapters.
- Feldspar: Syenite's instructor at the Fulcrum who assigns her to clear coral blockage alongside Alabaster.
- Tonkee Innovator Dibars (Binof Leadership Yumenes): a transgender woman from a prominent family who befriends Damaya; eventually becomes a commless geomest living in a cave.
- Innon Resistant Meov: leader of a pirate island community, recognized for his towering height and distinctive clothing.
Supporting characters:
- Lerna: a young physician in Tirimo caring for Essun after her tragedy.
- Rask Innovator Tirimo: elected headman of Tirimo.
- Muh Dear: grandmother of Damaya.
- Damaya's parents: one Strongback and one Resistant.
- Asael Leadership Allia: deputy governor of Allia.
- Heresmith Leadership Allia: lieutenant governor of Allia.
- Ykka Rogga Castrima: head of Castrima, where Essun, Hoa, and Tonkee journey.
Reception
The New York Times commended The Fifth Season for its portrayal of both literal and metaphorical earth-shattering events, framing the apocalypse as a victory amidst turmoil. NPR emphasized Jemisin’s talent in blending inventive world-building with richly developed characters.
In August 2017, it was announced that The Fifth Season would be adapted into a television series by TNT, with rapper and actor Daveed Diggs serving as an executive producer. Nevertheless, by 2021 Jemisin had signed a lucrative deal with TriStar Pictures to transform The Fifth Season along with the entire Broken Earth trilogy into films, signaling that the TNT adaptation was no longer progressing.
Awards
The Fifth Season securing the Hugo Award distinguished Jemisin as only the second Black writer to achieve this accolade.
See also
- Orogeny (geological process)
External links
- 2015 American novels
- 2015 science fiction novels
- 2015 fantasy novels
- Hugo Award for Best Novel–winning works
- Literature by women
- Novels by N. K. Jemisin
- Science fantasy novels
- American science fiction novels
- American fantasy novels
- Afrofuturist novels
- Novels about bisexual topics
- Science fantasy literature
- Orbit Books books