The Fifth Season (2015) by N.K. Jemisin is the first book in the Broken Earth trilogy, a groundbreaking fantasy novel that won the Hugo Award for its revolutionary narrative structure and searing exploration of oppression, survival, and cataclysmic change. Set on the supercontinent Stillness, a land plagued by apocalyptic seismic events called Fifth Seasons, the story follows three intertwined perspectives:
- Essun, a woman searching for her missing daughter after her husband murders their son—a child with the forbidden power to control earthquakes.
- Damaya, a young girl taken to the Fulcrum, a training center for orogenes (feared individuals who can manipulate tectonic energy, derogatorily called “roggas”).
- Syenite, an orogene forced into a breeding assignment with the enigmatic Alabaster, the most powerful orogene alive.
Jemisin’s prose is visceral and inventive, weaving geology, systemic racism, and motherhood into a tale where the earth itself is both weapon and antagonist. The novel’s revelation—that these three women are the same person at different life stages—reshapes the narrative into a profound meditation on trauma and resilience.
The second novel in the trilogy, The Obelisk Gate, was published on August 16, 2016, and won a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2017. The third book, The Stone Sky, was published in August 2017 and won the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novel. These consecutive wins made N. K. Jemisin the first person to win the Hugo Award three years in a row or for all three books in a trilogy.
For fans of: Parable of the Sower (Butler), The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood), or fantasy that dismantles empires.
