The Fifth Season

calendar 2024-06-30 · 2 min read  ·
Jonathan recommended the Torn Earth Trilogy to me, and I tore through book one.

The backdrop of the story is a world with frequent geologic unrest. So much of day-to0-day life is predicated on needing to survive cataclysm at just about any moment. In that respect it's reminscent of the planet of the aliens in The Three Body Problem. But it's a much more serious treatment of that premise than what we find in Liu Cixin's series. Then there also elements of magic/sci-fi, but in moderation.

This one is worth reading.

I'm not without gripes tho!

  • SF & Fantasy Authors: please, I believe you're sex-positive. I totally believe it. For me, it's fine to just allude to that stuff without putting in little blue vignettes all over the place. If I want deep treatments of sexuality, I look for that in literature that's not also grappling with speculative fiction, and if I want smut I know where to find that too.

  • Killing & Mass Killing: I'm definitely getting more sensitive to this as I age, but for me the illusion of living, breathing characters is broken when say they cause the death of an entire city or two and then turn around and go on with their lives with a wry expression. It's not just Jemison, it's lots of authors. I felt this about moderately-recent books "The Traitor Baru Cormorant", and "Ready Player One". I mean, come on, that's not how people are.

Okay, those aside, this was a super strong Book One. I'm also looking forward to Books Two and Three because like the opening volume they also won the Hugo award, which is very impressive.

Update see also The Obelisk Gate