The Broken Earth Series

I wanted to start, in true schoolroom style, with ‘This book is about…’ but I couldn’t finish the sentence. It’s about so many things. Survival. The horrific things people do to each other. Endings. Who gets to be a whole person. Who doesn’t. Loss. Who you let define you. Love. How societies function. Beginnings.

Circles.

There’s a lot going on, is what I’m saying.

This is an amazing world – brilliantly realised, and always just enough information to keep you grounded and allow you to understand what’s going on. It’s a world that’s tectonically unstable, constantly on the brink of destruction. Certain people – orogenes – are able to sense and control the movement of the earth. They are both valued and hated. Life revolves around constantly being on the alert for a Season – an apocalyptic event, which can take several forms – and the preparations necessary to survive them.

We follow three viewpoints throughout the book. Essun, who is grieving. Damaya, a child who isn’t wanted. And Syenite, who is an orogene, trained to obey and be a tool of the leaders of Yumenes, a city that has lasted through many years by virtue of its location in a more geologically stable area. All three women are rounded, complex characters, as are the people they encounter. It’s an incredibly rich world, brimming with history and detail.

What I really liked about this book is that it leaves you to do a certain amount of the work yourself, and because the world is so immersive, you don’t even notice you’re doing it. There’s so much to make you think – issues like gender identity, slavery, and the reliability of history all feature, making you question your assumptions along with the characters.

It’s a book with a lot of darkness. There are some truly horrific events in this book, the kind of thing that makes you hope you’ve misread something. But there is lightness too, so you’re not completely overwhelmed.

This balances a middle line well between the two. It opens up more mystery of the world without moving out of the fantastical, but concentrates predominantly on the human reactions to the disastrous situations. This makes sense both from a storytelling perspective and a meta-thematic one as we are watching a world that is being destroyed by natural disasters but, if it is to be saved, it is by the choices made by the individual actors being put together here, those that have the power to really make a difference.

Looking back on The Broken Earth Trilogy so far, the things I remember most are not so much the plot but themes and moods and dramatic scenes. For the soundtrack for this is not high octane modern classical or pop-rock, this is very much new age elemental pieces. Songs of earth and fire and metal. This story is one that is much broader and deeper than what you can usually get on the page. Whilst what is actually happening is in itself fascinating, what it means and how it makes you feel is even more important. Jemisin has an absolute gift for dialogue and can create heartbreaking and profound moments in only a few words, what is going unsaid and the way in which it is spoken is both fully on display and even more meaningful than what has been spoken. Even when some of the details of the story begin to fade, the beautiful arresting images she has created continue to stick in my mind.

The ideas of prejudice are strong in this novel and the Black Lives Matter inspiration becomes even more prominent than in the first book. For example, when Jija talks to her Daddy about loving being an orogene, in spite of his reactions and feelings on the subject, it is heart breaking, watching her slowly have to come to terms with his self-deception and hatred.