{"id":2692,"date":"2018-11-10T18:52:41","date_gmt":"2018-11-11T02:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2692"},"modified":"2018-11-10T18:52:41","modified_gmt":"2018-11-11T02:52:41","slug":"review-the-fifth-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2692","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Fifth Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/N._K._Jemisin\">N. K. Jemisin<\/a> has won the<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel\"> Hugo award for Best Novel <\/a> for the last three years in a row.\u00a0 It&#8217;s the kind of thing that eventually catches my attention, and I&#8217;m happy that it did.\u00a0 <em>The Fifth Season<\/em> is the first of these three and a well deserved honor.\u00a0 Jemisin shows off so many of the things I love about SF: careful world building, believable characters, and beautiful writing.<\/p>\n<p>She creates an world that is exotic and intriguing while remaining connected to ours.\u00a0 As most great SF authors do, she twists the world in a few comprehensible ways while keeping closely enough in touch to mirror reality. There is meaty commentary here on both fiction and reality that lands with a light touch. That is to say that the world is immersive and the story crackles along snappily.\u00a0 One can enjoy the ride without deep thought.\u00a0 If you like deep thinking, the world ignites and supports it.<\/p>\n<p>Key to making a believable world is looking out at it through the eyes of a real person and seeing other real people.\u00a0 Nemisin&#8217;s people are clearly of her world while being comprehensible to those from ours.\u00a0 While much is indubitably made of the racial and sexual inclusiveness of her players, I find them at least as diverse in their worldviews and social backgrounds.\u00a0 They are all genuine and interesting and complex enough that none of them is completely admirable or static.<\/p>\n<p>True characters in a wide world are the catalysts for a great story but Jemisin&#8217;s writing is the cherry on top.\u00a0 Her writing is structurally powerful.\u00a0 It reveals the world and characters in a Salome-like dance, simultaneously enticing, propulsive and deceptive.\u00a0 Plot, character, and theme all appear and deepen with brilliant timing.\u00a0 The specific writing is a delight as well.\u00a0 Individual sentences sometimes twirl as they conclude, bringing insight, horror, or power to the narrative.<\/p>\n<p>And that closer&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Strongly Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>N. K. Jemisin has won the Hugo award for Best Novel for the last three years in a row.\u00a0 It&#8217;s the kind of thing that eventually catches my attention, and I&#8217;m happy that it did.\u00a0 The Fifth Season is the first of these three and a well deserved honor.\u00a0 Jemisin shows off so many of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2692"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2694,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692\/revisions\/2694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}