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  • The Fifth Season

  • The Broken Earth, Book 1
  • Written by: N. K. Jemisin
  • Narrated by: Robin Miles
  • Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (957 ratings)

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The Fifth Season cover art

The Fifth Season

Written by: N. K. Jemisin
Narrated by: Robin Miles
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Publisher's Summary

This is the way the world ends. For the last time.

A season of endings has begun.

It starts with the great, red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun.

It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter.

It starts with betrayal,and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.

This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the Earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

A new fantasy trilogy by Hugo, Nebula & World Fantasy Award-nominated author N. K. Jemisin.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2015 N.K. Jemisin (P)2015 Hachette Audio

Featured Article: The Best Audiobook Trilogies of All Time

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What listeners say about The Fifth Season

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Not for me

First, let me start off by saying this book is right up my alley. I absolutely love Hugo award winners. I really wanted to like this book, especially knowing it was part of a trilogy - who doesn't love stumbling on a new series? Sadly it was a struggle to finish. I'm a huge fan of marginalized representation (race, gender, economic status, relationship status, etc) and I was really impressed by characters relationships to one another; however, I never related to any of the characters, their struggles, or the story. I never once felt that tingle of excitement where I was drawn in. I can objectively see why people love this, but unfortunately I found the whole thing very dry. In the words of Amy Poehler, "Good for you, not for me."

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Fascinating world

This book won the 2016 Hugo Award, and is the first in a trilogy (all now published, if you dislike cliffhangers - although the endings aren't really nail-biting cliffhangers, just lots of unresolved questions and stories).

This first book starts out telling three different stories: Essun, a middle aged woman who has just discovered her son has been murdered and her daughter is missing; Damaya, a young girl whose parents have locked her in a barn and are selling her to someone she thinks may be a child slaver; and Syenite, a young woman studying to be an Orogene and about to go on her first official mission. All three have in common the ability of Orogeny, which is the main form of magic in this world: the ability some people have to manipulate heat and life force into geological activity. Untrained orogenes can cause earthquakes and worse when hurt or angry, and are feared by non-orogenes.

The world itself is racked by natural disasters, and regularly suffers from "Seasons", lengthy periods of time (years long) where natural disasters make survival a challenge for all life forms and violent cataclysms may reshape the world. Tsunamis likely wipe out all coastal cities during Seasons, many people starve or turn to cannibalism to survive, wildlife hibernates or adopts other odd defense mechanisms, etc. This is not a friendly world, and the people's relationship with the world reflects this. They talk about how father earth is angry with them, though he once loved them, but exactly why it changed is lost in myth. In fact, the world clearly could once have been something very similar to our earth before human influence triggered climate change and natural disasters - hence the series title I assume (I haven't read the end of the trilogy yet, so I don't know if any more details about the history will be revealed).

Anyway, interesting setting, great characters, and although they start entirely separately, over time you slowly begin to piece together how they are related to each other until you finally start to see the bigger picture by the end of this book. I enjoyed the characters a lot, and the world is very unique and well described. However, I had a really hard time getting into the book at first. I can't put my finger on why but I just didn't find her writing gripping my attention the way some other authors do. Maybe just the complexity of the world and characters? At any rate it was still a good book and I picked up the sequel and plan to finish the trilogy for sure

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11 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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Not for me

I had to turn it off, I couldn't get in to the story and the reader put me to sleep.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

"What the rust?"

I generally find fantasy and science fiction books very hard to listen to. The names are confusing, the ideas are convoluded, and the lexicons are hard to grasp. But somehow N. K. Jemison has built something real, tangible, and heartbreaking. The Fifth Season is a haunting tale of an oppressive society on the verge of collapse. The story follows three different points of view that build a world from ideas to manifestations.

Robin Miles delivers fantastic narration on top of the already great experience. If you pick this up, you're in for a wild ride of fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, and one of the most human experiences I've ever witnessed in it's genre.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect for those who love philosophical spec-fic

N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season is speculative fiction at its most masterful. Jemisin has built a world and mythology to give us new perspective on our own, and she has populated it with complex characters who keep us engaged, sometimes enraged, and hopeful. For all the challenges she throws at her characters in the darkness endemic to her world and ours, there is a humane center to her work, a sense of possibility and care in a world often been powered by exploitation. Jemisin also created a natural vocabulary—I imagine "sess" may find its way into English the way "grok" has done. ("I didn't really grok it until I sessed what she was doing.") Narrator Robin Miles is a talented performer who voiced every role with sensitivity and brought each scene to life. #Audible1

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Very tedious but great story

Again great story line poor narration difficult to listen for hours and hours with the story line lost too often.








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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Wierd romance fantasy novel.

Every character was annoyingly pretentious. Ends on a good cliffhanger though. Won't continue the series

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5 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Mayhaps I'm unrefined?

Narrated quite well, and the characters sand alone. There were also very interesting subplots, but overall, I'm uninspired. Explicit language seemed totally unnecessary, and the universe seemed lacking :-( Then again, I may just be unrefined....

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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......this boooookkkkkk

I yelled. I cried. I laughed. I yelled some more. I loved. I felt loss. And then I screamed. The Fifth Season is entirely too much and I cannot wait to continue with the next one

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant

Incredible writing. Incredible imagination. This is everything fantasy should be and more. You should read (or listen to) this book.

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