Full Details
RYO Review: The Broken Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin
The Broken Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin
Published: Orbit, 2010
Series: Book 2 of The Inheritance Trilogy
This is the second book of a trilogy, so the book description and review contains some spoilers of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
The Book:
“After the events of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, much has changed in the world. The city of Sky is now called Shadow, since it lies in the shade of the World Tree, and godlings—children of the Three Gods—live among the humans. Many people are attracted to the magic of Shadow, and Oree Shoth is no exception.
Oree is a blind painter that is able to see only magic, so living near the godlings in Shadow gives her the opportunity to sometimes see. She spends her days selling trinkets to pilgrims, navigating her relationship with the godling Madding, and handling the silent, homeless man that she has taken in out of kindness. She names the man “Shiny”, due to the way he glows in her magic sight at dawn.
When someone begins killing the godlings of Shadow, Oree’s life will never be the same. She and her quiet guest are drawn into a dangerous conspiracy that involves the Arameri, the gods, and those for whom the murder of godlings is only the beginning.” ~Allie
Ask N. K. Jemisin Anything – The Interview
This is the first in our Ask an Author Anything interview series and we’re very excited to be kicking things off with N. K. Jemisin, which we are now publishing fresh off of yesterday’s Locus nomination. The way it works, as you may recall from our first post, is that we get questions from our members and visitors who then vote on their own questions. We take the most popular questions asked and send them off to the author. Our goal is to have around a dozen questions but in this case Ms. Jemisin is neck-deep in Deadline Hell working on her next novel so we cut it back to just 6 to ensure we don’t interrupt her work too much.
We arranged this interview through her publicist at Orbit who very graciously has sent along some books for us to give away. Check out the details at the end of the interview for your chance to win. Now for the interview!
WWEnd: First, congratulations on your recent Nebula Award nomination for The Killing Moon. You’ve been getting a lot of those. What is it like for the bulk of your accolades to come from fellow writers? Is it different than, say, the Hugo nomination you received, which was from fans?
NKJ: I don’t really think about it that way. Thus far I’ve had three Hugo nominations and four Nebula nominations, but I had to go look at my own bibliography to remember which was which. The bragging rights — if you want to call them that — don’t come from the number of nominations. They come from the fact of being nominated at all. That first nomination was the point at which my agent/publisher started putting “Hugo nominee” or “Nebula nominee” in my marketing materials (and when I won the Locus and the RT, this became “Award-winning author”), and that’s when I started seeing more sales to libraries and organizations that look for fiction of a certain quality and popular appeal. I don’t think they care how many nominations I’ve gotten, either! Just that nominations exist.
I do have to admit that the Nebula noms give me a little more of a shiny feeling, even though the Hugo award is better-known. I think every professional likes having the respect of her peers; I feel the same way about the World Fantasy nomination. But the Hugo noms mean I’ve achieved a certain level of name recognition with fans, and for someone who’s as early in her career as I am, it’s awesome for that to happen even once, let alone twice.
Ask N. K. Jemisin Anything
We will soon launch an exciting new monthly feature: an interview with some of the most celebrated authors in the SF/F/H genres. The questions will come from you, the WWEnd reader. We are thrilled to announce that our first author will be N. K. Jemisin, whose novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, made quite a splash in 2010-11, netting nominations for the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. The final book in that same trilogy, The Kingdom of Gods, was also nominated for a Nebula, and the first book in her latest series, The Killing Moon, is up for the 2012 Nebula (stay tuned to see if she wins!).
A key component of the new interview series is the Urtak poll, embedded at the top of this post. Just read the questions and tell us whether you want each one to be asked. To vote, click “Yes” if you would like to see her answer the question or “No” if you don’t care (please don’t select “I don’t care,” though. I’m told it messes up our metrics. If you don’t care, then answer “no”). When you have voted on all submitted questions, you will be able to add your own questions. You may also click on the green “Ask” button at the top of the Urtak survey, but please do all of the voting first, in case someone else has already asked your question. It need not be a yes/no question. It’s just that WWEnders will then vote yes/no on whether they like the question. Got it?
The most popular questions will be asked first, so don’t split your vote by asking the same question twice!
WoGF Review: The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin
Jack Dowden (JDowds) doesn’t review Sci-Fi/Fantasy books on his blog 100 Stories 100 Weeks. Instead, he’s set himself the unbelievably naive task of writing 100 short stories in 100 weeks. The results are often disastrous. He came to WWEnd to talk to people about Sci-Fi/Fantasy books though, and is having a wonderful time doing it!
I just bought a Queen size bed. It’s glorious. Granted, I can’t move around in my bedroom anymore, but it’s totally worth it.
There’s a little rack next to it. My girlfriend asked me to hang it in the bathroom months ago, but I never did. And I won’t, because it’s a great place to put my beer when I’m sitting in bed.
So I spent my weekend in bed, beers on standy, with The Killing Moon in hand. It was a near perfect weekend. I devoured N. K. Jemisin‘s book in four days. I would’ve gotten through it sooner, but eventually the drinking muddied my brain and I had to go play video games instead.
Nonetheless, The Killing Moon is a great book, and for the first time in a while, I found myself unable to put it down (when I was sober).
The story centers of three people: the Gatherers Ehiru and Nijiri, and a foreign emissary named Sunandi. Actually, there’s a fourth character, that of the main city, Gujaareh. Though there are no maps of the city, Jemisin weaves the place together with such strong visuals that it’s hard not to imagine it. Few authors nowadays seem capable of bringing a city to life like she has done here.
WoGF Review: The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin
Nathan Barnhart (Skynjay) is one of three reviewers for Fantasy Review Barn. Though he read Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books as a kid, he didn’t really get into the genre until a few years ago, at which point he started reading any speculative fiction he could get his hands on. If not reading or playing with his kid, you can find him at the rec getting beat in basketball.
“In the ancient city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Upon its rooftops and amongst the shadows of its cobbled streets wait the Gatherers – the keepers of this peace. Priests of the dream-goddess, their duty is to harvest the magic of the sleeping mind and use it to heal, soothe . . . and kill those judged corrupt.”
– Cover blurb from The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin
How to describe a book as unique as this? Assassin tale? Well, maybe, but to lump this in with the thousand books with a man in a cloak on the cover would be a travesty. Several have tried to make their assassins unique, but in this book the protagonist would resent even being called an assassin. Try again. Dystopia? After all, the limit of what humanity will allow in keeping such a long and stable peace works right in with Orwell and the like. But perhaps not, dystopias usually deal with a possible future, and this is still very much a fantasy novel. Vampire tale? Hell, I was three quarters through the book before I recognized that this may be the most cleverly hidden vampire tale I have seen, I certainly don’t want it lumped in with that over-saturated genre. I guess completely unique epic fantasy is the best I can do.
A lot of important little touches went in to building this unique experience. While there is an Egyptian flair, it was not the typical “add a pyramid and now it’s not a western influenced fantasy.” Rather the author changed everything; flood cycles instead of years, counting by fours, and adding a caste system that varied between the different city states. As readers we are dropped right into the world, with no long info dumps holding our hands. This may slow down the early book as a reader tries to keep up, but also worked to keep the book from every feeling bloated. The religion is unique, the world is alive, and the city of Gujaareh feels completely real.
