The Fifth Season

This felt a lot like reading The Kingkiller Chronicles - only with a more creative world, better characters and without the long wait. People who have read both we see obvious similarities in plot and the way the book is written, but this book also exudes this unquantifiable feeling whilst reading, that Kingkiller and very few other books have given me. The Fifth Season much like Kingkiller makes me lose myself in the world, in such an odd way I cannot describe. Each word, each sentence, each paragraph is built so well, even if it lacks the ornate prose of other well written books.

But I can say that whilst Jemisin's writing lacks the subtly of Rothfuss, it is just as beautiful and enthralling. The world building is very good, not as thick and dense as epic fantasy, but still there, still enough. The use of written lore in the epigraphs (does it still count as an epigraph if its at the end of a chapter? I guess the end of a chapter is also the start of the next) is well done - it isn't overly dense like Malazan (or what I've read of it, which is books 1 and 3), and helps to over time to tell us about this about this wonderful world that Jemisin has created. The first 50 pages are tough, even with a prologue of exposition. Most of the parlance of this world isn't explained, and there is a glossary at the back of the book; however I feel that this book is best read without consulting the glossary, unless you forget a term in the course of reading this book.

The fits together so well. Everything is so well foreshadowed, but not too foreshadowed like some books where the plot twist is given away far too early. The plot is so satisfying in a way that is so hard to quantify (there it is again). Everything happens for a reason, everything has meaning . The twists and turn aren't heaped upon you all at once (okay, maybe the last few Essun chapters, but hey, those are the last few chapters of the book), and inference rewards the reader with so much more meaning.

The characters are all very well crafted, except Essun is some ways. She's a little too simplistic, so driven by revenge; and she's also so obviously the result of her past. Knowing her past lets you know Essun completely. She never surprises you. And maybe that was the author's aim in essentially making this book the story of Damaya, essentially making this one long backstory. It seems like Jemisin wants us to know the protagonist perfectly, going in to the next book, which seems like it will be written from one PoV, unless new chacrters are given PoVs..