The Kingdom of Gods

 This is the third book in Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy.  When reviewing The Broken Kingdoms (this one's predecessor), I talked about how that book felt more like a worse version of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (the trilogy's first entry).  I went into Kingdom of Gods hoping that Jemisin would not make the same mistake again.  I am pleased to announce that she very much didn't and instead created something that is quite spectacular.    My favorite thing about Jemisin as a writer has always been her creativity.  She just comes up with concepts and themes that I can't imagine thinking of on my own.  Her brain is absolutely amazing and it's a quality that makes her stand out even among other great fantasy writers.  This remains true here.  The Kingdom of Gods once again shifts the POV, this time to Sieh, a fairly prominent supporting character from the first couple of books.  We see as his world is completely turned upside down by the events in the first couple of books but more importantly one that happens early on here as he loses his immortality.  This is a neat concept that Jemisin explores in really cool ways while also setting up an apocalypse storyline that ultimately feels secondary to Sieh's personal character journey.  That's another thing that Jemisin does well.  Yes her creativity and world-building are top-notch, but they are supported by the characters that exist in the situations that Jemisin comes up with.  A lot of them are truly wonderful and Sieh is no exception.  It's hard to say more without spoiling it but after this book Sieh has cemented himself as one of my all-time favorite literature characters.  He's just so interesting and experiencing his thoughts is a wonderful experience that I'm glad Jemisin gave us the chance to enjoy.  It makes this book a great ride and I'm satisfied with this conclusion to the trilogy.    Now that that's out of the way I'll talk about what I think about The Inheritance trilogy as a whole.  It is not as good as Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, but that's not saying much considering how good that trilogy is.   What the Inheritance trilogy is though is a very strong set of debut novels.  Jemisin isn't as refined here as she is in her other trilogy, but she shows off the characteristics that make her writing so good, namely creativity, strong characters and fleshed-out worldbuilding.  You can truly get lost in Jemisin's settings and I think that is a requirement for a high fantasy writer.  This is a really fun trilogy to read and I'm really glad I went back to it.  Up next for me in terms of her books is The Awakened Kingdom, a novella that was not originally part of the trilogy but was added to the omnibus version that I have.  After that I will check out her Dreamblood Duology.  I can't wait to see what she has in store there.