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Title: The Broken Kingdoms
Author: N. K. Jemisin
Genre: Fantasy (part 2 of trilogy)
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: A blind woman who can only see magic finds an ungrateful godling in her trash heap and learns of her dangerous heritage.
Thoughts: This follows up on the inventive but uneven The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, with less inventiveness but more evenness.
Our narrator, an artist living in the shadow of the Tree that engulfed the castle Sky in the previous book, has little to hide from the reader, which helps. Much of the coyness and timeline issues have been eased, leaving a lively voice in a vivid setting. The characters are interesting, and it's nice to see an exploration of the some of the events from the previous book from a more humble viewpoint.
I knew what the deal was with Shiny immediately, but I think that was intentional. If someone has read the previous book, it's fairly obvious who he is, and we know this for some time before the narrator figures it out. But the discovery is handled fairly well.
I felt the slow character arc for Shiny was fairly compelling, although the bit at the end is quite literally hand-wave-y. My bigger objection is that the plot feels somehow thin. There was a compelling tension, for all the confusion, in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Here, there is just as great a threat to the world in theory, but I never quite took the cult seriously enough. And they're disposed of so easily that it seems obvious that the plot is not the driving engine of the story. The relationship between Oree and Shiny is what Jemisin is really interested in, and the plot itself is more a MacGuffin grafted on to give them something to do as they get to know each other.
Spoilers:
And given the timespan involved for the Three, I have a hard time believing in Oree's hope that Shiny will come back and everything will be well. Ten years was not nearly enough to sate Naha--a few more will not change anything. Perhaps a few thousand would change the situation. But I cannot help but read Oree's ending as self-delusional.
Author: N. K. Jemisin
Genre: Fantasy (part 2 of trilogy)
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: A blind woman who can only see magic finds an ungrateful godling in her trash heap and learns of her dangerous heritage.
Thoughts: This follows up on the inventive but uneven The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, with less inventiveness but more evenness.
Our narrator, an artist living in the shadow of the Tree that engulfed the castle Sky in the previous book, has little to hide from the reader, which helps. Much of the coyness and timeline issues have been eased, leaving a lively voice in a vivid setting. The characters are interesting, and it's nice to see an exploration of the some of the events from the previous book from a more humble viewpoint.
I knew what the deal was with Shiny immediately, but I think that was intentional. If someone has read the previous book, it's fairly obvious who he is, and we know this for some time before the narrator figures it out. But the discovery is handled fairly well.
I felt the slow character arc for Shiny was fairly compelling, although the bit at the end is quite literally hand-wave-y. My bigger objection is that the plot feels somehow thin. There was a compelling tension, for all the confusion, in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Here, there is just as great a threat to the world in theory, but I never quite took the cult seriously enough. And they're disposed of so easily that it seems obvious that the plot is not the driving engine of the story. The relationship between Oree and Shiny is what Jemisin is really interested in, and the plot itself is more a MacGuffin grafted on to give them something to do as they get to know each other.
Spoilers:
And given the timespan involved for the Three, I have a hard time believing in Oree's hope that Shiny will come back and everything will be well. Ten years was not nearly enough to sate Naha--a few more will not change anything. Perhaps a few thousand would change the situation. But I cannot help but read Oree's ending as self-delusional.
