THE INHERITANCE TRILOGY by N.K. Jemisin

Since I read THE INHERITANCE TRILOGY by N.K. Jemisin within a very short span of time as a single story, rather than review each book separately I’m going to give my impressions of the trilogy as a whole. For those who have yet to begin the series, or have just started, I’ll keep major spoilers out.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the eponymous setting of book one, has long been ruled by the Arameri family from its floating capital city (appropriately named Sky). Ages ago, the world was overseen by three gods: the oldest, Itempas (light/day), and his two younger “siblings” — Nahadoth (dark/night) and Enefa. Legends say Enefa and Nahadoth conspired against Itempas, who slew Enefa and punished Nahadoth (partly by embodying him in human form). Now Itempas alone is worshipped as the embodiment of light and order, while Nahadoth and thos... Read More

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

CLASSIFICATION: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is epic fantasy that mixes together court intrigue, mythology, romantic/family drama, and celestial magics. It brought to mind everything from Jacqueline Carey, Lane Robins' Maledicte, and Marie Brennan’s Midnight Never Come to Gregory Frost’s Shadowbridge / Lord Tophet, John Scalzi’s The God Engines, Read More

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

I’m not quite sure where to begin talking about N.K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I guess I should start with my pre-reading impressions. This book came recommended to me from a few here at Fanlit, and from many authors and blogs, but I resisted reading it for quite some time. There was nothing in the descriptions that really caught my fancy. It sounded like a typical high or epic fantasy, and even the title, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, seemed to confirm my initial thoughts. I kept thinking, a whole hundred thousand? Will there be a hundred thousand royal family members with a hundred thousand titles? How about a hundred thousand political squabbles? I’m not a big fan of the type of fantasy with long lists of families and loads of political intrigue, and I was so sure that The Hundred Thousand Kingdo... Read More

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms garnered a lot of buzz in 2010 and 2011, and rightfully so. N.K. Jemisin’s debut novel takes a fresh look at gods and humans. She creates a suspenseful story along the way.

The hundred thousand kingdoms all worship one god, the Dayfather, Itempas. The human Arameri, from their floating palace called Sky, rule the kingdoms — all of them. Centuries ago, the priests say, there were three gods: light, darkness and dawn/twilight. Two of them turned on light (Itempas), betraying him. In the war that followed, the god of twilight was killed. The proud god of darkness and the gods’ children who had followed him and “the betrayer” were enslaved, and the Arameri, Itempas’s human allies, given dominion over them.

It is important to remember that history is written by the winners.

Yei... Read More

The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

The world has changed over the last several years and the opportunities that are now possible are too hard for Oree to resist, so she left home to seek a new life in Sky. Oree is an artist with a gift for seeing magic, but magic is the only thing she can see. She has set up shop in a promenade section of the great city and has created a pleasant life for herself there amongst friends and Godlings. Things start to get ugly, though, when Oree stumbles upon a dead Godling. The gods have become angry and the religious factions are looking for someone to blame. Oree’s unique abilities and proximity to the crime make her a prime suspect.

When I read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms I was taken completely by surprise. It was one of those rare moments where I read a book I was confident I wouldn’t like, only to be left speechless at my misjudgment when I was done. I had tremen... Read More

The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

The prologue of The Broken Kingdoms, the follow-up to N.K. Jemisin’s well-received debut The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, picks up right where the first novel left off, as Oree Shoth, a blind Nimaro girl, witnesses the conflagration caused by the freeing of the gods and the (re-)birth of the Gray Lady. After this brief prologue, the story jumps about ten years forward. Oree is now an artist who scrapes together a living by selling art and trinkets to pilgrims. Right in the first chapter, she is a direct witness to two unimaginable events, although at first she doesn’t realize the true importance of the second one. First, she discovers the body of a murdered godling in an alley, and shortly after this she finds a glowing, silent man who she decides to give shelter in her own home. It’s the true identity of this man that’s the real stunne... Read More

The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin

We’ve all read zillions of fantasies set in medieval Europe, or the equivalent thereof. But lately we’re being treated to fantasies set in cultures that are very different from Western civilization (or even Western Dark Ages), and set instead in places like China (Daniel Fox’s MOSHUI: THE BOOKS OF STONE AND WATER), Mexico (Aliette de Bodard’s OBSIDIAN AND BLOOD) and Arabia (Saladin Ahmed’s THE CRESCENT MOON KINGDOMS). And now N.K. Jemisin is taking us to Africa — more specifically, a variety of Egypt — in The Killing Moon, the first book of THE DREAMBLOOD.
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The Nebula Awards Showcase 2011 edited by Kevin J. Anderson

The Nebula Awards are one of the great institutions in science fiction and fantasy. Each year since 1965, the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) have voted for the Best Novel, Novella (40,000-17,500 words), Novelette (17,500-7,500 words), and Short Story (less than 7,500 words) in SF and fantasy. Compiling a list of the nominees and winners for all those years would get you an excellent reading list and a comprehensive cross-view of the best that can be found in the genres. To make this task easier, every Nebu... Read More

After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia by editors Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling

When I saw the new Datlow and Windling anthology After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia, I was so excited. I love YA fiction, I love dyslit, I love short story anthologies and I love Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling as editors, so I figured it was a match made in heaven. Unfortunately, my reading experience didn’t live up to my expectations.

After is an anthology of short stories set after. After what? Alien invasion, plague, environmental collapse, asteroid strike, it doesn’t matter. Just after. This leaves a lot of room for the authors to be creative, as they all can choose different afters to explore, and it leaves the anthology feeling a bit disjointed as you hop from one disaster to another. Technically, most of th... Read More

Epic: Legends of Fantasy by John Joseph Adams (editor)

Epic: Legends of Fantasy, edited by John Joseph Adams, is an anthology of stories written by some of the biggest names in epic fantasy. The book clocks in at over 600 pages not just because it’s very difficult to tell short epic stories (though some of these authors do manage to pull it off) but because here the authors are not just telling epic legends, they are legends in and of themselves. George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, Robin Hobb, Paolo Bacigalupi, Brandon Sanderson, Ursula K. LeGuin, Kate Elliott, Orson Scott Card, Tad Williams, Aliette de Bodard, Michael Moorcock, Melanie Rawn, Mary Robinette Kowal, N.K. Jemisin, Carrie Vaughn, Trudi Canavan,  and Juliet Marillier all contributed stories to this volume.

Epic: Legends of Fantasy opens with a novella by Robin... Read More

I am happy to report that Weird Tales has grown weirder since Ann VanderMeer has taken the helm as Editor-in-Chief. This is to be expected of the co-anthologist (with her husband, Jeff VanderMeer) of The New Weird, an collection of tales essential to the library of everyone who loves the truly strange; and the co-anthologist of an enormous anthology due out sometime soon from Atlantic called Read More