Exquisite.

[b:Fifth Season|19161852|The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)|N.K. Jemisin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386803701s/19161852.jpg|26115977] was epic; Obelisk Gate grows it into capital-S Saga. Complex characters, tensions within and between whom parallel the seismic ones in Jemisin’s tortured Earth and with similar cataclysmic results when faults shift. Factions whose goals you’re never quite sure you understand or trust. Imperfect people acting on incomplete knowledge, doing what they think is best—but best for whom? And what if malevolent agents are manipulating those well-intentioned people, abusing trust for their own ends? (Any similarities to post-2016 USA are purely coincidental.) (Or are they?)

There’s a whole lotta killin’ here too, as in the first one. And prejudice, crippling and so destructive. Also kindnesses, small and large, sometimes more meaningful than intended. Complicated and inconsistent love, often reluctant or baffling (then again, love is like that). Difficult circumstances bringing out the best and worst in people, sometimes all at once. A child pitted against her parents. The fate of the Earth is at stake, and that of humanity… but just what constitutes being human anyway? What if humans with attribute A consider those with attribute B less than human? (I’m no longer sure if I‘m talking about the book or our own world).

This is a series to mull over and contemplate and discuss. I could see forming a book club over it.