The Fifth Season

The first book in the groundbreaking Broken Earth trilogy—a powerful blend of fantasy and science fiction that confronts systemic oppression through the lens of geological catastrophe.

The world ends, as it always does, with an earthquake. But on the Stillness, a supercontinent plagued by constant seismic activity, the end of the world is just another Tuesday. For thousands of years, civilization has been built around surviving "Fifth Seasons"—apocalyptic geological events that can last for centuries.

Jemisin tells her story through three different narrative threads that gradually converge in devastating fashion. Damaya is a young girl whose dangerous magical abilities—the power to control earthquakes—mark her for recruitment by the Guardians, a militaristic order that both controls and exploits people like her. Syenite is a powerful adult "orogene" sent on a mission that will challenge everything she believes about her world. And Essun is a mother searching for her missing daughter in the aftermath of the latest world-ending catastrophe.

The novel's magic system is actually geology—orogenes can manipulate the kinetic and thermal energy within the earth itself, making them both invaluable and terrifying to the non-magical population. Jemisin uses this fantastic premise to explore themes of oppression, slavery, and environmental destruction with remarkable subtlety and power.

The worldbuilding is extraordinary, creating a planet where the geology itself is hostile to human life, where society has organized itself around both surviving and exploiting those with the power to control seismic forces. The Fifth Season won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, making Jemisin the first Black author to win the award.