Broken Earth Trilogy

Thoughts on N. K. Jemisin's fantastic world.

I would call Broken Earth an apocalyptic science-fantasy. At first, the setting, characters, and events seem to be conforming to the fantasy genre, but there is an incredible level of detail and thought put into everything.

The Seasons, caused mostly by unstable world tectonics, cause horrifying effects ranging from acid rain to "ashlung", and last a long time. The society has adapted to these unpredictable hardships by following stonelore, an ancient set of rules written on stone tablets. This includes always keeping storecaches, strict roles within the community, expelling unwanted people, and controlling the population via the Breeder caste. Stonelore has some parallels to real-world religions, based on ancient rules that are supposed to make the society function correctly, yet, full of questionable history, changes and additions by different rulers, and the infamous missing third tablet, which is mentioned several times throughout the books.

Orogeny, the ability to manipulate heat and tectonics, is not handwaved as magical abilities could often be. A specialized organ at the back of the neck, called sessapinae, allows a human to "sess" tectonics. Powerful events such as earthquakes can be sessed by almost everyone, but only certain people, called orogenes, have the ability to redirect the tectonic forces. Orogenic ability has a clear genetic component, has a higher chance of manifesting itself in children of orogenes, but can appear as a random genetic mutation as well. There are some interesting mechanics to orogeny as well, such as a torus of heat absorption, or subconscious stabilization of tectonic activity. Orogenic manipulations, connections, and associated physical sensations are described very vividly. The second and third books delve even deeper into orogeny, and a whole other level beyond it.

Orogenes are distrusted, persecuted, and often killed as children. The parallels between racism and treatment of orogenes are very clear. Even the common slur "rogga" already sounds like a real-world racist slur, and, within the books, orogenes are not legally considered human. The afraid-yet-superior attitude towards orogenes is most evident during Syenite's visit to Allia, where she has to keep contact with citizens to the minimum and be overly polite not to upset the leadership, yet one of the humans still descends into a xenophobic tirade by the end. Ironically, Syenite is quite institutionalized and accepting of herself being not-human and the injustices at this point in time.

For all those that have to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question.

Fulcrum, a school for orogenes, at first seems like a sensible solution for a world where they face violence and death from others. But as the trilogy progresses, more sinister conspiracies are revealed about and within the Fulcrum, nodes, and orogene training.

The second person narration of Essun's part of the Fifth Season was confusing at first, but the ending reveals the reason.

Spoilers ahead!

Seriously, read the books!
Anyway...

Throughout the trilogy, Essun goes between having a quiet, comfortable life and being an outcast several times. There is a constant want to belong.

Sanzed-Meov reminds me of LeGuin's Urras-Annares dichotomy. One state is a large, organized and oppressive society, while the other is a small, free society, but with its own numerous issues.

The mother-child relationships throughout the trilogy are quite depressing. The Fifth Season starts with a mother losing a child, and ends with a mother taking her child's life. And The Stone Sky ends with a mother losing her child, but this time, emotionally. Throughout the story, bonds made by choice, such as between Syenite, Alabaster, and Innon, or Essun and Hoa, and even Nassun and Schaffa, seem to be much stronger than those by birth: Essun, Nassun, Jija and Uche.

Guardians are creepy as hell. They smile all the time, kidnap orogene children for the Fulcrum, and somehow convince them of mutual "love" by becoming a parent figure. I do not believe that Schaffa was in any way "contaminated" or different from other Guardians, as his near-death triggered Nassun to do exactly what Evil Earth would have wanted.

Magical energy in Broken Earth is percieved as silver threads. Interestingly, the association of silver and magic is also present in Babel by R. F. Kuang, where silver bars are used to manifest power of words inscribed in them.

Syl Anagist was an empire quite different from Sanzed, but an empire nonetheless. The Neiss people are the "magical exotic people" trope of Syl Anagist. Having a distinct appearance and particular technical skills, there are multiple false beliefs about them, causing them to be persecuted, and even people with any of the Niess traits to be looked at with suspicion. Yet, at the same time, because Niess were good at creating Plutonic Engines, they are fetishized by Syl Anagist, and the tuners were created as an exagerrated images of Niess. Another disturbing point is how the statement "life is sacred in Syl Anagist" got perverted into keeping people alive but using them as batteries for obelisks. And, of course, the plan of attempting to harvest the life-force of the planet itself as a reflection on human greed and exploitation of Earth's resources.

Personification of Earth is well done, slowly going from "Evil Earth" and "Father Earth" in everyday speech in The Fifth Season, to vision of the Earth's core as an enormous source of life and magic, to Earth saying "hello little enemy" to Nassun in The Stone Sky.