Tag: Orbit

Jade is the lifeblood of the city of Janloon – a stone that enhances a warrior’s natural strength and speed. It is mined, traded, stolen and killed for, all controlled by the ruthless No Peak and Mountain families. When a modern drug emerges that allows anyone — even foreigners — to wield jade, simmering tension between the two families erupts into clan war. 

A modern, secondary world fantasy novel is not something I’ve run across before as far as I can remember. Usually fantasy in a modern setting is set in our own world — with a twist, obviously — but it is certainly, recognisably our own and quite often shelved under urban fantasy. And while Fonda Lee’s Jade City is certainly urban and fantasy, it isn’t what you’d expect when picking up a novel that has been categorised as such. It is a novel that combines intrigue, politics, action, and drama in a setting that feels East Asia-inspired. In short, it was literal catnip to me.  Read More …

The Moon will soon return.

Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.

Essun has inherited the phenomenal power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every outcast child can grow up safe.

For Nassun, her mother’s mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.

Let me be frank about my opinions of this book up front. The Stone Sky is magnificent and brings N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy to a triumphal close. If you want to TL;DR this review, you can now click away and go and buy this entire series. But for those of you who want to know more about why I feel this way, I will try to be somewhat coherent in discussing what I loved about this book and why I think so highly of it.  Read More …

The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night.

Essun—once Damaya, once Syenite, now avenger—has found shelter, but not her daughter. Instead there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request. But if Essun does what he asks, it would seal the fate of the Stillness forever.

Far away, her daughter Nassun is growing in power—and her choices will break the world.

I always struggle when writing reviews for N.K. Jemisin’s books. First of all, I’m always afraid that I can’t do the books justice. Jemisin writes such complex worlds, characters and stories with so many layers baked in that I can’t possibly understand all of it, never mind capture it in a review. Secondly, I just love the books so much that all I want to do is gush and make everyone read it. And that is not conducive to writing a coherent review. This always leads to me procrastinating on actually writing these reviews, but today is the day and I’m just going to push through it and review The Obelisk Gate.  Read More …