The Fifth Season

2017 Longlist

A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, from which enough ash spews to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter.

It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.

And it ends with you. You are the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where orogenes wield the power of the earth as a weapon and are feared far more than the long cold night. And you will have no mercy.

(from publisher)

About the Author

N.K. Jemisin is a Brooklyn author whose short fiction and novels have been nominated numerous times for the Hugo and the Nebula. A skilled word-builder, she is interested in the “what if?”; her speculative works range from fantasy to science fiction to the indefinable. Her themes include issues of social justice and the complexities of human behaviour. When not writing, Jemisin enjoys cycling, adventuring, gaming, and is a counselling psychologist by day.

Librarian’s Comments

Jemisin masters creating worlds, as must any successful author of speculative fiction. She does so with fierce deftness. She does so with prose that sculpts her creations and nearly puts them in our hands.