The Obelisk Gate

Executive Summary: I absolutely loved [b:The Fifth Season 19161852 The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) N.K. Jemisin https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1386803701s/19161852.jpg 26115977], making this book an almost impossible task. It held up fairly well to the original, but suffered a bit from middle book syndrome I think. I'm greatly looking forward to the final book in the trilogy.Audiobook: Robin Miles does another excellent job, and I will continue to do this one in audio as a result.Full ReviewThis had to be one of my most anticipated reads of the year. That was amped up even more after Ms. Jemisin won a well deserved Hugo. This series is unlike anything else I've read in fantasy, and I thank her for it. Over the years I tend to favor fantasy books with cool magic systems and lots of action. This series is almost the opposite of that. There is an interesting magic system that important to the plot, but the plot largely deals with how people are treated in society when they are different. Discrimination based on race, gender or sexual preference are still far too common today, yet they don't tend to show up in fantasy. Not to mention that the characters are often all entirely white. Science Fiction has a long tradition of evaluating not only the possibilities of science, but as a commentary on present day society. Why not fantasy? Ms. Jeminsin manages to do this while telling a very interesting and engaging story.I still love my high action magic fight books, but a book like this tends to stick with me a lot longer. It's the kind of book you think about even when you're not reading it. That's hard to do, especially at a time when we're being inundated with amazing new stories in the form of books, games, TV and the occasional movie. With so much vying for our attention, it can be hard to be memorable. This series easily does that so far.One of the things I loved best about [b:The Fifth Season 19161852 The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) N.K. Jemisin https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1386803701s/19161852.jpg 26115977] was how the story was told. We had three different POV stories that tied very well together by the end of the book, but what would Ms. Jemisin do here? I found her choices of story telling to work nearly as well. Essun's story continues on in the second person, a form I pretty much haven't encountered since English class. Most of the rest of the story is told from a new POV and I found that story complements Essun's quite well.That said, I didn't enjoy this quite so much as the first one. There were a few slower parts, and at times it felt like things was being set up for the final book. In other words a bit of “middle book syndrome”. I still tore through it in only a few days however, and I'm still thinking about it while I've moved on to other books.If you enjoyed [b:The Fifth Season 19161852 The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) N.K. Jemisin https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1386803701s/19161852.jpg 26115977], I suspect you'll like this one as well. If you haven't read [b:The Fifth Season 19161852 The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) N.K. Jemisin https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1386803701s/19161852.jpg 26115977] yet, and are interested in something more thought provoking than your average fantasy book, give this series a try. I think it's really fantastic and can't wait for the final book to come out.