Review: The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin
Overview:
Rating: 4 out of 5.
The Obelisk Gate is a decent sequel but probably wouldn’t hold up well on its own. I definitely felt a preference for one of the book’s split narratives over another, whereas that wasn’t a problem in The Fifth Season. There was also an increased amount of imagery regarding the non-human creatures in this book, which I enjoyed immensely.
Content Warning:
The Obelisk Gate contains sexual violence, child abuse, child death, natural disasters, death, gore and genocide.
Book Description:
The Obelisk Gate is the sequel to N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season and picks up right where the first book left off. Essun has been forced into sheltering with other orogenes in the Castrima comm, where she learns that her former mentor Alabastor is the one who set off the most recent natural disaster. At the same time, her daughter Nassun has been taken to the North by her father, where he hopes she may be “cured” of her orogene powers. Despite being miles apart, both women are starting to learn why the deadly fifth seasons exist and how to potentially stop them. There are other forces at work, though, and they may want to use the orogenes’ power to do more than alleviate harm.
On the Book as a Sequel [Spoilers]:
As a sequel and the second book in a three-part series, The Obelisk Gate is pretty decent. It provides a smooth transition from the establishment of conflict and characters in book one to what I assume will be a satisfying conclusion in book three. That being said, I’m not confident that it would stand as a strong story on its own. Overall, it has less action, character conflict, and general momentum than the first book. A majority of the time is spent dumping critical information that Essun will need in the third book, but she doesn’t even begin to explore its uses until the last 50 pages. Consequently, were this a standalone, I probably would have given it a lower rating.
On the Split Narratives:
While the first book is split into three “separate” narratives, The Obelisk Gate primarily focuses on two: Essun’s and her daughter Nassun’s. As I already mentioned above, many of Essun’s chapters were stagnant in terms of plot development and focused heavily on info-dumping. No doubt, it’s important for the readers to have a firm grasp of the knowledge shared between her and Alabaster, but I was far more interested in Nassun’s story. I found myself often checking to see how many pages were left before the narrative changed, and was disappointed when there were multiple of Essun’s chapters in a row.
On the Imagery:
Jemisin takes a closer look at the creatures that inhabit The Stills in this book, and her depictions of them are so, so vivid. Unlike a lot of fantasies, Jemisin doesn’t rely on popular lore such as werewolves, fairies, or demons. Many of the beings she writes about, as far as I know, are completely her own creations. Despite never having encountered such species in literature before, I had no trouble picturing them in all their gruesome and terrifying gloriousness. I can still hear the grating noise of the stone eaters’ movements and the sizzle of the boil bug hours after finishing the book. Her writing is just that good.
The only imagery that I sometimes struggled with was geographical, especially in Castrima. Jemisin conveys the entire comm layout and many individual rooms using mostly geometrical terminology. While it’s not bad writing on Jemisin’s part, my brain simply doesn’t work that way! I really struggled to translate the myriad of shapes and angles she described into a cohesive image. My advice for folks who have similar troubles with spatial orientation is to have a pen and paper near to draw things out as you read.