"Grow," I whispered.
# 60: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin:When the Nightlord sagged to the ground, dropping Sieh in the process, I nearly fell with them. I had no idea why I was still alive. The tales of the Arameri's weapons are full of them slaughtering whole armies. There are no stories of crazed barbarian girls fighting back.
Synopsis: A crazed barbarian girl fights back. Against the bloodthirsty relatives who hold her future in their hands, against the ghost of her dead mother and oh yeah, against the gods.
When Yeine's elderly grandfather, emperor of a whole world, summons her to the palace to name her as one of three contenders for his throne, she is rightly suspicious. Her grandfather is still bitter that Yeine's mother chose her dark and common father over a place in the palace, and abandoned everything to be with him. Newly dead, Yeine's mother is still very present in her mind as she begins to negotiate the complicated politics of royalty, including two cousins who must kill her to survive. Oh, and there's a passel of mad gods whose fates depend on the outcome of the contest. Sometimes they try and kill Yeine too.
Good times.
Jemisin herself writes about the job she had writing a post-feminist heroine and there's a more introspective and high-falutin' review than mine done by Strange Horizons here.
I loved it.
It was one of those books I consciously tried to read very slowly, because I really didn't want it to end at all. Yeine is a compelling and sympathetic character, and the fact that she's overshadowed by every supporting character (save her grandfather and cousin Scimina, who are kind of one-note) and the overall mythology of the world in no way detract from her charm. The longer Yeine stays in the palace, the more she's drawn into the political intrigue leading up to the naming of an heir, and the more she begins to see the mad gods as her allies, as well as learning that her genetic legacy is both more and less than it seems.
Jemisin thinks a ton about language. That's obvious not just from her descriptions of the position of scrivener, someone who transcribes the god's language and makes it safe for mortals. Like:
It was gibberish, spoken in a singsong lilt, and for an instant while the sound lingered, my perception changed. I became aware of the faint echoes of each syllable from the room's walls, overlapping and blending. I noticed the way the air felt as the sounds rippled through it ... A tongue whose meaning depended upon not only syntax and pronunciation and tone, but also one's position in the universe at any given moment--how could they even have imagined mastering that?
And she writes about language in a way that makes me think more and different about it. In Ellaminnowpea, language has the power to change culture and enforce laws and constrain people* but in this book language shapes and destroys worlds. It drives people mad. A key idea in the book is that the gods have been constrained to mortal form, but that the power they retain can very literally be unleashed by a careless word. You can tell the Nightlord to kill your enemies, but he might well understand that you yourself are your own enemy.
It's a very interesting conceit.
Jemisin herself has a way of using language to shape the universe that beggars belief. I'll gladly add her to my list of authors who can construct perfect sentences. But it's more than that. It's the structure of the book. It's the very clever conceit I will not spoil for you here but which pervades the book without you realizing. It's the deft angles and heartrending characterizations. It's
T'vril told me that sometimes Sky eats people. It was built by the Enefadeh, after all, and living in a home built by angry gods necessariy entails some risk. On nights when the moon is black and the stars hide behind clouds, the stone walls stop glowing. Bright Itempas is powerless then. The darkness never lingers--a few hours at most--but while it lasts, most Arameri keep to their rooms and speak softly. If they must travel Sky's corridors, they move quickly and furtively, always watching their step. For you see, wholly at random, the floors open up and swallow the unwary. Searchers go into the dead spaces underneath, but no bodies are ever found.
I know now that this is true. But more important--
I know where the lost ones have gone.
Cigarette? Anyone? I brought extras.
Seriously, y'all know me. I'm a cranky mad old woman and I can usually find something to bitch about with any book. Here? I really can't. I mean--and I know this is incredibly first-world shallow and consumerist, but even the format of the book is...well...it's just lovable. I really looked forward to holding it in my hands while reading and the font is cuddly. Yes. I said that. It's a cuddly font. Work with me.
I really, really loved this book, and even though there's some adult content in it, I'd love to see this book find its way into the hands of a lot of YA readers of all genders. The story of a girl who's thrust into a game of thrones and must negotiate that world with the weight of a nation and later, a universe on her teenage shoulders, is phenomenal. Jemisin gives her heroine an age-appropriate voice; that is, Yeine is sometimes heroic, sometimes selfish, sometimes hormonal and sometimes terrified.
She's trying to learn a lot in a very short span of time, with the exhausting knowledge that the stakes of failure are death and that quite a few of the decisions she makes are wrong. She fucks up. People play her. No one's in her corner. Her best friends are a cartel of mad and bitter gods with their own agendas. And it's a glorious melange of ideas and execution. Strong and powerful.
And there are more books coming. (First line of the second book: "I am a woman plagued by gods." *Woof*)
*I am given to understood. You know, not having actually read it.
Synopsis: A crazed barbarian girl fights back. Against the bloodthirsty relatives who hold her future in their hands, against the ghost of her dead mother and oh yeah, against the gods.
When Yeine's elderly grandfather, emperor of a whole world, summons her to the palace to name her as one of three contenders for his throne, she is rightly suspicious. Her grandfather is still bitter that Yeine's mother chose her dark and common father over a place in the palace, and abandoned everything to be with him. Newly dead, Yeine's mother is still very present in her mind as she begins to negotiate the complicated politics of royalty, including two cousins who must kill her to survive. Oh, and there's a passel of mad gods whose fates depend on the outcome of the contest. Sometimes they try and kill Yeine too.
Good times.
Jemisin herself writes about the job she had writing a post-feminist heroine and there's a more introspective and high-falutin' review than mine done by Strange Horizons here.
I loved it.
It was one of those books I consciously tried to read very slowly, because I really didn't want it to end at all. Yeine is a compelling and sympathetic character, and the fact that she's overshadowed by every supporting character (save her grandfather and cousin Scimina, who are kind of one-note) and the overall mythology of the world in no way detract from her charm. The longer Yeine stays in the palace, the more she's drawn into the political intrigue leading up to the naming of an heir, and the more she begins to see the mad gods as her allies, as well as learning that her genetic legacy is both more and less than it seems.
Jemisin thinks a ton about language. That's obvious not just from her descriptions of the position of scrivener, someone who transcribes the god's language and makes it safe for mortals. Like:
It was gibberish, spoken in a singsong lilt, and for an instant while the sound lingered, my perception changed. I became aware of the faint echoes of each syllable from the room's walls, overlapping and blending. I noticed the way the air felt as the sounds rippled through it ... A tongue whose meaning depended upon not only syntax and pronunciation and tone, but also one's position in the universe at any given moment--how could they even have imagined mastering that?
And she writes about language in a way that makes me think more and different about it. In Ellaminnowpea, language has the power to change culture and enforce laws and constrain people* but in this book language shapes and destroys worlds. It drives people mad. A key idea in the book is that the gods have been constrained to mortal form, but that the power they retain can very literally be unleashed by a careless word. You can tell the Nightlord to kill your enemies, but he might well understand that you yourself are your own enemy.
It's a very interesting conceit.
Jemisin herself has a way of using language to shape the universe that beggars belief. I'll gladly add her to my list of authors who can construct perfect sentences. But it's more than that. It's the structure of the book. It's the very clever conceit I will not spoil for you here but which pervades the book without you realizing. It's the deft angles and heartrending characterizations. It's
T'vril told me that sometimes Sky eats people. It was built by the Enefadeh, after all, and living in a home built by angry gods necessariy entails some risk. On nights when the moon is black and the stars hide behind clouds, the stone walls stop glowing. Bright Itempas is powerless then. The darkness never lingers--a few hours at most--but while it lasts, most Arameri keep to their rooms and speak softly. If they must travel Sky's corridors, they move quickly and furtively, always watching their step. For you see, wholly at random, the floors open up and swallow the unwary. Searchers go into the dead spaces underneath, but no bodies are ever found.
I know now that this is true. But more important--
I know where the lost ones have gone.
Cigarette? Anyone? I brought extras.
Seriously, y'all know me. I'm a cranky mad old woman and I can usually find something to bitch about with any book. Here? I really can't. I mean--and I know this is incredibly first-world shallow and consumerist, but even the format of the book is...well...it's just lovable. I really looked forward to holding it in my hands while reading and the font is cuddly. Yes. I said that. It's a cuddly font. Work with me.
I really, really loved this book, and even though there's some adult content in it, I'd love to see this book find its way into the hands of a lot of YA readers of all genders. The story of a girl who's thrust into a game of thrones and must negotiate that world with the weight of a nation and later, a universe on her teenage shoulders, is phenomenal. Jemisin gives her heroine an age-appropriate voice; that is, Yeine is sometimes heroic, sometimes selfish, sometimes hormonal and sometimes terrified.
She's trying to learn a lot in a very short span of time, with the exhausting knowledge that the stakes of failure are death and that quite a few of the decisions she makes are wrong. She fucks up. People play her. No one's in her corner. Her best friends are a cartel of mad and bitter gods with their own agendas. And it's a glorious melange of ideas and execution. Strong and powerful.
And there are more books coming. (First line of the second book: "I am a woman plagued by gods." *Woof*)
*I am given to understood. You know, not having actually read it.