Review of the first seventy or so pages of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin

[mmcirvin]

My, this is good so far. I don't think I've been this grabbed by the beginning of a fantasy novel since I read Perdido Street Station. I think it's the balance Jemisin strikes between introducing her characters, and her world's unusual cosmology and lethal politics, all of which are closely tied to one another. It'll be interesting to see if the novel (and its sequel; it has one) can keep it up.

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

It has two (_The Broken Kingdoms_, _Kingdom of Gods_), though not of the one book, three covers variety.

[doctroid.livejournal.com]

It can't, IMHO; she comes close, but then loses it late in the book and delivers a very disappointing, gimmicky ending. But aside from that and a sex scene or two that I thought really brought nothing but a few awkward pages to the book, I really liked it. I intend to read the sequels, maybe once I'm out from under REAMDE.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Another thing it has in common with Perdido Street Station is that it involves a lot of fairly squicky unpleasantness, though I get the sense that this is not so much omnipresent in the world of the book as omnipresent in the imperial-court stratum (and world of the gods) in which the story takes place. And the protagonist is actually a decent person, or as close as you can come while being a sort of warrior queen.