This massive collection encompasses The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), The Broken Kingdom (2011), and The Kingdom of Gods (2014). A shorter novella, The Awakened Kingdom (2014) is tossed in for good effect. Having been really pleasantly surprised by N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy, I went into this with fairly high expectations.
It delivered nicely.
This is fantasy writing, an escape and a page-turner, as opposed to some of the other things I’ve read more recently. But it’s creative fantasy, and the world-building is thick and compelling.
I started The Broken Kingdom–the second book–assuming it would proceed with some of the characters from The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Instead, each book focuses on a deity. This creative approach frees Jemisin in some ways, allowing each book to contain a mixture of human agents and supernatural concerns, all set against a tapestry exploring the changes occurring to a society over several thousand years of different kinds of upheaval, some of human origin and some of divine.
There are at least a few characters in each book that will stick with you, and the portrayal of the interactions between the divine and the human are nicely nuanced, without losing sight of their core incompatibilities. It’s engrossing at times, compelling at others, and continually engaging.
Jemisin has moved into the category of authors where I will give anything she writes a chance, hoping it provides as solid and enjoyable an escape as this.
#WhatIWishICouldDo
There is a tightness of structure to this trilogy that is quite enviable. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms focuses on the creation of a new God; The Broken Kingdom on the punishment of an old; and The Kingdom of Gods on the transition of a deity into something else entirely. Each book manages to feel consistent, yet each mines different territory.