The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun (both 2012) form a bridge between Jemisin’s Inheritance trilogy and the magnificent Broken Earth series.
I mean that not in terms of its content or setting or characters, but more in how it displays a writer coming into her powers. I have a sense that these two books are a little underappreciated. I enjoyed them immensely, finding them imaginative, visually striking, and emotionally powerful.
The duology is set in a magical society inspired strongly by a reimagination of Egyptian life and cosmology. This is a source of inspiration that is so often disappointing, but in Jemisin’s hands it absolutely glows, especially in her use of dreams as an accessible realm parallel to mundane reality. Note that this is a reimagination, not a recreation: there is no Osiris myth at play, no actual pyramids of Giza, but some wrestling with ancient Egypt clearly lives at the inspirational core of the work.
The hero is flawed, and the ethical challenges strewn throughout the novel are complicated and multifaceted, all it’s all wrapped around a murder mystery draped in the intrigue of a high court and a nation on the brink of both civil and external war. It’s a lot, and while parts of the plot run briefly out of control, overall the novels deliver in a striking, memorable way.
Recommended.