Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles, and happy Black History Month!
As I’ve done for the past few years, all of my reviews for the month of February will be for books by Black authors. (Stay tuned for my annual Black History Month recommendations list!) I’ve been a fan of N.K. Jemisin for many years now. I was especially blown away by her Broken Earth trilogy, and I figured I would read this to see where she started out. I liked enough of it, but strangely, the flaws reassured me—in order for you to make something as mind-bending as The Fifth Season, you have to start somewhere. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms happens to be that somewhere.
Enjoy this week’s review!
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (The Inheritance Trilogy, #1) – N.K. Jemisin
Yeine Darr never imagined herself in Sky—the opulent floating city of the Arameri, who rule over countless kingdoms. After the sudden death of her mother, Yeine discovers a royal inheritance that she never knew of. Now, in the world of political machinations, scheming, and dark magic, Yeine must fight her way through kings and gods alike. But Yeine has only scratched the surface of the secrets that have been concealed from her—and their consequences may shatter all of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
TW/CW: rape, pedophilia, violence, slavery, torture, loss of loved ones, sexual content
Though she’s had some misses in her later career, N.K. Jemisin is one of the more inventive speculative fiction writers out there. The Broken Earth trilogy was so nuanced and mind-bending, and it was for sure one of the more creative adult fantasy series that I’ve ever come across. Yet somehow, even though I didn’t enjoy The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms as much as her other novels, it’s oddly comforting. You’ve got to write a weaker book before you get on the level of The Fifth Season.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is a cold book. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think it works in the main character’s favor. This novel is all about isolation, alienation, and othering, and that’s exactly how it manifests in our protagonist, Yeine. Jemisin’s exploration of her being an outsider—in terms of her age, her race, and her unfamiliarity with Sky itself—centered so much about the distance that she felt between herself and the people she’s suddenly meant to cause peers. Yeine is a flawed characters, but you see the exact circumstances that make her this way; groomed to demurely accept microaggressions and be derided and tossed around, she’s shrunk herself so far into a corner that she’s ceased to be herself. Jemisin didn’t shy away from making Yeine a flawed character, but what made her at least partially worth rooting for was seeing how intricately her backstory was constructed. At best, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is a no-holds-barred exploration of how being subsumed into an empire does not just to your country, but to your psyche.
Over the years, Jemisin has built a name for herself in socially conscious fantasy, and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is, without a doubt, where it all began. Though I don’t think I’ll continue with the trilogy (more on that later), this novel excelled in talking about the politics of its world. Aside from Yeine’s alienation, I loved how Jemisin showed through the worldbuilding just how much the nations of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms are willing to turn the other cheek to, be it war, racism, abuse, or slavery. It’s a dizzyingly large structure full to the brim with conniving politicians, but with the added bonus of warring gods to complicate things in Jemisin’s world. Even beyond the worldbuilding, what Jemisin does best is depict the staggering scale of an empire, and the intimidation that it causes. When the enemy seems too vast and layered to take down, it can force you into submission, or even absolute hopelessness. That hopelessness feeds into Yeine’s character arc once she’s faced with the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and her gradual conquering of it made for a poignant, timely character arc, especially for a novel written almost exactly 16 years ago.
The Broken Earth trilogy had this kind of fairytale-like narrator who stepped into the narrative to occasionally interrupt the main storyline. It was an artful, cryptic part of Jemisin’s storytelling that gave those novels a unique flavor. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was clearly the trial run of this tool, because it was…nearly the same. At first, I was excited to get that signature N.K. Jemisin storytelling, but as much as I liked it in the first half, I’m not sure if it really worked for this novel. I won’t spoil The Fifth Season, because even though it’s been out for many years now, that twist is too good to ruin for new readers; but with that narrative framing in mind, it works exactly in tandem in the story. However, for The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, it didn’t fully make sense. I did like it in the sense of a trickster narrating the story, but for the kind of fantasy this is—much more about politics than prophecy—it seemed less of a narrative device and more just window dressing to spruce up what was already there. I’m all for those kind of elements normally, but I think it works better for a destiny, prophecy-oriented fantasy like The Fifth Season more than it does the more grounded, political machinations of this novel.
One of the main things that kept me from enjoying The Hundred Thousands Kingdoms all the way was the romance. Even calling whatever happened in this novel “romance” is generous. Everything between Yeine and Nahadoth was just…weird on a number of levels. Their first sex scene was written in such a way that I fully thought that Yeine was getting raped, and their dynamic never recovered from that perception. Either way, even with Yeine being the vessel for the most powerful goddess in this universe, there was obviously an uneven power dynamic at play, but I don’t think Jemisin wrote it consciously enough. Their relationship felt the same as the relationships between the domineering, condescending politicians of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and yet somehow, it was automatically romantic for them. These kind of power dynamics are something that Jemisin has explored in her later works and written with much more nuance and aplomb; once again, I guess you have to start somewhere, because this was a mess. There could’ve been some sort of Stockholm syndrome kind of thing going on with Yeine, but once again, no nuance—even though she’s a traumatized character, depicting it through a solely romantic lens was a mistake. Additionally, the final sex scene with Yeine and Nahadoth was painfully overwritten to the point where it was almost funny. Plus, the relationship that Yeine had developed with T’vril felt much more natural and beholden to a fleshed-out romance—where did Nahadoth even come from?
Also, because I can’t let go of this—yeah, I know, Sieh is technically an adult mind in a child’s vessel (there’s a fantasy explanation for this), but in what world did that weird ass kiss between Sieh and Yeine need to happen? Reverse Poor Things, much? Eugh.
All in all, a flawed but ambitious debut from one of the cleverest fantasy authors working today. 3.25 stars.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is the first novel in the Inheritance Trilogy, followed by The Broken Kingdoms and The Kingdom of Gods. N.K. Jemisin is also the author of several other sci-fi and fantasy novels for adults, including the Broken Earth trilogy (The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky), the Great Cities duology (The City We Became and The World We Make), the anthology How Long ’til Black Future Month? and DC Comics’ Far Sector.
Today’s song:
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
The Bookish Mutant 