Just Finished:
FINALLY finished the audiobook. And...I'm still conflicted. There is so much here that's intellectually interesting. But also, the narrator and all the characters except maybe one are terrible people. I mean, straight up murderers and torturers terrible. And characters are usually what I care about most. Instead, what's compelling about this book is the worldbuilding, the politics, economics, religion (or lack thereof), professed gender neutrality, philosophy, and obsession with the 18th century. However, even though the central concept of their societies are being future versions of the 18th century Enlightenment, what stood out to me most were the clever similarities to Thomas More's Utopia, perhaps because I'm a student of the 16th century Renaissance. Anyway, still deciding if I want to read the next book or not.
I finally read it! I have no excuses. It was just as good as everyone said. Jemisin did some interesting experimenting with tone in The Inheritance Trilogy, and here, the tone is totally confident AND approachable even though she's a) casually using real and fantasy geological terminology and b) using second person in one of the book's three viewpoints! Using second person is such a huge no-no in fiction right now, that it's satisfying to watch her knock it out of the park. And the characters, I love the characters, and how casually weird and complicated they are. I guess my summation of the book is that Jemisin makes difficult look really easy, and I can't wait to read the next one!
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