Today I finished reading The Broken Kingdoms, the second book in N. K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy. You can read my review of the first book in the series here.
Rather than simply pick up where The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms left off, Broken Kingdoms jumps ten years into the future to tell the story of Oree Shoth, a young blind woman living in the city of Shadow beneath the World Tree. Freed from their servitude, godlings cavort around the city. But when Oree finds a silent godling in her muckbin one day, she gets pulled into a dangerous conspiracy that threatens not only her life but the very fabric of the universe itself.
As I mentioned in my earlier review, one of the great things about Jemisin’s work is the rich mythology that underlies it. Broken Kingdoms does an excellent job of elaborating on what we already know. In particular, we learn a lot more about Itempas, a full god who was seen briefly at the end of Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Jemisin does a great job of humanizing her deities so that they actually have distinct personalities instead of just being insanely powerful cardboard cutouts.
Jemisin also continues to take risks with her writing and it continues to pay off. Rather than play it safe and write a direct sequel, she chose to give top billing to a new set of characters (though some familiar faces do appear as ‘guest stars’). In doing so, she emphasizes that her world doesn’t just revolve around one small group of people, which makes it seem that much more realistic. And even though I’m not really a fan of first-person narrators, I have to admit that Jemisin is able to pull it off. She’s also quite adept at the short scene: some of her scenes are only a paragraph long but she manages to pack a lot of power into a few lines of text.
The only thing that I didn’t like about Broken Kingdoms was the sex scenes. The breast fondling and lady-part stroking veered a bit too close to romance novel territory for my tastes, but your mileage may vary.
The final book in the trilogy, The Kingdom of Gods, is due to come out later this year.
Codex Lochianus 