The Fifth Season

Abstract

N. K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season is set in an imaginary world where the land is constantly ravaged by natural catastrophes that force people to live quasi-nomadic lives. The narrative tells the story of Essun, a middle-aged woman that lives with her husband, Jija, and two children, Uche and Nassun, in a small town. Essun, Uche, and Nassun are orogenes, people with the ability to manipulate thermal and kinetic energy that allows them to control the movements of the earth and temperature around a certain radius. They are generally persecuted by society, and often killed, because they are blamed for causing the Fifth Seasons, periods when the world faces natural catastrophes. When Jija kills Uche after discovering he’s an orogene, he leaves town with Nassun. As Alabaster, a powerful orogene, breaks the continent of the Stillness in two, beginning a Fifth Season that may never end, Essun departs the town in pursuit of her husband and daughter. The novel also tells of Essun’s childhood, when she was called Damaya and trained as an orogene in the institution called the Fulcrum, and of Essun’s life as a young adult, when she was called Syenite and was travelling with Alabaster, her mentor, on a special mission from the Fulcrum. During Fifth Seasons, communities close in on themselves, and it is up to certain castes in society to come up with ways to survive the Seasons. Among these castes are the Innovators, who are responsible for inventing and maintaining viable technologies for each community. They, along with the geneers and geomests, make up the class of scientists in the novel. The geneers are engineers of everything related to geothermal mechanics, mining, and underground infrastructures. The geomests are mostly researchers in the areas of chemistry, geology, and orogeny. One of these geomests, Tonkee, accompanies Essun on a journey across the continent, making observations on the geological phenomena that are occurring during the novel and imparting her knowledge of these scientific aspects to the protagonist and readers. When Essun and Tonkee arrive in an underground community, called Castrima, they find a town that works on orogeny along with technological marvels that both geomests and geneers are trying to understand. Castrima also has a doctor, Lerna, who has replaced a man who only did field surgery, which improves conditions in the coming Fifth Season.