The Stone Sky by N.K. JemisinMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Jemisin is a big thinker and an autobiographical writer (the latter in this series, at least). I really enjoy big ideas, so this story was appealing. It didn't blow me away as it has some readers, but it's a worthy conclusion to the series. And as I have found over the years, that's no mean thing. Concluding a series effectively is incredibly hard.
I learned a lot from reading the afterword. Jemisin became a full-time writer during the writing of this book, and that shows despite the fact that she had a lot of external challenges. She is focusing on refining her style. For me, some of those edges show, in the way Hoa tells Essun's story. Throughout the series I sometimes had trouble keeping track of her identity with all the name (and truly, identity) changes. One thing that comes up persistently, and is always a challenge for writers who work at her scale, is how to convey the action. It's meant to be more visual, with lots of CG effects and breathless, strained, exclamatory dialog. I really could see this being a big-budget movie, but in print there's a bit of a struggle.
These are pretty minor points. The story speaks to us, in our time, about our history and how we restrain people with unknown power through fear. In the end the story is grand enough to fulfill its scope. Jemisin did an effective job of conveying how the earth had come to its present pass, and awesome is an accurate word for it.
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