Essun is interacting with people instead of reacting - and interacting in wonderful, world-changing ways. Where I wasn’t emotionally engaged with The Fifth Season until the ending segment, The Obelisk Gate swept me up right away. Spoilers below for the first book, and mild ones for the second book.ĭiscussion: It’s often said that book 2 in a trilogy is usually the weakest. But if Essun does what he asks, it would seal the fate of the Stillness forever.įar away, her daughter Nassun is growing in power – and her choices will break the world. Instead there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request. The season of endings grows darker, as civilization fades into the long cold night.Įssun - once Damaya, once Syenite, now avenger - has found shelter, but not her daughter. This is the way the world ends, for the last time. So when Speculative Chic’s Nebula read came around, naturally I pounced on the opportunity to read the second book: The Obelisk Gate. There were things I loved about The Fifth Season - world-building (gorgeous, detailed, complicated), the characters (even numbed Essun), the great writing, and the shape of the plot slowly forming around the characters. I wasn’t emotionally involved in the book as much as I normally like. I often felt like Essun was at the mercy of the plot, tossed this way and that, hopelessly reactive to the things happening to her. As readers of The Fifth Season know that anticipation was doomed.

I got off on the wrong foot, anticipating Syenite, Damaya, and Essun’s meeting - there are too few fantasy books with multiple female main characters. Why I Chose It: The Fifth Season was a book I admired and respected, but didn’t really love.

The obelisk book