There is this strong, powerful element in this novel about shifting alliances that is potentially bad news to the Stillness and the world-at-large.
She is also powerful, and I was never so aware about how immense power can be immensely corrupted depending on who you are, who you align with, who you listen to.
She is whom Essum would have been, I believe, without Alabaster’s influence. Learning more about Nassun and her own perspective about her life (and about her mother) presents an interesting shift to the narrative. Just like The Fifth Season, the narrative here is split but this time it alternates between second-person Essun and third-person Nassun. When Essun and a soon-to-be-dead Alabaster finally met at the end of The Fifth Season there was little hope that she would ever find her daughter again – but she finds a new purpose, a new mission given by her old master and lover: to learn how to touch and use the mysterious Obelisks so that the world can be saved (maybe?). The last time we saw these characters and this world, everything was broken: Alabaster had broken the world and brought a new Season of apocalypse (perhaps the last one) and Essun’s family was destroyed from the inside by a scared, hateful father. The Obelisk Gate does its own thing, it feels different, it reads different but ultimately doesn’t diverge too much from the core of the series: the people. One of my most anticipated reads of 2016, the follow-up to one of my top books of 2015, this book – this book – is not quite like its predecessor. It’s hard to know where to begin with this review. Warning: If you haven’t read The Fifth Season yet, maybe avoid this post.
How did I get this book: Review Copy from the Publisher Stand alone or series: Book 2 in the Broken Earth series The Stillness is the wall which stands against the flow of tradition, the spark of hope long buried under the thickening ashfall. It continues with the obelisks, and an ancient mystery converging on answers at last. It continues with a lost daughter, found by the enemy. Alabaster Tenring – madman, world-crusher, savior – has returned with a mission: to train his successor, Essun, and thus seal the fate of the Stillness forever. The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night. THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS… FOR THE LAST TIME.
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