"The Way of Kings"

Michael Whelan's cover art is gorgeous

I learned about Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series from a video talking about his approach to worldbuilding. Sanderson apparently spent years fleshing out the setting, history, and characters before starting "The Way of Kings," and it shows.

A few minor plot details follow.

"The Stone Sky"

 

Three Hugos in a row!
What are the odds?

 

"The Stone Sky" is the final installment in N. K. Jemisin's fantasy trilogy, preceded by "The Fifth Season" and "The Obelisk Gate" (also featured on this blog).¹ I originally discovered the series on a list of recommended dystopian novels, and the first two books are fascinating examples of worldbuilding. The story takes place during an eponymous fifth season, or climate apocalypse, and the characters struggle to survive while their dystopian society denigrates into a collection of warring city-states. In this final volume, the society's origins are revealed, and the main characters must choose which ancient wrongs to right and which to let stand.

Brief thematic discussion below.

"Mother of Learning"

Not the actual cover art for this month's review

"Mother of Learning" is a fantasy novel with an original premise. Zorian is a young wizard studying at the premier academy of magical arts in his homeland's capital city. As he returns to school for the fall term, Zorian is unaware of political machinations taking place behind the scenes, and he soon finds himself trapped in a time loop he can't control. The novel was originally published in serial form by amateur writer Domagoj Kurmaic, Dickens-style, but I read the whole work in about six weeks — which is coincidentally about how long it took me to get through "Great Expectations."

"The Obelisk Gate"

 

That's two Hugos in a row

 

 

"The Obelisk Gate" is the follow-up to "The Fifth Season" and I believe the only sequel I've written about on this blog.¹ I read the previous book back in 2016 and consider it a great example of effective world-building, so I'm a bit surprised that I forgot about the series until this year.

A couple plot points from the first book are mentioned below.

"Circe"

Can be pronounced with a C or K,
but definitely not just one syllable

Madeline Miller's "Circe" is a reworking of Greek mythology from a new point of view. Circe, daughter of Helios, is mainly known for her role in "The Odyssey" – first turning Odysseus's crew into swine, then turning them back, and finally telling Odysseus what to expect on his journey home. Miller weaves together familiar myths into a story of the goddess's entire life, giving her an epic of her own.

"The Fifth Season"

Anagram: Eons shift aft, eh?

"The Fifth Season" is another of the books I discovered¹ while reading the NYT series of mini-articles discussing prescient works of science fiction. The story is set in "The Stillness," an ironically-named world whose exceptional seismic activity regularly causes extinction-level events, known as fifth seasons: supervolcanoes, fissures across continents, sky-blotting clouds of ash, and so on. Jemisin explores the society that arose to cope with these fifth seasons and weaves the beginning of the worst fifth season yet into a very human story of striving and loss.

Minor spoilers below.