May book study: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

[Fenika]

Hello, and welcome to the F/SF Book Study. This thread is for discussion of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin.

***Spoilers*** will be streaking naked through this thread unpredictably. You have been warned.

Here are the previous book studies:

2008:
Ender's Game (August)
Lies of Locke Lamora (September)
A Deepness in the Sky (October)
A Fire in the Deep (November)
Storm Front (December)

2009:
I Am Legend (January)
The Onion Girl (February)
Lord of Light (March)
Small Gods (April)
Beggars in Spain (May)
The Once and Future King (June)
Foundation (July)
The Graveyard Book (August)
Neuromancer (September)
The Last Wish (October)
The Knife of Never Letting Go (November)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (December)

2010:
Battle Royale (January)
Jhereg (February)
Cyberabad Days (March)
Tigana (April)
Next (May)
Perdido Street Station (June/July)
Boneshaker (August)
His Majesty's Dragon (September)
Never Let Me Go (October)
The Child Thief (November)
Solaris (December)

2011:
Lirael (January)
Blindsight(February)
Lavinia (March)
Hugo nominees (April)

[Sai]

I'm still waiting for the book store to get my copy in. Looking forward to reading this.

[tjwriter]

Seeing as it is the middle of the work week, I will probably finish it in the next day or two. If it were the weekend, I'd finish it in one night. Stupid jobs.

I will be prepared to discuss.

[Sai]

Finally got this. I'm about 150 pages in. Overall I liked it, though now and then the MC will do something stupid which doesn't seem in character. For example, she makes a big deal out of which marks people have on their foreheads until there comes a scene where it's more convenient that she not notice. To me this smacks of the writer pulling some strings.

I'll post more when I've read further .

[Amadan]

My (short) Goodreads review is here. Basically, I liked it as a debut novel. Now, maybe it's not fair to factor remaining books in the series into one's opinion of the first, but I do have to say that I've also read book two, The Broken Kingdoms, and that took some of the luster off of book one, because it felt like Jemisin pretty much did the same thing she did before.

Looking at The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms as a stand-alone novel, I liked the gods and the power dynamics with the Arameri. I was never really impressed by Yeine as a heroine -- she's supposed to be the leader of a warrior people, but the most proactive thing she ever does is contemplate pulling a knife on Scimina. Mostly she kind of lets herself get batted about by her cousins and the gods.

Also, this book had the most laugh-out-loud sex scene I have ever read, and I don't think Jemisin meant it to be funny.

[tjwriter]

I agree with Sai. Things were going along swimmingly and then something out place happens.

And Amadan's point about her being a warrior leader and so meek.

I like the method of storytelling. The narration was good and that was what kept me going despite a less than stellar opening. It did seem a bit disjointed in places though and there were times I had to put myself back into the story versus the story taking me along for the ride.

Of course, I'll read about anything.

[Filigree]

Spoiler alert!

I agree: as a debut novel, it's not bad. Jemisin says she re-wrote it extensively. I almost wish I could have read her original version. This one is short and spare, but not as lucidly written as it could have been. The sex scene everyone is talking about is downright foolish, sadly, and detracts from the cosmologically-grand scale of the character in question.

Yeine doesn't come across as a warrior-leader because she's reluctant to assume command. Probably because of her half-breed status, and some bad experiences in puberty. Her doormat-like reticence does bother me, especially when she realizes she's landed in an even worse snake pit. Not a time to be wringing hands and whinging about the unfairness of it all...

As a fan of Dark Lords in general, and J. R. R. Tolkien's and Tanith Lee's Dark Lords in particular, I enjoyed Jemisin's take on chained gods and anthropomorphic black holes. But I think this book needed either a lot more rewriting, or a look back at the original passion that the writer so obviously discovered in her first version.

I'm hoping the second book gives me a better handle on Jemisin's writing and worldbuilding.

[CobraMisfit]

SPOILER ALERT!! (FYI in case you haven't finished the novel):

I enjoyed this book and was thoroughly impressed with it as a debut novel. The writing was exceptional and the world that Jemisin creates, including the back-story for the gods, is impressive. Sky is portrayed in an elegant way, both with its beauty and with the dark undercurrent of life there (i.e. one quote she mentions how people sometimes just disappear).

As for the MC, Amadan is spot on with the flaws in the character.

Yeine is the leader of a warrior clan and is no stranger to violence (to include stabbing a “lover” in the head during a ritual), but her actions in Sky are counter to this upbringing. Perhaps the point was to show how humbling Sky is, but as a woman raised as a fighter, she spends most of the novel shocked at the violence and treatment of those around her. The amount of running, crying, and sleeplessness from a warrior/leader was inconsistent with what I expected. Not bad, mind you, it just seemed out of sync with her back-story.

Dove-tailing off this is the fact that she seems to be in constant need of saving. Again, this is counter to her warrior background/training. Even when she confronts the Dar enemies poised to attack her lands, it is Naha who ultimately forces them to back down.

There were two other items I had an issue with. First, Yeine spends the entire novel worrying about Dar, but the last we see or hear of it, they are being overrun and the goddess Zhakkarn is going to “see to things.” Even though Yeine becomes a goddess, she emphasizes how she has remained “still Yeine”, yet the reader has no closure to the war in Dar. To spend so much energy worrying (and therefore have the reader worry with her), it was a lackluster way to leave things.

The second issue was the amount of sighing at the end. In the last chapter alone, everyone sighs. Naha , Yeine, basically all the gods. And they did it a enough that it drew me out of the story.
That being said, this was easily one of the best written novels I’ve read in a long time. The story flows so well that I consumed it in a day and only looking back did I realize that there is very little action. Almost all of it is either Yeine contemplating or talking, but Jemisin is so talented that the conversations draw you in and demand that you keep reading. I will certainly pick up The Broken Kingdoms.
Great choice for a book study, Fen!

[Ian Isaro]

I've always assumed I wouldn't be able to get books for the month in time, then by coincidence I read this one. So I'm here to discuss.

I liked the alien nature of the gods, as well as the setting (though I wish the politics had been more involved). But overall, I feel disappointed by the way the novel progressed. In essence, the protagonist experiences all the story elements and then everything is resolved by dues ex machina (the deus part literal in this case). Very little is actually developed and basically anyone with the goddess's soul could have done the same thing.

Judging from the focus of the sequel, I don't have any interest in pursuing it. If it had followed the gods, yes, I'd be curious how that would work, but Itempas in human form doesn't sound interesting. I'd read something unrelated from Jemisin, though.

Originally Posted by Amadan

My (short) Goodreads review is here.

Actually, I liked the fractured asides. You could argue they aren't really necessary, since it's just framing the story from the point of death, but someone trying to gather pieces of themselves seems like a concept that has real potential. It was what interested me most about the story until the soul was brought up and then it was clear what was happening.

[Sai]

I finished this last night. I was liking it well enough, but once it got to the end I was hooked. It's been a long time since I finished a book and just knew I had to read the next one in the series. I'm actually really intrigued by the idea of a novel following human Itempas (especially if he hooks-up with human-form Naha).

But the bulk of the novel leading up to the whiz-bang finish was kind of lackluster for me, mostly because of how little Yeine does, and how disconcerting it was to be told that she is from a clan of warriors but to see very little of that reflected in her personality. Plus, that sex scene was pretty bad. It was like someone transcribed a hentai.

Still, it takes a lot for me to get invested in a series, so the fact that I want to read the next book is really the highest compliment I can give an author.

[BriMaresh]

I wanted to love this book, because I love the writing. It's gorgeous, and the world setting is very much interesting. I liked the framing, too, because it built up what was coming, building more mystery than the book would have had on its own. Plus, servant-gods. That's outright amazing.

And I do love the supporting cast, up to a point, but...

Yeine is cardboard. Not only that, cardboard with a past she tells us about, but doesn't display. The plot delivery made it feel forced, instead of the elegant, convoluted, shocking monster it should have been.

Had Yeine taken action against one of the other two co-heirs, had she done anything to secure her place, her politics, her life stability beyond playing with the gods, I would have loved it. I would be passing it to my friends with the same rabid recommendation and insistence that I foisted Waterdeep and Diamond Age off with.

She's got a strong past, and the world's strongest mother. Why doesn't she display any strength? Sure, she's in a new setting. Yes, she doesn't really want to be there. But she has a chance to do something great, to make a significant impact on the world.

She does, but not through her own doing. And that lack of agency drives me crazy.

Further, I feel like the villains are cookie-cutter, and their badness isn't emotionally impacting. When we find out that her grandmother was killed deliberately because it's how the heir inherits, there's no sting to that. We don't even really have any emotional impact from the loss of the mother -- she's a distant sort of figure at best, when everyone speaks of her with such reverence.

I wanted to see some of her in Yeine, because she sounded so cool. I wanted her to be the MC, every time she came up, because her complexities intrigued me.

It is a debut novel, and I don't know that I could ever do as well as the author did, but this book had so much potential, and because of how railroaded and passive the MC was, that's the nicest thing I can say about it. I'm going to pick up the second one, though, when I have a chance, because I have hope that the author will write more bold characters in the future.

[Liosse de Velishaf]

It seems like every novel you pick up nowadays is full of potential, but almost none of them realize it.

Unfortunately, this book falls into that category. I have to agree that Yeine was not a very assertive MC. I liked her, and she could have been great, but the execution falls flat.

[DragonHeart]

I liked the book mainly because of Nahadoth. I don't think I would have finished it if he hadn't been a character. Yeine annoyed me greatly with her mostly spineless attitude and naivete. Also, I found it a bit hard to follow in places because even though politics had a huge influence on the plot it was all in the background.

The writing was definitely lovely and well worth it, though.

The sequel doesn't sound all that interesting to me, I admit. It works quite well as a standalone anyway.

[Fenika]

I finished this last night. I agree with the major sentiments in this thread. I feel the book picked up momentum at the end- at least it seemed to. But I was just waiting for Yeine to snap and her to move the story, rather than the story moving her, and no. She goes right up to the end ceremony like a lamb. I was almost happy when she got stabbed, though obviously she was going to die.

And her not accusing Viv... Vivaine? Viraine. Her not accusing Viraine of being her mother's killer and then just standing around so he could stab her? Very very lame. And the excuse the author gave (via the MC) was flat.

As Liosse says, there are too many books that don't live up to their potential. There's a number of us that read this book to the end this month (er, well, it is June now), and while we rolled along, we kept wanting more.