Tag: jemisin

Fantasy review: ‘The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms’ by N K Jemisin

Fantasy review: ‘The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms’ by N K Jemisin

Right from the start I had trouble with this book. The story is told by Yeine, in a chatty but disjointed style, which hops here and there, jumping back from the here-and-now to fill in some backstory, sometimes abandoning the diversion. I can live with the erratic timelines, although it seems more of an authorial conceit than anything else, but the odd tone is grating. A slightly formal construction will be disrupted by a seemingly modern word, like ‘savvy’ or ‘sicced’. It’s very jarring, and rocks me out of the story at frequent intervals. And then Yeine herself is an odd sort of character. Her mother, from the ruling Arameri family, married into the northern family of Darr, so-called barbarians, although it isn’t obvious what they do that is any more barbaric than Arameri ways. But when Yeine is summoned to Sky, the seat of the Arameri family, and made […]

Posted September 11, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments