Book · 2015
The Fifth Season
by N. K. Jemisin
A woman searches a dying continent for the daughter her husband stole, while the world ends again on schedule.
What does Reddit think of The Fifth Season?
r/Fantasy treats The Fifth Season as a fighting word. One 385-upvote thread ranks it flat out above The Name of the Wind, calling the matchup 'spicy' on purpose, and nobody in the comments objects. That's the loudest signal in a discussion that spans 886 mentions on r/Fantasy, 1147 on r/printSF, and 859 on r/suggestmeabook, 2892 total across seven years and 2074 different commenters. The recurring praise names Essun alongside Éowyn, Catelyn Stark, and Kettricken; one 203-upvote comment just says the women 'get HARD.' The recurring complaint is the second-person chapters. Readers who loved book one describe stalling on book two, blaming the POV switch and a cast nobody is obligated to like. One high-upvoted comment calls the trilogy worth three consecutive Hugo wins, and nothing in the thread contradicts it. r/Fantasy also keeps drawing a line between dark and edgy, insisting Jemisin's apocalypses land on the honest side of it. Mentions have cooled from a 2020 peak of 551 to 327 last year; the ranking threads haven't.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Second-person narration as a barrier to entry
- · Essun's search across a world that ends on a schedule
- · Orogeny as a metaphor for institutional control
- · A trilogy with three consecutive Hugo wins
- · The GRRM and Name of the Wind comparisons
Common praise
- + Commenters keep putting Essun next to Éowyn and Catelyn Stark on 'toughest women in fantasy' lists.
- + One 203-upvote reply just says Jemisin's women 'get HARD' and leaves it at that.
- + A 385-upvote r/Fantasy thread ranks it ahead of The Name of the Wind and mostly gets agreement, not arguments.
- + r/Fantasy readers separate it from 'edgy' fantasy, pointing out the dark content never exists just to shock.
Common criticism
- − Multiple r/Fantasy commenters admit they stalled on book two after loving book one.
- − The second-person POV gets blamed by name for readers bouncing off the sequel.
- − Some say the unlikeability of most characters turns the second book into a slog even for fans of the first.
Who it's for
Start here if you want fantasy where a Fifth Season is scheduled weather, not a plot twist. The Song of Ice and Fire comparisons that show up in r/Fantasy threads are a fair scale check: expect that level of worldbuilding and a similarly high body count. Give the second-person chapters at least fifty pages before deciding they're a gimmick — plenty of r/Fantasy regulars say the book only clicked partway through. If you've bounced off unlikeable protagonists in other series, know that r/Fantasy's own fans admit the cast is exactly what slowed them down in book two.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for The Fifth Season?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“Let's start things off spicy: The Fifth Season The Name of the Wind
“I tremendously enjoyed the first book, but admittedly, I'm limping through the second. I do see how someone might struggle with 2nd POV or the unlikeability of most characters. However, as a parent, and someone who has encountered at least an average level of hardship for my age, I found the MC rela…
“The Broken Earth books have some of this dynamic, although the child in question is.... hmmm not quite normal. The main character is a very cold and practical woman (out of what she sees as necessity). Also if you don't mind the older woman being not terribly cold or jaded, Tehanu is a pretty good o…
“I'm almost done with the Broken Earth trilogy, by N.K. Jemisen, and she writes some of the most badass women I've ever come across. They get HARD.
“The Broken Earth Trilogy executes this idea brilliantly, imo.
“Yeah, there are dark things that happen but it's not *edgy*. I describe "edgy" as performatively dark, showing things that are "bad" to shock you or to try and convince you that a work is more mature. The Fifth Season doesn't do that. Dark things happen but they're not done for shock value or bec…
“**Kettricken** from RotE **Nona Grey** from Book of the Ancestor **Catelyn Stark** from ASOFAI **Éowyn** from LotR **Essun** from The Broken Earth
“Broken Earth was worthy of three consecutive Hugo awards. It's a fantasy but it's also an examination of the insidiousness of slavery. It's heartbreaking. Jemisin is a treasure.
Convinced? Pick up The Fifth Season
Readers also mention
All books like The Fifth Season →Books that share discussion threads with The Fifth Season — counted from the comments, not curated.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Ursula K. Le Guin
An envoy is sent alone to a planet where everyone is genderless most of the month, and he has to unlearn who he assumes is in charge.
Dune
Frank Herbert
A duke's son survives his family's betrayal on a desert planet and becomes the prophet who leads its people to war.
Hyperion
Dan Simmons
Seven pilgrims journey toward a monster that grants one wish and kills everyone else, and each tells the story of why they came.
Children of Time
Adrian Tchaikovsky
A terraforming experiment goes wrong, a nanovirus lands on spiders instead of monkeys, and evolution builds a civilization nobody planned for.
The Three-Body Problem
Liu Cixin
A Chinese radio astronomer's decades-old reply to an alien signal puts Earth on a collision course with an invasion fleet centuries out.
All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries)
Martha Wells
A security robot hacks its own governor module, gains free will, and spends its days streaming soap operas instead of killing anyone.
The Fifth Season — frequently asked
Is The Fifth Season better than The Name of the Wind?+
Depends who you ask, but r/Fantasy leans yes. A 385-upvote thread opens by ranking The Fifth Season above The Name of the Wind and calls the comparison 'spicy' on purpose; the replies mostly agree rather than argue back. That's inside a discussion with 886 mentions on r/Fantasy alone, part of 2892 total mentions across r/printSF, r/Fantasy, and r/suggestmeabook. Nobody's forcing a rematch, but the vote count speaks.
Does The Fifth Season stay good through its sequels?+
Mostly, but book two is where people stall. One 238-upvote comment says 'I tremendously enjoyed the first book, but admittedly, I'm limping through the second,' pointing at the second-person chapters and the unlikeability of most characters. That complaint shows up often enough on r/Fantasy that it shapes how the sequel gets recommended. The first book's reputation isn't in question; the follow-through is.
Is The Fifth Season 'edgy' grimdark or something else?+
r/Fantasy says something else. One 174-upvote comment draws the line explicitly: 'edgy' is dark material shown off for shock value, and The Fifth Season 'doesn't do that' even though bad things happen constantly. The distinction shows up often enough in threads to read as settled opinion, not a one-off defense. The violence serves the orogeny plot, not the vibe.
Which subreddit talks about The Fifth Season the most?+
r/printSF, with 1147 mentions against 886 on r/Fantasy and 859 on r/suggestmeabook, out of 2892 total mentions from 2074 commenters over seven years. Discussion peaked in 2020 at 551 mentions and has cooled since, down to 327 in 2025. r/printSF's lead tracks with how often the trilogy gets pitched as science fiction wearing fantasy clothes.