N.K. Jemisin Books in Order: Complete Reading Guide
N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy and other series in order. Reading guide for the first author to win three consecutive Hugo Awards for Best Novel.
N.K. Jemisin is an American fantasy author who became the first person to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel three consecutive years — for each volume of her Broken Earth trilogy (2016–2018). She is one of the most significant science fiction and fantasy writers of the 21st century.
The Broken Earth Trilogy (Read in Order)
| # | Title | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Fifth Season | 2015 |
| 2 | The Obelisk Gate | 2016 |
| 3 | The Stone Sky | 2017 |
1. The Fifth Season — 2015
Start here. A woman searches for her daughter in a world experiencing a Fifth Season — a catastrophic geological event that may be civilisation-ending. Told in second person (“you”), in a way that reveals its structural purpose as the novel progresses. One of the most formally innovative fantasy novels ever published. Hugo Award for Best Novel 2016.
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2. The Obelisk Gate — 2016
The second volume deepens the world and the cosmology established in The Fifth Season, following multiple timelines toward the confrontation the first book set up. Hugo Award for Best Novel 2017.
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3. The Stone Sky — 2017
The conclusion — the nature of the world’s catastrophe is revealed, the different timelines converge, and Jemisin delivers an ending that rewards everything the trilogy has built. Hugo Award for Best Novel 2018.
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Other N.K. Jemisin Works
The Inheritance Trilogy (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, 2010; The Broken Kingdoms, 2010; The Kingdom of Gods, 2011) — Her debut trilogy, set in a world where gods are enslaved by humans. Excellent and fully accessible to readers who want to explore her earlier work.
The Dreamblood Duology (The Killing Moon, 2012; The Shadowed Sun, 2012) — Duology inspired by ancient Egyptian mythology.
The City We Became (2020) — New York City becomes sentient and its boroughs are embodied by human avatars who must fight a multidimensional threat. A departure from epic fantasy toward urban fantasy.
A Historic Achievement in Fantasy
N.K. Jemisin achieved a historic milestone in the history of science fiction and fantasy, an unprecedented recognition that confirmed both the extraordinary quality of her work and her significance as a transformative figure in the genre. Jemisin’s achievement, particularly with her acclaimed Broken Earth trilogy, was historic and unprecedented, earning her the highest recognition the field can bestow and confirming her as one of the most significant and celebrated figures in contemporary science fiction and fantasy. Her trilogy earned major honors in an unprecedented manner, a historic achievement that recognized the extraordinary quality and significance of her work and marked her as a transformative figure in the genre. This historic recognition confirmed both the exceptional quality of Jemisin’s fiction and her importance as a writer who has expanded and transformed the possibilities of science fiction and fantasy, bringing new voices, perspectives, and concerns to the genre. As a transformative and celebrated figure, Jemisin occupies a significant place in contemporary science fiction and fantasy, and her historic achievement marked a milestone in the history of the field. For readers, Jemisin offers the work of a historically significant and celebrated figure, fiction of extraordinary quality that earned unprecedented recognition and transformed the possibilities of the genre. A historic achievement in fantasy, Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy earned unprecedented recognition of the highest order, confirming both the extraordinary quality of her work and her significance as a transformative figure who has expanded the possibilities of science fiction and fantasy.
Oppression, Power, and the Earth
The Broken Earth trilogy is distinguished by its powerful engagement with themes of oppression, power, and environmental catastrophe, using the resources of fantasy to explore the dynamics of domination, the experience of the oppressed, and the relationship between humanity and a damaged, hostile world. Jemisin’s trilogy engages powerfully with themes of oppression and power, exploring the dynamics of domination and subjugation, the experience of those who are oppressed and exploited, and the structures of power that sustain injustice, using the imaginative resources of fantasy to illuminate these realities with force and insight. The trilogy is also deeply concerned with environmental catastrophe, set in a world of recurring cataclysm and exploring the relationship between humanity and a damaged, hostile, and unstable earth. Through its imaginative scenario, the trilogy explores the dynamics of oppression and power and the experience of the oppressed with a force and resonance that speak to real-world realities of domination, exploitation, and injustice, using fantasy as a vehicle for serious engagement with these themes. This powerful engagement with oppression, power, and environmental catastrophe gives the trilogy its depth, its force, and its resonance, for Jemisin uses the resources of fantasy to illuminate the dynamics of domination and the experience of the oppressed, as well as the relationship between humanity and a damaged world. For readers, the trilogy offers a powerful engagement with oppression, power, and environmental catastrophe, using fantasy to explore the dynamics of domination, the experience of the oppressed, and humanity’s relationship to a hostile earth. Oppression, power, and the earth are central themes of the Broken Earth trilogy, which uses the resources of fantasy to explore the dynamics of domination, the experience of the oppressed, and the relationship between humanity and a damaged, hostile world, with a force and resonance that speak to real-world realities of injustice.
Worldbuilding and Innovation
N.K. Jemisin is celebrated for her extraordinary worldbuilding and her bold innovation, her creation of richly imagined, original worlds and her willingness to experiment with the forms and conventions of the genre. Jemisin is a worldbuilder of exceptional power and originality, and her Broken Earth trilogy is distinguished by its richly imagined, intricate, and original world, with its distinctive systems, histories, and realities, rendered with a depth and inventiveness that immerse the reader completely. She is also a bold innovator, willing to experiment with the forms, conventions, and possibilities of the genre, and her trilogy is marked by its formal and narrative innovation as well as its imaginative originality. This combination of extraordinary worldbuilding and bold innovation is central to Jemisin’s achievement, for she creates richly imagined and original worlds while pushing the boundaries of the genre’s forms and conventions, demonstrating the imaginative and formal possibilities of science fiction and fantasy. Her worldbuilding immerses the reader in richly realized and original worlds, while her innovation expands the possibilities of the genre, and together these qualities mark her as one of the most imaginative and significant figures in contemporary science fiction and fantasy. For readers, Jemisin offers extraordinary worldbuilding and bold innovation, richly imagined original worlds combined with experimentation with the forms and conventions of the genre. Worldbuilding and innovation distinguish Jemisin’s achievement, her creation of richly imagined, intricate, and original worlds combined with her bold experimentation with the forms and conventions of the genre, marking her as one of the most imaginative and significant figures in contemporary science fiction and fantasy.
What Makes the Broken Earth Different
Jemisin uses the formal elements of genre fantasy — world-building, magic systems, epic scope — in service of sustained allegorical argument about oppression, colonialism, and what it means to be considered subhuman by the society you live in. The orogenes are an oppressed class whose ability to prevent earthquakes is both feared and exploited — the allegory is deliberate and the execution precise.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What N.K. Jemisin book should I read first?
Start with The Fifth Season — the first volume of the Broken Earth trilogy. It is the natural entry point and sets up everything that follows. The Broken Earth trilogy should be read in order.
What did N.K. Jemisin win the Hugo Award for?
Jemisin won the Hugo Award for Best Novel three consecutive years — The Fifth Season (2016), The Obelisk Gate (2017), The Stone Sky (2018). She is the first author to win three consecutive Best Novel Hugos, and the first to win for all three volumes of a single trilogy.
What is the Broken Earth trilogy about?
The Broken Earth trilogy is set on a supercontinent called the Stillness that experiences regular catastrophic seismic events called Fifth Seasons. It follows Essun — a woman with the ability to control seismic energy (an orogene) — across different timelines, examining colonialism, oppression, and what it means to survive on a world that wants to kill you.
