It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And Dorian Lynskey Feels Fine)

Humans seem to be obsessed with the cause of their own finality. Perhaps because, subconsciously, we want everything to fit into a nice narrative structure that has a beginning, a middle … and an end.

And I hope that you can forgive
us, for Everything Must Go.
(Image via Amazon)

From the dawn of recorded history, there have been stories of the end of days, from John’s Revelations to the Fimbulwinter of Norse myths. And since the enlightenment, the task of providing an original, satisfactory narrative conclusion has fallen to science fiction authors, providing a secular eschatology. Over the past 200 years, apocalyptic fiction has been — under various guises — one of the most robust and popular subgenres of SFF. 

Documenting this prolific output feels like an impossible task, but British journalist Dorian Lynskey has made a valiant attempt in his recent book Everything Must Go. The book — published in the United States in February 2025 — should be strongly considered for a Best Related Work Hugo Award next year.

Beginning with a prologue on various gods and their respective end-times predictions, the book then divides narrative apocalypses into subcategories; meteors, plagues, rogue computers, climate change and the like. The categorization helps break down the subject into slightly more manageable sections, though each of these categories probably warrants a tome of its own. Lynskey’s overarching thesis that catastrophic fiction reflects the preoccupations of its time may not be revolutionary, but his painstaking research and herculean collation is impressive and even, at times, entertainingly presented.

A culture and entertainment beat reporter by trade, Lynskey approaches the subject with wit. It’s a charming book, though sometimes his pop-culture journalism style verges on flippant. Many of his pithiest quips can be found in the books’ introduction and epilogue. As with the best reference works, these sections are essential to understanding where and when to consult the remaining chapters. As stated in the introduction, “Writers of fictional doomsdays all reveal what they love or hate about the world as it is, and what they fear. Such stories are the ice-core data for dating the life cycle of existential concerns.”

Everything Must Go is clearly a labour of love. The relentless criticism of the many works that descend into fascistic reveries about the world made anew required unusual stamina. The subtext apparent in survivalist fiction, in particular, is put under the microscope. “The post-apocalyptic trope of rebirth from the ashes overlaps, often unintentionally, with fascist notions of regeneration achieved through virility and violence,” he writes.

In the face of apocalypse, The Bed Sitting Room
encourages us all to put on our best and go out 
in style. 
(Image via IMDB)

Some chapters, particularly the chapters on “impact fiction” (i.e., meteors, comets, etc.) and “zombies” become a bit scattershot as Lynskey lists countless works and goes off on tangents about the relationships between them and real-world events. The eight-year gap between Terminator 2 and The Matrix is related to Gary Kasparov’s chess match against a machine and then to the UFO cult Chen Tao in Texas. The cavalcade of references is overwhelming. At times it feels like Lynskey wants to include every single apocalypse in this book — which results in just under 500 pages, including copious endnotes and a 30-page index. (We would add that even in this, there is a certain joy for those who are deeply invested in the genre to see references to old and obscure books that they've read.)

As Lynskey explains, the genre is rarely about the end of all things, but rather about what happens next for those lucky few who withstand the cataclysm. While the cause of the end of the world might be uncertain, one thing we can rely on is that humans will be writing about it until it happens. Everything Must Go provides a foundation from which future documentarians of the apocalypse can build from. To paraphrase Billy Corgan, The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning. 

The Unthinkable War

Nuclear war is usually described as “unthinkable.”

Jacobsen's book makes for grim
— but engaging — reading. 
(Image via Amazon)

Despite this, science fiction authors and fans have spent an awful lot of time thinking about this potential ending to humankind. By some accounts (such as Ronald Regan and Mikhail Gorbachev watching The Day After) the consumption of science fiction has helped stave off the threat of nuclear war by forcing people to think about what will actually transpire after the bombs go off.

There’s a long history of depicting nuclear war in SF. Decades before the Trinity test launched the real-world atomic age, genre fans were reading works like H.G. Wells’ The World Set Free (1914) or Cleve Cartmill’s Deadline (1944). But Hugo voters have usually eschewed celebrating such works. Leigh Brackett’s Long Tomorrow and Wilson Tucker’s Long Loud Silence — two of the earliest works that attempted to grapple with just how awful nuclear war might be — may have gotten close to winning Hugos, but neither of them took home the prize.

With the more recent increase in international conflict, decline in democracy, and erratic leadership at the reins of superpower governments, the threat of nuclear annihilation is more present than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Annie Jacobsen’s new book Nuclear War: A Scenario is therefore quite timely. It should be strongly considered for the Hugo Award for Best Related Work.

The book’s chapters alternate between a second-by-second speculative account of how a nuclear war might be experienced and chapters that provide history lessons about nuclear weapons, academic research, and military planning.

A national security journalist who has been shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, Jacobsen approaches the subject through meticulous research. The scenarios she paints are informed by recently declassified documents and dozens of interviews. The interviees include scientists who worked on early iterations of atomic testing, high-level military leaders, policymakers, and politicians.

By Jacobsen’s account — and the accounts of several of her interviewees, such as former STRATCOM commander Gen. Robert Kehler — it could all be over in as little as 72 minutes. America’s “launch-on-warning” policy, Russia’s flawed surveillance systems, uncertainty over third-party actors, and a multi-polar world with complex threat assessment all lead to a precarious nuclear position.

The narrative scenario features a single missile sent by North Korea targeting the United States, which — in accordance with American policy — prompts a disproportionate retaliation of more than 80 nuclear weapons in return. With missiles flying the circumpolar route from North America to the Korean peninsula, they end up going over Russia and being mistaken for provocation. By the end of an hour and a half, five billion people are dead.

Much like the BBC SF horror Threads, each detail is presented with gripping and grim misery.

BBC's Threads grapples with the aftermath of a 
limited nuclear strike. Jacobsen suggests that there
is no such thing as "limited" nuclear war, and
that there are no rules in a nuclear conflict.
(Image via BBC) 

Jacobsen never provides any ideas about how to avoid the ugly future she lays out as a real possibility, and perhaps the book might have been strengthened by a call to arms. Is nuclear disarmament the answer? It seems unlikely in a world where countries such as Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea have atomic stockpiles. Does she think the temperament of leaders and their willingness to navigate complex nuclear quandaries should be more of a factor in electoral politics? The book ends on a fairly bleak note with little in the way of hope.

It’s interesting that, despite careful research methods, the sources she was able to interview for the book are — with a handful of exceptions — American, and this leads to some biases in the work.

In fact, it is a flawed book in multiple ways. The prose is overblown and occasionally pompous. The descriptions of the extent of each atomic bomb’s devastation is sometimes repetitive. And the scenario that Jacobsen imagines almost entirely absolves her fictional American decision-makers, preferring instead to place the blame for the nuclear war on more irrational leaders of other countries. But perhaps this was the hand of an editor looking for a US audience. These criticisms aside, the work unveils a believable and perilous instability within the systems governing nuclear decision making. This helps make the book a compelling read.

Nuclear war isn’t the happiest subject in science fiction, but it is part of our genre. Consequently, this book is as Hugo-eligible as non-fiction about spaceflight (The Right Stuff, best dramatic presentation finalist 1984), evolution (After Man, best related work finalist 1982), and planetary sciences (Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, best dramatic presentation finalist 1981).

For all its flaws, the research and timeliness of Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario make it one of the most important science fiction-related works of 2024. 

A New Moon Illuminates The Apocalypse

Rice offers an apocalypse from
a fresh perspective and with 
interesting insights. 
(Image via Goodreads)

Post-apocalyptic fiction is known for its hopeful restarts, but the subgenre can also include ultimately nefarious elements perhaps best described as fantasies of re-establishing paleoconservative social hierarchies. In the aftermath of societal collapses, readers are encouraged to imagine themselves as a heroic survivor, either uniquely prepared, or uniquely suited for the new world that arises from the ashes of the old. Unshackled from the confines and complexities of middle-class suburban civilization, the post-apocalyptic prepper fancies that they’d be able to reach their full potential.

From Robert Kirkman's Walking Dead, to Stephen King’s The Stand, to John Ringo’s The Last Centurion, many authors have used a white cis man empowerment framework to construct a political argument about what sort of idealized rugged individualists would thrive and what kind of world they’d build in the absence of society’s constricting rules.

Almost inevitably, there’s an aspect of libertarianism to these works. The end of centralized government that is inherent to these stories is obviously an appealing prospect to authors who believe government is generally a bad thing.

Over the past few decades the subgenre of post-apocalyptic fiction has sometimes seemed a bit stale. The protagonists are too often fungible, omnicompetent white dudes who live by a rigid moral code. Characters like Joel Miller (Last of Us), Dave Marshall (Slow Apocalypse), Robert Neville (I Am Legend), Miles Matheson (NBC’s Revolution), or Rayford Steele (Left Behind) are basically interchangeable. It should not be lost on anyone that Earl Turner — the protagonist of the white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries — hews closely to this archetype. Race, class and gender are all entwined in the tropes and conventions of apocalyptic fiction, and often with reprehensible subtext.

Given this context for the subgenre, Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice is an admirable change of pace. Set a dozen years after a technological collapse, the book follows members of a small Anishinaabe community in Northern Ontario who have used traditional Indigenous knowledge and skills to survive as much of the rest of North America has fallen into ruin.

Although Moon of the Turning Leaves is Rice’s second novel following the Shkidnakiiwin community (after his 2018 novel Moon of the Crusted Snow), it stands on its own fully. Of the two, it offers more depth and insight into what has happened across this post-apocalyptic world.

In Rice’s first novel, the Anishinaabe community located north of Gibson Ontario survived the apocalypse by moving from their government reservation to the banks of a large lake where they’ve been able to subsist on fishing and hunting. By the second book, the resources of that lake and its environs have begun to run out, and the community sends a team of six people south to scout out their ancestral lands near Lake Huron.

Northern Ontario's wilderness provides an
interesting backdrop for an apocalypse.
(Image via Tourism Ontario) 

Led by Evan Whitesky and his 15-year-old daughter Nangohns (Anishinaabemowin for “Little Star”), the group is forced to confront what has happened to the rest of North America over the post-apocalyptic decade. While Rice’s first novel was about a group of people turning inward and forming community to survive, this second foray is about looking outwards and to the future to thrive.

In this setting, it should come as no surprise just how much time and effort these characters must put into ensuring they have enough food. The depiction of subsistence hunting, for example, brings into focus themes of respect for the land and for traditional practices. There are consequently long stretches of the novel in which not much happens other than surviving without modern conveniences, commercial agriculture, and supply chains. Some of that time might have been better spent on character development, as secondary protagonists can feel indistinguishable.

This is apocalyptic fiction with a rich sense of perspective, a strong authorial voice, and a compelling philosophical argument. In the event of a global societal catastrophe, it seems believable to us that the communities likeliest to thrive might be those who already faced a cataclysm (in this case, one that started in 1492) and thus carry a unique set of survival skills with them.

Is there an aspect of wish fulfillment and empowerment fantasy in Moon of the Turning Leaves? It would be easy to read it that way. But a story about a group of marginalized people seeking to return to their pre-colonization homelands has a completely different resonance than all the tales of privileged yuppies yearning for a might-makes-right world.

Moon of the Turning Leaves breathes new life into post-apocalyptic tropes, and deserves strong consideration for both the Aurora Award and the Hugo.

Not On The Shortlist 2019

Every year there are more worthy works than could fit on any Hugo Awards ballot. There will therefore always be works that are not included, no matter how great they may be. As our book club has done in previous years, some of us have selected the works they wish could have made this year's ballot.

(AW) Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster -- Lodestar
It’s rare to have a YA or a fantasy title on my (non-Hugo Book Club) reading list, so it feels a bit odd

Is it a surprise that someone
in this book club was drawn
to a book with strong labour
themes?
(Image via Goodreads) 

to be highlighting a work of YA fantasy as this year’s “should have been nominated novel.” Jonathan Auxier’s Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster is an award-winning work that provides a wonderfully engaging story with smartly-written characters. It also helped me think about what’s often missing from other novels (from all genres and for all reading levels).

Set in 1875 London, the chronologically young but situationally mature Nan Sparrow carries the reader through the dangerous, exploited lives of chimney sweeps. In the Victorian era, those who worked as sweeps were normally between the ages of 4-9; Nan is late career by this measure. Charlie is Nan’s golem (protector), serving as a metaphor for the painful plight of parents who found themselves on the wrong side of the labour and wealth redistribution of the industrial revolution. Sweep is the product of an experienced writer, with skillful narrative construction and delineated sections that (1) build characters and motivation and (2) bring tensions to a coming of age resolution for both Nan and the UK’s social contract.

With entertaining and careful writing about historical stakeholders (e.g. masters and servants, Friendly Societies, a nascent entrepreneurial and middle class), contemporary authors (William Blake, etc.), social conditions, and social progress, this is a work I’d love to see on elementary school curricula.

The afterword explains how Auxier crafted Sweep over many years, marinating ideas about golems and social norms and labour rights until his story elements were seasoned enough to bake into a narrative worth sharing. To be clear, it’s not the length of gestation but the care of crafting that has left an impression — and sets other novels in contrast. A strong novel bears the imprint of a patient and disciplined author; one that is willing to wait until disparate parts are ready to come together in a form worthy of a copy-editor’s effort, a publisher’s support, and a reader’s time.

For the record, I did read to at least a quarter-depth of all the novels included in the 2019 WorldCon voter’s package. If Sweep had been included in the YA list and voters actually read all the nominated works then Auxier would have been the favourite for a Lodestar Award in Dublin.

(BG) Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft
Though only marginally eligible for the Hugo this year, my choice is a 2018 gem: Josiah Bancroft's Senlin Ascends. Senlin Ascends was originally self-published in 2013, but after getting a lot of positive attention out of the 2016 SFBO (Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off) competition was published by Orbit in 2018.

Newlyweds Senlin and Marya are visiting the awe-inspiring Tower of Babel when they are separated. The mysterious Tower is so massive that each floor is its own ringdom (round kingdom) and no one is exactly sure how many floors there even are. So (of course) Senlin must start climbing up through the strange levels of the Tower in search of Marya. Senlin is semi-unlikeable at the start of the novel, but I found myself thoroughly won over and eager for a sequel by the end. Overall Senlin Ascends is a delightful debut, with wonderful prose, compelling characters and a promising world.

(OR) Kiksuya (Westworld Season 2, Episode 8) by Written by Carly Wray & Dan Dietz
If more people had been able to slog through the first seven boring episodes of Westworld’s second

Zahn McClarnon's performance as
Akecheta had pathos and humanity
that helped create the most compelling
hour of television in 2018.
(Image via Forbes) 

season, we’d wager that the eighth would have made the ballot for Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form.

Set in a western-themed park populated with androids who exist for the entertainment of wealthy visitors, Westworld’s second season depicted a variety of the now self-aware androids attempting to escape their servitude. While the overall season was mediocre at best, "Kiksuya" stood out as a near-perfect episode, shifting the perspective away from the mostly uninteresting set of protagonists that viewers were familiar with, and bringing a set of Indigenous android background characters into sharp focus.

The episode is primarily the story of Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon), leader of the Ghost Nation, and one of the first androids to achieve consciousness. Over the course of the tightly-scripted hour of television, we learn about how the memory of androids in the Ghost Nation have been re-written time and time again. Akecheta’s first life as a peaceful family man gets taken away and replaced with a violent one.

It was difficult not to see the repeated erasure and reprogramming of these Indigenous-presenting androids as a metaphor for historical attempts to erase Indigenous culture in North America. Akecheta’s narrative journey is a continuous attempt to remember who he was, and to reclaim his identity.

Having modeled the Ghost Nation on the real-world Lakota Nations (who live in what is now Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas), the writers and producers of this episode hired Indigenous scholars such as Emmy-winner Larry Poirier and Cordelia White Elk to ensure that the episode accurately depicted Indigenous traditions and cultures whenever possible. The episode’s dialogue is almost entirely in the Lakota language with English subtitles. The episode’s title that translates to ‘Remember.’

If every episode of Westworld had been as good as "Kiksuya," it would have been the best series on the air in 2018.

(KB) Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
Moon of the Crusted Snow was one of the best science-fiction books of 2018, and I wish it had been on the ballot for Best Novel.

Written by Waubgeshig Rice, an Anishinaabe journalist and author, the book asks a question best asked by an Indigenous author: “What happens when a society that already survived their apocalypse faces the crescendo of the climate crisis?” Rice explores this premise in the setting on an Anishinaabe reserve in Northern Ontario. Many “apocalypse-in-action” books are set in the urban environment, so

For many Indigenous
communities, the
apocalypse arrived in
1492. Waubgeshig Rice
explores what happens
to these communities when
the apocalypse hits the rest
of the planet.
(Image via Goodreads)

the realities of a rural, remote life enable a unique perspective not often heard in science fiction.

Another strength of this novel are the characters. The narrative’s main guiding voice is Evan Whitesky, a young father who is trying to relearn his traditional culture. Evan’s role in his community takes readers into the lives of a variety of other characters and their realities. This approach makes the reserve a fully-realized setting, an entire world apart from what most readers know from their day-to-day lives.

Readers learn about the Anishinaabe culture and language alongside Whitesky and his young family, and readers see the traditional knowledge leveraged for survival at the end of the Anthropocene as we know it. This is especially poignant considering the incredible harm Indigenous peoples survived in Canada both in the past (ie. Residential Schools, genocide, land theft) and in the present (ie. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Millennium Scoop). Colonization is a monster in the book, but Rice focuses on celebrating the survivance and thrivance of his people –– a love-letter to his culture.

A unique premise, an introspective philosophical theme, well-written characters –– seems like the sort of work Worldcon attendees would respond to.

(MB) The Quantum Magician by Derek Künsken
The Quantum Magician is Ocean’s Eleven in space and surely deserved a Hugo nod.

Ottawa resident, Derek Künsken, crafts a web of intrigue in which a homo quantus, a genetically engineered human able to read quantum states and make stunning predictions, brings together a team of genetic misfits to con one of the biggest empires in the galaxy. The story has enough twists and turns to keep any one off balance and all the loose ends are tied up in a dramatic finish.

It’s not only a delightful thriller, the story has excellent science fiction chops. There are multiple new branches of humanity, well developed starship propulsion systems, and a sprawling galactic community.

The book raises questions of what it means to be human, loyalty, and belonging. It’s a lot of fun to read gives a person something to think about long after the book is finished.

Trail of Lightning: Shockingly Good

Rebbeca Roanhorse’s debut novel Trail of Lightning might appear at first to be a run-of-the-mill

Rebecca Roanhorse at the 2018
Worldcon, where she won her first
Hugo Award.
(Photo by Olav Rokne)

urban fantasy, but it offers the astute reader a culturally-rich narrative.

Set against a multifaceted, frightening future where North America has been ravaged by man-made climate change, Trail of Lightning pits deadly, other-worldly monsters against people with superhuman powers.

Those familiar with Indigenous storytelling practices will be at home with Roanhorse’s writing style, in which metaphor and allegory are used prominently, and more-than-human relations (ie. relationships between humans, nature, animals, and spiritual beings) are common and understood (well, as much as any relationship can be understood).

While mainstream audiences may interpret these stories as myth or as speculative fiction, Indigenous storytelling traditions are more likely to recognize the philosophical and pedagogical nature of these narratives. At times, the stories shift from Aesop-like cautionary tales like that of the windigo, to stories that teach values like the story of Kunuuksaayuka. Roanhorse’s work expands on these traditions and exposes them to a new audience.

Like the Binti trilogy, the culturally-specific narrative anticipates that the audience can adjust, learn,

Trail Of Lightning blends Indigenous
narrative tradition with genre tropes.
(Image via Tor.com) 

and experience what is new to them. At times, etic readers may find this overwhelming, but The Six World series makes the effort worthwhile. Roanhorse doesn’t explain certain terms or phrasing in the first chapters because the protagonist and narrator, Maggie Hoskie, doesn’t need exposition. It’s the reality she lives in and knows. While it may be new to readers, it functions as an immersive experience.

The backdrop of apocalyptic climate change inspired discussion about its possible misuse as a fictive understanding of climate change itself (that is, as an argument against the science behind the evidence-based phenomenon). Others argued that the fantastical nature of the climate change seen in Trail of Lighting was used as a narrative tipping point. That is, the supernatural regains control after humans have mucked up the fifth world. Everyone seemed to agree that the setting made for an interesting element in that it constrained the protagonist from understanding the whole of the world.

With this idea of iterative ‘worlds’ that the planet experiences, it is hard not to compare the work to N.K. Jemisin’s much-lauded Broken Earth trilogy. Both works involve a world broken by Euro-settler hubris, both involve protagonists with superhuman gifts; and both are centred in cultural understandings. Likewise, one can see parallels between Trail of Lightning and American Gods, through its conflicts between the known world and the transcendent.

These comparisons, however, may place Trail of Lightning at a disadvantage, because as an introductory novel, it does not show the same writerly craft as these illustrious predecessors. In particular, some of the character development in the book shows some weakness and inconsistency — Maggie Hoskie’s simmering anger and grimness is a bit lacking in nuance. Given her self-reliance and independence, it’s disappointing to see her make mistakes because of a cliche romantic entanglement.

It is also interesting to compare Trail of Lightning to another 2018 Indigenous post-apocalyptic novel

Anishinaabe journalist Waubgeshig Rice
is another Indigenous writer whose SF
we would heartily recommend.
(Image via CBC.ca) 

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Anishinaabe writer and journalist Waubgeshig Rice, which was on several of our 2019 Hugo nominating ballots. This Canadian bestseller might have been overlooked by the broader science-fiction community, but Rice’s tale deserves more attention for his depiction of the collapse of society from the perspective of those who have marginalized for generations. It is an extraordinary science fiction novel. For those whose appetites for this type of narrative have been whet by Roanhorse’s book, we highly recommend this book.

Overall Trail of Lightning is an engaging read that brings an important and often marginalized viewpoint to a broader science fiction audience. Despite some of our criticisms of characterization, Roanhorse’s deft weaving of cultural knowledge, myth, metaphor and real-world challenges put this at or near the top of many of our ballots.

All The Birds In The Sky — Book Club Review

All The Birds In The Sky comes with a gold-star pedigree. Universally, our book club looked forward to reading it because of our longstanding respect for Charlie Jane Anders’ work as a science fiction

Image via Amazon.ca

journalist.

While this book — Anders’ first novel — shows promise, it ultimately did not live up to our expectations.

As with many journalists who turn their quills to novel writing, Anders’ fist attempt at long-form writing seems to be an aggregation of vignettes. The prose is more than competent in places, but the structure is uneven, the pace is off-putting and the dialogue left us wondering about the intended audience.

Written with knowledge of the genre

That being said, Anders’ long-time involvement in fandom and knowledge of the genre shine through. Members of our book club praised the magic system she created and the odd applications of scientific technology — particularly the university-based A.I. that is trying to help people find romantic partners.

Many of these ideas may be worthy of development into standalone short stories — a format that Anders has shown skill with in the past (We would particularly highlight her first-rate story The Fermi Paradox Is My Business Model).

Charlie Jane Anders
(Image via Wikipedia)

As noted in a previous blog post, our group has a preference for books that have a beginning, middle and end and are self-contained. This book’s large-scale structure — childhood, divergence, conflict, apocalypse — works, and it’s good to see at least one nominated book that fulfills a single large narrative arc.

Uneven pacing

But the pacing of this arc is choppy and characters disappear and reappear suddenly and without explanation. The assassin — one of the more interesting characters in the book — disappears for long stretches without cause and, when he is written in, seems to act without clear motives.

The book’s exploration of societal dichotomy between nature-based neo-pagan beliefs and technophilia spurred some lively debate in our group.

Given our appreciation for much of Anders’ previous work as a journalist and short stories, many of us are looking forward to her subsequent works. However, this book was not at the top of any of our Hugo ballots.

The Obelisk Gate – Book Club 2017 – First book discussed

The Obelisk Gate is a worthy nominee for the Hugo Award, but most of us didn’t feel that it was as good as Fifth Season.

True to form, N.K. Jemisin’s writing is strong, her characters are well crafted, and the world building is interesting. And yet the book falls somewhere short of what we had hoped for. 

Although it sounds a bit strange, many of us tried to figure out what had actually happened in the book. As it turns out, not all that much. While interesting context is provided for the events of the preceding book and information is offered about the challenges to come, the characters didn’t actually do very much or move the plot along in any significant ways.

Second-Book Syndrome

Perhaps the book suffers from being the second in a trilogy. As such, it can’t have the originality and vigor of a first book and also can’t have as epic a conclusion as a third book.

Jemisin’s strength as a writer and deft social commentary make this a worthwhile read. Questions of race, class and gender are explored thoughtfully and with nuance. The characters speak with their own voices, and grow.

Alabaster’s slow decline as he tries to pass along knowledge to Essun, and Essun’s growing control of her magic could have been nothing more than a Hero’s Journey ™ like that of Obi-Wan and Luke. But Jemisin’s more nuanced character building elevates this relationship to something more touching and poignant.  Again, she raises the readers’ expectations as they progress through the book.

N.K. Jemisin
Photo from SFWA

The book’s final 50 pages are where the second-book syndrome really comes to the forefront, because nothing is resolved other than knowing that there are significant actions to come. Needing to read the next book to have a dénouement is not a satisfying ending. 

Back-To-Back Hugos?

The Hugo Awards have often honoured multiple books in a well-loved series, but usually not in back-to-back years, and usually only when the author has taken the series in new directions. The Obelisk Gate is unlikely to buck this trend.

None of us would be upset if Obelisk Gate won — and some of us are likely to vote for it. At the same time, we're all hoping that one of the other nominees astonishes us.