Feminist Science Fiction Fans discussion

I'm on page 60 of book one. It's hard to tell but am I right that each chapter/POV shift is also a time shift?

My page numbers don't match yours. Different editions.
But I think it becomes clear early on that the Essun chapters (the ones which have a title starting with "you") are happening at a different time than the others. There's no sign of an ongoing apocalypse in the other chapters.

How do you feel about Essun so far?
I remember the author talking on her blog or in interviews about how she thought readers would feel about that character... well, I didn't feel that way. So I'm wondering if I'm an outlier or if Jemisin doesn't get her readers.

There are a few feministy things going on in the book.
Would you like people to discuss everything related to the books such as the worldbuilding in this thread or would you like it to be dedicated to your discovery of the books? I don't know how concerned you are about spoilers but it would be easier not to spoil anything for you if there was a different thread for general musings about the trilogy.
As long as it's only the both of us posting here, I can simply wait until you've read further into the trilogy before saying much more.

Hmm, how do i feel about Essum? I understand her anger and I'm curious how she escape the Fulcrum. Escaped to breed as she liked, though the punishment received was likely worse than she would have earned.

When the Guardian comes to claim Damaya I was taken aback by...

“You’re a gift of the earth—but Father Earth hates us, never forget, and his gifts are neither free nor safe."

There was a moment where it felt like pure blasphemy, lol. A dark mirror to the sheltering arms of Mother Earth.

I guess I should have organized a hierarchy of threads but it really depends on the interest/participation level. Let's just stay here and if necessary we can put up a spoiler version. I really don't mind subtle spoilers and don't want to compel everyone to use tags.

Free discussion is best.

I like the way people's relationship with their environment is reflected in the way they think and speak.
But making Earth a father rather than a mother figure, and an "evil" one at that (the characters say "evil Earth" when swearing) was a interesting choice on the author's part. It suggests that fathers are the ones who discipline children in the trilogy's world. But that's a world without patriarchy! Is that Jemisin's essentialism showing?
There will be more about Father Earth later on in the books which touch on the history of that idea. People in that world used to say something else instead of Father Earth, just like our ancestors used to say Saturnalia (among other names) instead of Christmas...

I think the notion that the Earth (or the universe more generally) hates us is fairly common among scientists. It's usually said jokingly but the history of life on our planet is replete with great disasters.
Other things stated in the book (like "the planet is just fine" at the end of the prologue) resemble things scientists might say (about the current mass extinction for instance).

Page 86
Is this a world without patriarchy? Other than a representative of the Fulcrum all I've seen are male leaders.
I agree about the pragmatic scientists seeing Earth that way but Mother Earth to me implies that safety and simplicity can be found in harmony.
*shrugs*
I enjoy fantasizing about an Earthship.

As far as race goes it seems the preference is for medium colors and distinct features of origin. Being white or very black is looked on as extreme.

Maybe the lack of patriarchy isn't obvious early on.
And maybe that's deliberate. Jemisin had to introduce the differences between our world and the trilogy's setting bit by bit.
It's not just that there's no patriarchy in the sense of there being many female leaders... there are also castes, the economic system is different (as it would have to be) and so forth. It's a book written by a socialist and I think it shows.

When you'll become more aware of the differences between our world and the characters', you'll have to choose how to interpret some of them.
As with the matter of race, gender roles in the trilogy might have something to do with the biological differences between us and the creatures called "humans" in the books...


I think Earth as a female figure is a common notion in our world's cultures.
What it makes me think of is the economics of patriarchal agriculture (as in Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it or Your wives are your tilth; go, then, unto your tilth as you may desire).
What do you mean with "Earthship" by the way?

Page 111
"Every race in the world these days is part Sanzed." Sanzed are described with African features so if they've breed so well it makes sense most would be in the middle.
Maybe she got the idea from National Geographic http://thehigherlearning.com/2014/04/...

It's true I haven't gotten any sense of Be Fruitful and Multiply so say the Lord - other than at Fulcrum.

Just went through the scene where Schaffa breaks Damaya's hand to test her control as he whispers his calm love. It was sickening to read after

“Tell them they can be great someday, like us. Tell them they belong among us, no matter how we treat them. Tell them they must earn the respect which everyone else receives by default. Tell them there is a standard for acceptance; that standard is simply perfection. Kill those who scoff at these contradictions, and tell the rest that the dead deserved annihilation for their weakness and doubt. Then they’ll break themselves trying for what they’ll never achieve.”
- Erlsset, twenty-third emperor of the Sanzed Equatorial Affiliation, in the thirteenth year of the Season of Teeth. Comment recorded at a party, shortly before the founding of the Fulcrum.

Earthship!!!
(view spoiler)[I'm adding the spoiler so the tangent of love does not eclipse this thread.





https://youtu.be/Xj5NO32ahB0
https://youtu.be/EAvY5JeMz9w
https://youtu.be/QEzbOMvrlIA
https://youtu.be/efI77fzBgvg
(hide spoiler)]

That scene was... well, I reacted exactly like Damaya: "Wha -"
I didn't see that coming. And a couple of pages later it gets even worse...
Amazingly enough, the scene is even more sickening in hindsight. You aren't done with that sort of love.
The writer can push our buttons.

Shudder.

Page 143
"But standing here, with the ultimate proof of the world’s hatred dead and cold and stinking between them, she can’t even flinch this time."

I don't understand Alabaster. He knew what was in that node - he should have let it have its revenge.

I'm not sure how you're looking the situation or why you're saying "its".
The node maintainer was acting instinctively, not getting revenge.
And Syen figures that if Alabaster wanted revenge, he could do something even more destructive.

Alabaster saved countless lives. I can understand that. Isn't that what anyone would do, if they were able?
Or do you think allowing masses of largely powerless people to be killed for no other purpose than revenge is an appropriate way to process outrage at what their government has done?

To circle back to the issue of how we feel about Essun, we may be in the minority but I was fine with Essun icing her village in anger because it started with self-defense. Ideally, she would have had more self-control but I thought her reaction was understandable.
But if Alabaster had been there to witness her losing it, I think he should have stopped her. Just because her anger was understandable doesn't mean cooler heads shouldn't have been prevented her from causing pointless harm.

I think of that poor boy as an it because that's what they made him. Reaching for the earth was instinctual but the level of destruction he willed up was because for a moment he was conscious, he remembered.

Apologies for my American rage but race relations and marginalization are furious issues right now in my country. I've heard Switzerland is as gun crazy as Texas but you have substantially less gun violence. Do you put that to a more homogeneous society or greater economic prosperity?

The more I think about that supervolano at the beginning, how he said he'd tried to free his people, make things better... Was it just me that heard that voice from The Power
"You can't get there from here."
I feel like my anger at the injustice of this world is being built until I won't mind that the match is lit and the whole thing burned down.

Start again. Fail better.

No, I didn't hear that voice from The Power. Very different books.
I agree that your anger at this world is being built (I don't believe in justice and it worked for me too so I don't think injustice as such is the issue). But why is it being built?
The Power features an argument against identity politics. I doubt Jemisin would be willing to entertain such an argument. As far as I can tell, she's uncritical of this stuff (which is why she may have misjudged how her readers would feel about Essun).
Maybe there's a bit of misdirection on her part at the beginning. Maybe she wants you to think that this is going to be yet another Western-type fantasy in which individualists are freed from social constraints. But that's not her politics either.
Reading that part of the prologue again, I don't see a suggestion that he's trying to "get there" by burning the whole thing down. It seems like he assumes there's no getting there.

I don't think Switzerland is gun crazy. There traditionally was lots of guns around but the gun culture is different. There is much more non-gun violence in the US as well. Violence isn't a gun problem anymore than addiction is caused by the ever-growing number of chemicals the US government wants to wage a war against.
When people talk about "a more homogenous society", aren't they typically talking about racist fantasies? That's not Switzerland (or rather: not anymore). Neither is Switzerland more prosperous than the US (not by mainstream measures anyway). What it is, is more economically homogenous. The government works with unions and wages are high while local businesses are relatively less profitable. But I'm not sure that explains the relative lack of fear and hatred.
I'd wager the lack of mass slavery is a bigger factor. Switzerland also had a civil war in the mid-nineteenth century but it directly caused the early death of about 0.003% of the population (compared to about 3% in the US).

As to the boy, as I understood it surgery made sure he couldn't will any destruction. Fear automatically translated into destruction.

I guess I read the begging for more optimistically. The alien being assured him that humans and such would live through everything and he would not die either, it seemed he was immortal too. In other words, he could shape a new country since her kind, the alien being?, was uninterested in politics.

Alabaster would like to see a world where the oragenes take power. I wonder if they could first start with an island.

I don't know what NKs politics are, right now I see hatred and racial injustice. Now looking at the begging, or the end, it doesn't seem hopeful. But that tells me little about her right now.

I'm at 40% right now when Damaya meets Maxixe.

Right now all American Politics are identity politics. We are as divided as ever. But she wrote this preTrump which was another world.

I don't think you have enough information right now to understand the conversation with the alien being which is why I suspect it might have been intended as a bit of misdirection.

An island would indeed be a logical choice but I don't think I got the feeling that Alabaster would have been interested in taking charge of anything. He seemed more like a dreamer.

70% Freedom and flashbacks. It's nice to have a better sense of time with Damaya/Synite explained. I hope that in the other books we get a Guardians POV, there's obviously a lot going on there. They are trapped by birth too. I hope Synite can get overherself and enjoy the island.

You'll get a Guardian POV and more. Explanations are forthcoming. The series likes to do worldbuilding by setting up mysteries before revealing them.

About the prologue, now that you've seen Guardians at work, I think you can get the sense that it's not simply bigotry or a mere government which is oppressing orogenes and that starting over wouldn't be so easy. That is, unless destroying Yumenes would somehow take care of that problem...

That prophetic voice from Timay... yes I can see it building, like in The Way of Kings. Slowly a greater story.

Do you think Jemisin's work is derivative of Sanderson et al.? I've never read him and I've read very little contemporary mainstream fantasy so I wouldn't know.
I liked the Timay scene because it was so creepy. But overall, I found the mystery/reveal rythm too much. In fairness, I react much the same way to all modern trilogies: could have been shorter.

Oh these are my first works from either author so I couldn't say but some parts are a little similar. Probably a lot of high fantasy is like this (and even if this is labeled science fiction its reading like a high fantasy). So far my only serious dislike is the action writing. Scenes that should be fast and exciting are slowed to crawl.

It's... labelled science fiction ? ! ?
It totally reads like fantasy. And Jemisin is a fantasy writer.

Who does action writing well these days? I liked Zelazny's.

I definitely need to read the books of amber. Action would be Blades of Winter.

78% in.
Synite kills two ships to hide the presence of orogenes but thinks the Fulcrum won't notice a suddenly dormant volcano?!?!

89% in.
"Better that a child never have lived at all than live as a slave. Better that he die. Better that she die."
I remember this scene in Beloved.

Yes, that part was inspired by Beloved (or perhaps inspired by the same events as Beloved).

The volcano thing is easily the worst part of the book in my opinion. Her randomly making a terrible decision is bad enough. Baster ignoring the likely consequences and making her rings instead is worse.
But what annoyed me the most was that Jemisin felt the need to let the reader know there would be consequences by having a Guardian stupidly appear in the distance. As if it wasn't obvious enough... that was insulting.
The whole thing was implausible in the extreme. It only made sense inasmuch as it served the plot.

About your review... the spoiler you said you'd have liked to know about? Well, Jemisin said she did that in order to trick her readers into having some empathy for Essun. I hinted at this already but the idea was that sympathy accrued by supposedly more pleasant-looking characters imbued with victimhood would transfer to Essun. I think that was unnecessary. But according to identity politics, we were somehow supposed to dislike Essun on sight.
Essun is much less sympathetic in the second book anyway. I'm OK with unsympathetic protagonists but if it's true many readers aren't, I don't understand why she wrote the second book that way. I'd be interested to know your opinion of Essun once you get to the less flattering parts. Maybe you'll see things differently on account of your rage/anger at this world.

I'll start book two in about a week, I have a bunch of books to pick up today at the library. I love a good vengeance tale.

I meant to post this yesterday, but thanks for checking it out - my review.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

“To those who have no choice but to prepare their children for the battlefield.”
Now that is an opener!

25% in. So, no moon. I immediately googled what that would mean and yes, no or extreme changes in seasons due to the wildly titling axis, but also much shorter days. I haven’t noticed that or did I miss it? Time reference are midday and bells.

I’m not sure how I feel about “They called it magic.” but maybe they never got farther than that... after all this is fantasy not sci-fi. I use to not like fantasy because I thought magic, waving a magic wand, was a cop out. I preferred an explanation and a phaser, lol.

The way I see it, explanations is sci-fi are often cops outs. I prefer explanations based on magic than explanations based on incoherent pseudoscience.
The trilogy has quite a few explanations. But when reading science-flavored fantasy, different people seem to be looking for different kinds of explanations. See: http://www.walterjonwilliams.net/2012...

I wanted to ask again about your opinion of Essun now that you've read most of the second book... but looking at your status, I see you're actually angry at her kid. Care to explain?
And do you understand why I said the chapter in which Damaya's hand is broken "is even more sickening in hindsight"?
The hand-breaking thing is arguably overused in the second book. And simplistic as well. But I don't think books always need to be subtle or true to the life's messiness. Do you figure being victims made Essun and her kid destructive or that they were always going to end up that way?
And since you brought up The Power, which book do you think has the best exploration of the causes of destructive behavior?

That’s an interesting article, if you write fantasy in enough details, with enough explanations, the viewers could see science fiction. Indeed, many list The Broken Earth as science fiction. I think it’s because of the Hugo Awards and the lack of dragons. I see it as High Fanstasy.

Essun, in the last book I saw her as an unmoored person who just didn’t know how to be happy. Or more accurately, had been conditioned early on not to trust in it. She made mistakes that should have been obvious, the volcano and Jija. Other than being a cranky slow student I can’t ping her for a grievous error in this book.

Nassun I don’t like. I was furious when she killed the orogen children because “they were wrong.” As if they had a choice to be there, as if it were their idea.

I think Essun was someone who would have lived a quiet life if she hadn’t been victimized. Even when she was ambitious it was only to be allowed privacy. I don’t think as well of Nassun. Even with all the training and half (or less) of the strain/cruelty of Essuns life Nassun still becomes a serial killer.

More later, I really do feel exhausted from that book.

It's interesting how our readings diverge.
Essun killed many more people in the second book. And the children she killed (or the ones Baster prevented her from killing - she has a pretty murderous way of being cranky) had no choice to be there either.
I thought Nassun easily had more strain/cruelty to deal with than her mom. The way she brought up her daughter was what I saw as Essun's grievous error in this book. OK, it doesn't happen within the second book's timeline but as far as I'm concerned it's the book's most shocking reveal. I wouldn't have guessed it from the first book even though I realize people sometimes regress when they raise kids.
Which brings me to... the way Nassun sees Essun is so different form the way Essun sees herself! Do you think it's a case of unreliable narrator? I didn't think so. I thought Essun was simply in denial.

You really feel that
1. Having Essuns entire family turn on her and keep her in a barn until contacting someone to come kill her
2. Having the old Schaffa rescue/love her and then break her bones
3. Being placed in the Fulcrum and continually betrayed by other orogen
4. Being a slave and forced to reproduce on command with someone not of your choosing

is not as stressful as “girl time”? Essun was only hard with her daughter during girl time. She spent considerable, stressful, energy covering for both her children.

Essun got murderous when her life or her children’s lives were under threat - that’s normal. Nassun got murderous when things didn’t go her way, when she got judgemental and pissed.

I was furious when Nassun stoned the children at the Fulcrum school but not when Essun stoned all of Rennais and at first that confused me. But it’s not about numbers. Using a smart bomb to take out the capital of country that has declared war on you is morally acceptable. Opening fire with automatic weapons at a kindergarten is not.

Unreliable narrator - I wasn’t sure who the narrator of Nassun was. Sometimes it seemed to be Essun, some future Essun who knows, sometimes Hoa or another stone eater. There is a part where Essun is arguing with Alabaster where she admits to herself she should have explained more to Nassun why such discipline was important. But basically I view Nassun’s opinions of her mother as those of an ungrateful petulant child.

But Nassun does have every right to question her mothers choice of Jija - a man she knew would never accept her true self or any orogen children. It was wrong of her to have children with such a man.

We do feel strongly about this, don't we? These books are such button-pushers...
I guess we're coming at this with a different baggage. Like, as far as I'm concerned, war crimes are not acceptable.

But yes, I really do feel that what Essun went through is not as stressful as being abused by the only person you aren't made to lie to. And I do think you're making what Essun went through sound even worse than it was.
I also think that you're omitting some of Essun's murderousness and misrepresenting irrational violence as discipline.
You're right to wonder where the narrative is coming from but taking it at face value, I have to conclude that what Essun says about her relationships with children is at odds with her behaviour. Jemisin said she wanted to write about "The Black Family" and while Essun talks like an authoritarian teacher from The Wire, she understandably acts nothing like one.

Something else... to go back to the beginning of this thread, now that you've read more than enough of the trilogy to have formed an opinion on the workings of the setting's society: patriarchal or not?
And what do you make of how physically strong women seem to be? In books like The Power, a great deal is made of the relative weakness of women. But in this trilogy, it doesn't seem to be an issue. Since castes are transmitted along gender lines, Strongback could easily have been a male caste while Breeder could have been a female caste. It's not like Broken Earth shies away from dealing with the most important difference between males and females (see your point 4 above) so what gives?

No it’s not patriarchal, Sanzeds in general have an advantage but in a season they probably eat too much. They are part of the Equatorials, I think, which is why they started taking over so quickly to get enough food and stay atop the new cannon le food chain.

Yes, being forced/coerced, into pregnancy is always harder on the woman and that is in unbalanced but I think that’s why NK made Alabster gay - to highlight that these situations can suck for men too.

Where are you getting the Nassum abuse part? Nassum says her mother was normal until training time, girl time. And that ended when Nassun proved she could handle the power through pain. I would point out that was when Essuns training started. Obviously, it wasn’t enough training and many children died because of it.

“A Black Family” well... that’s weird considering the lengths the world building goes to create entirely new races that are completely disconnected to reality. Maybe she meant the whole world currently in the book because they are stated to all have some Sanzed in them. Maybe a reminder we all came from Africa, we all have that in us.

Why did Essun choose Jija? Was it self hatred?

About Jija, my first question would be: why did she want children to begin with? Hadn't she been reflecting with Baster how no child of theirs could be free? And she didn't know any place accepting of orogenes outside of the Fulcrum. The father would only be part of the problem. I guess she could have looked for another island but assuming she was going to have children on the mainland... do we know how different Jija was from other men? Is everyone that violent? Nassun doesn't think so but she's a child so I'm not sure.
Assuming she could have done better than Jija, my guess would be that Essun either didn't start a relationship with Jija intending to have children with him or was already pregnant when she met him. I haven't looked into the timeline but I've wondered more than once if Nassun was really Jija's. Maybe it's stated clearly at some point and I missed it.
In any case, Essun struck me as someone who's proficient at denial: if she needed Jija to be a great guy, that's how she was going to see him.

About "The Black Family", the idea I think is that there's something universal (as opposed to culturally specific) about children of an oppressed group being taught to behave in a way that's acceptable to the oppressors and so forth. It's not orogenes and stills, not about Sanzeds and other ethnic groups, as with the connection to Beloved you noticed earlier.

Nassun says that she yelled at her mother once and then her hand was broken. That made zero sense in terms of training. It was something else.
As you point out, Schaffa did that before the training even started. With no training, Damaya passed the test (as did most kids, I assume). Nassun wasn't passing a test. Certainly it's not her training which was being tested. There are other tests for that. Was Essun going to kill her daughter if she "failed"? Whatever for?
Now doing their thing at a specific place/time is what most abusers do, don't they? That's how they get away with it. They make the victims lie about what's going on and come up with reasons for spending time alone with them.

Finally, since we agree it's not a patriarchal society... why "Father Earth"? It makes sense from our perspective but Jemisin has her characters say "rusting" all the time which wouldn't make sense in our world so why do her characters use "father" that way?

Jija makes sense if she had been carrying the last of Innon. Then maybe she had a son by accident or, at least subconsciously, the replace the one that died - not that anything indicates they have in vitro control over sex.

Your reasoning about oppressed children being made to act a certain way is supported by the intro -

To those who have no choice but to prepare their children for the battlefield.

Essun only broke her hand once as a test of control in pain/emotion because Nassun didn’t want to train anymore. There wasn’t continued pain or suffering, that was it.

“She said it didn’t m-matter if I hated her. It didn’t matter if I didn’t want to be good at orogeny. Then she took my hand and said don’t ice anything. She had a round rock, and she hit my, my… my hand with it.”

You’re fire, Nassun. You’re lightning, dangerous unless captured in wires. But if you can control yourself through pain, I’ll know you’re safe. “I didn’t ice anything.”

True to her word, she’d never made Nassun go to the Tip with her again.

Nassun and Essun thought that was enough training - they were both wrong. I don’t think she would have killed Nassun, just continued training the girl in emotional control. She needed that.

Evil Earth, Father Earth and his lost son Moon. I think by making it male was an easy way to flip the more common Good Earth/Mother Earth. She it to be an angry vengeful character. Other than Solaris I can’t think of another story with a planet as a character. But this is less alien more angry male Gaia.

Remember this from book one?

(Life had a mother, too. Something terrible happened to Her.)

I shuddered when I read that. If Earth is the father of life, and the Moon his son, what is Mother? What else is missing?

I think rusting has the connotation of not just a curse but of something useless, unworthy, and frustrating.

I didn't read that excrept as "Nassun and Essun thought that was enough training". I read it as: after she had crossed that line, Essun didn't dare to put herself in that situation again.
According to Nassun, Essun would also get angry outside of the practice seesions. And based on her behavior in the "you" chapters, I can believe that.
The training at the Tip had to do with rings and boulders, not control. Nassun obviously had the basic level of control her mum claimed she was testing for. Essun is terrible at emotional control and yet had passed that test with zero training. I don't think that test ever was about self-control in the first place (I don't trust Guardian manipulation any more than Essun's rationalizations).
Nassun sure needed something. But I don't think it was training.

There's still a few chapters of the third book I haven't read. We'll see if there's something about the Mother in there...