#15 in Science fiction
The Fifth Season
- 512
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
- Hugo Award for Best Novel
- Planète SF Bloggers' Award
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Our view
“The Fifth Season” asks for patience and repays it. Some readers struggle with the first hundred pages, which drop them into a world that explains almost nothing, with characters slow to come into focus; the glossary at the back helps. After that the book is hard to leave, and it gains on a second reading. A dark opening to a trilogy, for readers who like to work a world out themselves.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Fifth Season is a 2015 science fantasy novel by American writer N. K. Jemisin. It was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2016. It is the first volume in the Broken Earth series and is followed by The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky.
Reading order · The Broken Earth
Full order & progress →- The Fifth SeasonThis book
8.78.7 / 10 - The Obelisk Gate
8.68.6 / 10 - The Stone Sky
8.88.8 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.7 across 1,971 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 93% of the weight and the score stays at 8.7 — the Science fiction average of 7.8 barely moves it. A further +0.10 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.5 | 22 | 1% |
| Hardcover | 8.7 | 1.9K | 99% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Fifth Season?
It has 512 pages — shorter than 57% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 8.5 and 8.8, closest to this book.
