The Kingdom of Gods by N. K. Jemisin
600 pages
Published 2011
Read from April 13 to April 18
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
After a surprisingly good first installment and a lesser but still enjoyable middle volume, the Inheritance Trilogy finishes with this uneven and overlong but ultimately worthwhile and effective number. Coming after two books centered on narrators from backwater provinces suddenly discovering vast powers, only now unlocked, Gods at least explores new territory. The narrator here is Sieh, the trickster-child god first encountered in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and he faces the loss of his god-powers while he uncovers a cosmic threat to the existence of the universe as he knows it. My main issue with this storyline is how abstracted the central threat feels. I've cared about Sieh as a character since early on in Hundred Thousand; he has been by far the most fleshed-out of the godling characters throughout the series. But when his primary antagonist is the cosmological laws of the fantasy universe he inhabits, investment in him as a character only gets the story so much mileage. I've read too many fantasy novels that pin their conflict to a ridiculous Big Bad (including, say, The Broken Kingdoms) to feel unappreciative of what Jemisin is trying to do -- at least she's trying to break the "fantasy villain" mold. But when the plot turns on minutiae of how fantastical cosmology operates, and the book reels on for 600 pages, it's hard to stifle the occasional yawn.
Fortunately, Jemisin delivers emotional catharsis where it counts, and overall, I'd rate this series a moderate success. I don't even care that much that I kind of saw the ending coming a long way off; it satisfied regardless.
This book came bundled with a bonus short story set in the same world, "Not the End," which serves as a cute, tidy coda to the story of Oree and Shiny from book two. It was hardly a necessary capper, but it wasn't unwelcome, either.
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