The Fifth Season

The Broken Earth

Content Ratings

Moderate Romance

Essun's lost marriage, which involved genuine love and a catastrophic act of violence, is central to her emotional journey; LGBTQIA+ relationships are present including a significant romantic partnership between women; intimacy is depicted with emotional depth and moderate physical directness.

Intense Themes

The novel is a sustained examination of systemic oppression, the violence of institutions designed to exploit a minority population, grief over the murder of a child, and survival of trauma across a lifetime of persecution.

High Violence

A parent kills their own child at the novel's opening to prevent them from being taken; the systemic torture and exploitation of orogenes by a controlling institution, violent deaths, and brutal training methods are depicted with sustained and unflinching intensity.

Synopsis

In a world called the Stillness where catastrophic geological events called Fifth Seasons periodically destroy civilization, three womenâ€”an orogene who can control seismic energy, a young trainee in a brutal training program, and a traveling orogeneâ€”navigate a world that fears and exploits those with their abilities, as a new and final Season begins. Told in second person for one thread and switching perspectives, the novel is formally bold and emotionally devastating. A Hugo Award winner.