The Obelisk Gate
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''The Obelisk Gate'' is a 2016
science fantasy Science fantasy is a hybrid genre within speculative fiction that simultaneously draws upon or combines tropes and elements from both science fiction and fantasy. In a conventional science fiction story, the world is presented as being scientif ...
novel by N. K. Jemisin and the second volume in the Broken Earth series—following ''The Fifth Season'', and preceding '' The Stone Sky''. ''The Obelisk Gate'' was released to strong reviews and, like its predecessor in the series, won the
Hugo Award for Best Novel The Hugo Award for Best Novel is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published in, or translated to, English during the previous calendar year. The novel award is available for works of fiction of 40,00 ...
.


Setting

''The Obelisk Gate'' takes place on a single
supercontinent In geology, a supercontinent is the assembly of most or all of Earth's continent, continental blocks or cratons to form a single large landmass. However, some geologists use a different definition, "a grouping of formerly dispersed continents", ...
, the Stillness, which suffers from catastrophic climate change every few centuries (the so-called "Fifth Season"). The book continues forward from an especially bad Fifth Season, one that may become an
apocalypse Apocalypse () is a literary genre in which a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a human intermediary. The means of mediation include dreams, visions and heavenly journeys, and they typically feature symbolic imager ...
. It follows two main characters: a mother and daughter, both of whom are magically talented ("orogenes"), who were separated just before the most recent Fifth Season. The plot revolves around their journey to find each other again, and their efforts to discover why Fifth Seasons exist.


Plot

The story is told primarily from the perspectives of Essun, a powerful orogene driven out of her home at the beginning of the first book, and Nassun, her 10 year-old daughter.


Schaffa

Schaffa, Essun's former Guardian, awakens underwater after Essun's devastating counterattack during the climax of '' The Fifth Season''. He is about to drown when, out of desperation, he allows the entity (manifested as a force of pure rage) that powers his and the other Guardians' abilities to take control of his body for a brief period. Though he is saved from death, the resulting brain damage leaves him with profound memory loss, and he is unable to fully recall his past as a Guardian. He is rescued by a family of fishermen on the coast. His memory of being a Guardian is triggered by a young boy who needs him, and the two set out south in response to a vague half-remembered memory.


Nassun

The story resumes soon after Nassun's father discovers her brother is an orogene. In a blind rage, he beats Nassun's brother to death and deducing Nassun is likely an orogene as well, abducts her as he flees Tirimo, their hometown. He intends to take Nassun south, where he has heard of a group of Guardians that can "cure" Nassun of orogeny. Nassun has always been close to her father, due largely to her strict and unforgiving relationship with her mother Essun, who has been secretly teaching her to hone her orogenic abilities in order to avoid detection. Nevertheless, she fears her father, who now is aware she is an orogene as well. Her father strikes her early in the journey, and is immediately overcome with guilt; Nassun, however, learns to harden her heart against him, and stops viewing him as her true father at all. They move south through much hardship, and witness firsthand the devastation wrought by Alabaster's fracturing of the entire continent further north. The Fifth Season triggered by this event steadily worsens as they travel. Finally, they reach the promised settlement: a town called Found Moon, administered by a group of Guardians, though not affiliated with the Fulcrum. The town is led by Schaffa, who has used it to shelter young orogenes during the years since he arrived. Nassun and her father settle in Found Moon, and Nassun begins to rapidly advance through the ranks of the makeshift Fulcrum the Guardians have established. She forms a particularly strong bond with Schaffa, who is fiercely protective of her and becomes her father figure in lieu of her biological father. She begins to understand that orogeny, in contrast to the teachings of her mother and the Guardians, is not just about moving heat energy from one place to another; she learns to perceive a mysterious silver energy, generated by living things, that underpins all of her orogenic powers. Her abilities increase to the point where she begins to learn to draw power from one of the obelisks floating nearby, much as her mother had many years earlier. Her use of this power causes her to accidentally kill one of her classmates by turning him to stone while suffering a nightmare. As Nassun grows in her abilities, her father starts to realize she is not being "cured" of her "sickness". He confronts Schaffa and later attempts to kill Nassun. She reluctantly uses her powers to turn her father to stone as well.


Essun

Essun remains in Castrima, a comm that lives in a huge underground geode. Ykka, the comm's leader, is an orogene herself, and due to her influence, orogenes are permitted to live openly alongside others. The comm is sustained by many mysterious functions of the geode that appear to operate by magic, such as air recyclers and climate control; Ykka has deduced that the mechanisms only function when orogenes are present. Also present in Castrima is Alabaster, Essun's former lover and an immensely powerful Fulcrum orogene. Alabaster is dying, his body slowly turning to stone as a consequence of using the energy of the obelisks to break the entire continent in half and trigger the current Fifth Season. He is watched over by a stone eater he has named Antimony, who appears to have an adversarial relationship with the mysterious "child" Hoa, now revealed to be a stone eater himself, who accompanied Essun as she fled Tirimo. Alabaster begins imparting some of his knowledge to Essun concerning the obelisks and the nature of orogeny. As revealed at the end of ''The Fifth Season'', the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
has not been seen for at least several thousand years prior to the events of the book, and most are not aware it ever existed. Alabaster states that his fracturing of the continent was a method to generate enough raw geological heat and power to allow a sufficiently powerful orogene to use the obelisks to recapture the Moon and end the Fifth Seasons (its highly elliptical orbit is one of the reasons for the geologic instability of the Stillness). Alabaster is also aware of the silver energy Nassun discovered, which he identifies as magic, the true fundamental force that makes orogeny (and the mechanisms of Castrima) possible. He struggles to teach Essun to use it effectively as his condition deteriorates, all the while reconciling with Essun over the death of their child years ago. He finally dies, his body turning completely to stone, after expending the last of his strength to rescue Essun from an attempt to harness the power of one of the nearby obelisks. Throughout, tensions within the society of Castrima are revealed, as the coexistence of orogenes and non-orogenic people (“stills”) within the community is uneasy at best. These issues are exacerbated by the appearance of a raiding party from a rival comm, Rennanis, who have left their home further north and intend to take Castrima by force. Initially unable to win in an outright attack, they besiege the comm by locating the ventilation shafts for the geode, intending to force them out into the open. Having no choice, the inhabitants of Castrima prepare for battle. Rennanis' offensive is aided by their own faction of stone eaters, who are opposed to Alabaster and Antimony's plans. Facing the loss of her new home, Essun successfully uses Alabaster's training to repeat his accomplishment, tapping the power of all the obelisks worldwide to form the Obelisk Gate. She uses the immense power of the Gate to turn every inhabitant of Rennanis to stone simultaneously. Castrima is saved, but the mechanisms of the geode have been irreparably damaged by the assault, and the comm faces starvation and suffocation if they remain. They begin preparations to set out into the worsening Fifth Season to find a new home.


Reception

''The Obelisk Gate'' was anticipated on its debut, and reviews were highly positive. Writing for
NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
, poet
Amal El-Mohtar Amal El-Mohtar (born 13 December 1984) is a Canadian poet and writer of speculative fiction. She has published short fiction, poetry, essays and reviews, and has edited the fantastic poetry quarterly magazine ''Goblin Fruit'' since 2006. El-Moht ...
said that "Not only could I not put it down—I couldn't come up for air long enough to comment on it while forsaking sleep and food in order to finish it", continuing on to say that "It pole vaults over the expectations I had for what epic fantasy should be and stands in magnificent testimony to what it could be." It later appeared on ''
The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...
''s list of the best science fiction and fantasy novels of 2016, where they wrote that the book "is an incredibly ambitious and important novel" that "continues to build on its predecessor's brilliance", as well as ''Wired''s, who believed that it was better than ''The Fifth Season''. Niall Alexander, on ''
Tor.com ''Tor.com'' is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine published by Tor Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers. The magazine publishes articles, reviews, original short fiction, re-reads and commentary on speculative fiction. From 20 ...
'', by contrast, was critical of ''The Obelisk Gate'' for falling into what he called "middle volume syndrome", believing that the book''Wired'', on the other hand, praised the book for escaping that syndrome, or what it called the typical "stalling" of middle books.


Awards

''The Obelisk Gate'' won the
Hugo Award The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention and chosen by its members. The Hugo is widely considered the premier a ...
for Best Novel in 2017. It was the second award for Jemisin's Broken Earth series (after ''The Fifth Season'' in 2016), making Jemisin the first author in over two decades to win the Best Novel Hugo in two consecutive years. Moreover, ''The Obelisk Gate''s victory came as part of a women-heavy slate of winners at the 2017 Hugos, which included best novel, novella, novelette, and short story. Outside of the Hugos, ''The Obelisk Gate'' was nominated for the
Nebula Award The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a nonprofit association of profe ...
for Best Novel, but lost to
Charlie Jane Anders Charlie Jane Anders is an American writer and commentator. She has written several novels, published magazines and websites, and hosted podcasts. In 2005, she received the Lambda Literary Award for work in the transgender category, and in 2009, t ...
' ''
All the Birds in the Sky ''All the Birds in the Sky'' is a 2016 science fantasy novel by American writer and editor Charlie Jane Anders. It is her debut speculative fiction novel and was first published in January 2016 in the United States by Tor Books. The book is abou ...
''. It won
RT Book Reviews ''Romantic Times'' was an American genre magazine specializing in romance novel A romance novel or romantic novel generally refers to a type of genre fiction novel which places its primary focus on the relationship and romantic love betwee ...
' 2016 award for best
high fantasy High fantasy, or epic fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy defined by the epic nature of its setting or by the epic stature of its characters, themes, or plot.Brian Stableford, ''The A to Z of Fantasy Literature'', (p. 198), Scarecrow Press, Pl ...
novel.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Obelisk Gate 2016 science fiction novels 2016 fantasy novels 2016 American novels Hugo Award for Best Novel-winning works Novels by N. K. Jemisin Science fantasy novels Orbit Books books