This is in regards to “The Stone Sky”, which I just reviewed.
MAJOR spoilers below.
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Let’s say that the fate of the world depends on you being in a specific city, at a specific time, about one week from now. Transportation isn’t an issue, you can get there in about an hour. But you have to physically be there, or literally the human race goes extinct. Do you:
A. Make sure you get there at least a day early, so you have plenty of time to check out the city, get situated, and leave a margin of error for any sort of SNAFU that crop up?
or
B. Spend a few days loafing, saying goodbye to all your friends, and the morning of the fateful hour eat a leisurely breakfast where you all screw around and bond for a bit, before leaving at a time that’ll ensure you’ll get to where you need to be with no more than fifteen minutes to spare?
Unless you are a fucking idiot, you go with A. In fact, I can’t think of anyone, even the world’s most fucking idiot, that would go with B, because fate of all of humanity. GET THERE EARLY. And yet, Essun chooses B. And it’s painfully obvious why.
The main source of conflict in the climax is the same source of conflict of every bad RomCom ever — the two protagonists don’t spend five damn minutes to just talk to each other! All the heartache and misunderstanding (and in bad RomComs, the entire plot) evaporates if the two protagonists would just sit down and have a short freakin’ conversation. This is why Essun waits until the last minute to go to the Appointed Location. If she got there any earlier there wouldn’t be time pressure preventing her from talking with her daughter, Nassun would discover she has options other than “kill everyone”, Essun would discover she could gift everyone with infinite life, and there wouldn’t be the Mother vs Daughter conflict that Jemisin wants.
As much as I love everything else Jemisin has done, this is just plain bad writing. There are dozens of ways to force Essun and Nassun into conflict that don’t involve “We don’t have five minutes to share knowledge.” Or, though less satisfying, if we really want to stick with time-pressure, there’s hundreds of reasonable ways to prevent Essun from getting to the Appointed Location until the last minute that don’t require her (and everyone in her entourage) to hold The Idiot Ball for days. None of these options were taken. Instead we get a forced climax that relies on a ridiculous contrivance.
Also, as long as I’m complaining, Nassun’s sudden switch to “Instead of killing everyone, let’s make everyone immortal!” was jarring. This would have been a far better book if she’d been given the “I can make everyone immortal” information right up front, so her role would have been the (Misguided?) Savior, which is entirely believable for someone her age, who has a loving and supportive father at her side at all times. Far better than the Destroyer role she was inelegantly forced into.
To be honest, I’m only harsh on this book because the first one was sooooo good. The Stone Sky is still better than 90% of the stuff out there! It’s mostly out of frustration for seeing awesomeness fall apart in the third book that I complain. But hey, this is not my book, I’m just a reader with his own agenda and opinions. Jemisin may very rightly say “Screw off, this is my book, and I wrote it just how I wanted it. You think you could write a better book? You try it!” Fair enough. I know people who love this book just as much as the first one in the trilogy. But this is my post of mourning, so take it as you will.
Just read this second part of the review and part of my comment to the prior post is funny in light of seeing what you wrote here.
Its been a while since I read this (read it right when it came out) so I don’t remember the details as sharply. I don’t recall the ending relying on such a degree of idiot balling, but maybe I just glossed over it, or excused it with the idea that Essun might be subconsciously dragging her feet a bit because while she was on board with saving the world, she may not have been 100% on board.
Not related to your post sorry. Finally got around to buying your short story collection and will leave an amazon review once done but I just wanted to know if you wanted feedback aside from that and where you would want it.
(I’m only asking because I labour under the impression that its hard to get feedback on your work as anything other than a super popular author)
Hi! I’m not sure how I missed this comment initially, but I’m glad I stumbled across it agian. :) Yes, I’d love feedback! My personal email would work – embrodski@gmail
Thanks!
While I agree about the idiot balling and thought it was weird, I can’t agree that Nassun should be naive and would be better suited to a savior role because of the presence “of a loving father figure.” She had a rabid tiger mom who BROKE HER HAND and a father who killed her baby brother and tried to kill her. Also, she’s 10–has no prefrontal cortex and doesn’t understand what it means to kill everything. She’s already killed several people, and children are known for seeing the world in black and white.
It felt like we had some additional chapters shoved in (about the origin of origins etc) to hold off the ending, nd I found myself predicting that all the faffing with Essuns friends in their new calm was just the plot dragging it’s feet to generate a pressured last minute final scene. Then no real clarity why the mother and daughter didn’t speak. We just have Essun repeating Nassuns name and not talking about anything. We’d had lots of plot of Nassun learning Essun’s past explaining why she was a cold mother, and we have the author putting to us that neither character would be interested in discussing what has gone on? Why didn’t we get a conversation between Schaffer and Essun?! That would have been some interesting content. I was really hoping for some self realisation from Essun, some redemption
for them, reconciliation and perhaps both putting the moon in place together, and then Essuns death/turn to stone eater. The plot previously has Nassun learn why Essun acted the way she did to her, it was wide open for some forgiveness for both of them towards eachother. Ending left me feeling deflated.