The Kingdom of Gods

First off, it's amazing how much progress one can make on a fantasy novel while one is cooling one's heels before a solar eclipse reaches totality.

Having commented a number of times on how the second book of this trilogy didn't do much for me, and I only finally got it read by dealing with it as a chore to get done, I approached the final book with a little trepidation. However, taking the godling Sieh as its prime character focus, this concluding book is far from a chore to read, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. But, did I enjoy it better than "The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms?" Perhaps not, but it's been a long time since I read that book and I'm still inclined to call it my second favorite work of Jemisin's, only esteeming "The Fifth show more Season" more.

Still, things blow up real good in the climax of this trilogy, in which the process of collapse started in the first book comes to its culmination point, leading to a rebirth of sorts. Also, Jemisin ends on a grace note calling out to that second book I'm not so fond of, which I personally thought turned out to be a great point to end on. show less

This is the final volume in N.K. Jemisin's Inheritance trilogy, and... wow. The first two books were good, but this one is fantastic. This time the story is told from the point of view of one of the gods (although one who's suffering from a slight mortality problem), and the perspective this gives us on the nature and experiences and history of these entities is fascinating. I really am in awe of what Jemisin does with her mythology, the way it feels at once familiar in its archetypes and yet also utterly inventive and original. She makes her god characters compellingly complex and subtle, too, in ways that make one really think about what it even means to be a god of something.

Oh, yes, and the plot is also great, with a climax that is show more exciting and unexpected, epic and moving and perhaps even a little bit profound.

And, as a bonus, it's also got possibly the most hilarious glossary of terms I've ever seen in a novel, too. show less

I must say that this is the best of all three.

Sieh.

He touched me just as much as he touched Shahar or Deka. And before you start going on about how that's nasty, I mean it entirely metaphorically! Gosh, you people. I was damn close to tears an unknowable number of times while reading this. It was special in a way that all deeply mythological tales can be special, even when they tear a hole in reality to let in the Maelstrom, borrow from so many sources, and yet manage to be fully creative and original all on their own.

Was I genuinely surprised by some of their choices, or by the events that happened, or the way it finally got resolved? Yes, to all three.

I cried. It was just that good.

As for some of the things that some of you might be show more looking for in a progressive tale: There is offhand and natural relations between the sexes that I've come to expect from gods and godlings, only it is is a bit more down to earth with more of the mortal flavor in this novel. Traditional love story, this isn't.

What it really manages to be, spectacularly, is a novel about growing up.

That in itself is the biggest source of all conflict, of course, and made so much worse because it is the god of childhood and mischief that has to undergo such a nightmare of losing everything that he is.

What an emotional ride.

Plots and other storylines were very interesting and held the rest of the tale together as tightly as anyone could desire, and there were some rather huge events that happened, satisfying my ever-increasing desire for "More, More, More" mind-blowing greatness. I truly couldn't put the novel down for the life of me. It was intelligent, so well-crafted, wise, mischievous, and eventful. And best of all, it had one hell of a great story underneath everything else that was popping.

I already knew that Jemisin was one hell of an artist, from the first novel that I read, [b:The Fifth Season|19161852|The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)|N.K. Jemisin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386803701s/19161852.jpg|26115977], to this third book in the wonderful [b:The Broken Kingdoms|7904453|The Broken Kingdoms (Inheritance, #2)|N.K. Jemisin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1282522268s/7904453.jpg|11165787]. She's now become my go-to mastermind for brilliant storytelling, huge worldbuilding, and mythopunk craving.

So damn wonderful! show less

The Kingdom of Gods is the third book in N. K. Jemisin’s Inheritance trilogy. Like the first two books it tells a complete story, although I think the background from the earlier books adds more depth that one wouldn’t get if they jumped straight to this book for some ungodly reason. If I were a godling, I’d be the godling of Reading Series Books in Consecutive Order. :)

The story is set several decades after the last book and the main character is a godling that we’ve met before, but he’s new as a POV character. I’m going to put his name in spoiler tags for those who want to be surprised: Sieh, the godling of childhood, sometimes called the Trickster. Although he did some things that I didn’t like and could not respect, he show more was often a fun voice to narrate the story and I did like him quite well by the end. I thought there were a few slow spots, but it mostly held my interest. In fact, until I finished and started updating my notes, I completely forgot that it was 200 pages longer than each of the previous two books. It didn’t feel longer to me.

For most of the book I was planning to give this a solid 4 stars, or possibly 4.5 and round down to 4 on Goodreads, but the ending made me very happy. And then, in my edition anyway, it was followed up with a short story called Not the End which takes place after this third book but provides some closure to the second book. It was a bit sappy, but it made me happy too. And then that was followed up with a glossary that totally cracked me up. Clearly the author made the mistake of letting her main character get a hold of it! So after all of those smiles at the end, I decided to rate it at 4.5 stars and round up to 5 on Goodreads.

I have a few more spoiler-filled comments, mostly about the ending.
At the beginning of the book, Sieh said something about how he wasn’t going to play any tricks about who he was writing to, and then made snide references to how we found out who the narrators of the previous two books were writing to. Near the end of the book after Sieh died and Shahar took over the narration, I thought Sieh had actually played the cruelest trick of them all and I wasn’t very happy at all. But I was all smiles by the end of the Coda.

I think with every book in this trilogy I’ve reached the almost-end feeling unhappy about how things were clearly going to end, only to find that the author still had one more trick up her sleeve that at least partially turned things around for me. I still had mixed feelings about the final endings of the first two books, but I really liked the end of this one. The short story at the end made me feel happier about the second book also, especially given the misinformation that Glee had intentionally given to Sieh during book three. show less

It's perhaps too on-the-nose to critique a novel largely about the relationships between deities to say that the ending felt a little too deus ex machina, but there it is. While I enjoyed The Kingdom of Gods, I didn't think it was as strong as the previous two novels in the series, and felt as if it lacked internal discipline. Jemisin's prose is still as strong as ever, and I love her ability to create a diverse cast of characters whose motivations are derived more from psychological or emotional conflict than they are by the tropes of conventional high fantasy. Yet I didn't particularly buy the triad relationship established here between Sieh, Deka and Shahar—perhaps it was because we had such little insight into either of the show more latter, but I didn't get the sense of the passionate connection, or the strong relationship foundations, needed to make me buy the ending. show less

Another enjoyable page-turner from Jemisin.

Jemisin writes novels in which her characters and settings are radically transformed during the course of the narrative. The Kingdom of Gods did this particularly well, making for a story with strong forward momentum. Sieh, our trickster narrator, goes on a journey that we don't expect, and political and cosmological shifts literally change the world.

The plotting didn't always work for me - it reminded me of the previous book in the trilogy, with the characters tumbling from one messy situation to another, sometimes via obvious plot hook. The worldbuilding was mostly strong, but sometimes the language threw me off; Sieh's childlike slanginess included stock phrases from in our world, and I show more think invented phrases would have worked better.

This is certainly the most ambitious novel in the trilogy, which is why I'm inclined to give it a high rating despite plot wobbliness. At its best moments, it's profound about the human condition, going places that are more often explored in science fiction than in fantasy. (I say that as someone who normally prefers fantasy!) show less

As with the second volume, it took me some time to adjust to the change in narrator for this third installment in the Inheritance trilogy. This time around, we read from the perspective of a god -- Sieh, the trickster, god of childhood and mischief, who is having some troubles of his own this time around. I feel like I'm repeating myself something terrible, but this novel was just as good as its predecessors. The descriptions were elegant, the details exceptionally vivid, the characters fully fleshed. Jemisin's now-characteristic deftness with incorporating the fullness of a real world was present as well.

The only challenge I felt with this novel was a clunking shift in narration at the end. Given what occurred, however (and I won't show more spoil it here), I can't see how it could have been avoided. There certainly could have been smoother methods tried, and it did pull me from the story for a moment, but it was otherwise serviceable.

On the whole, I think this entire trilogy is absolutely excellent. Jemisin's writing is consistently strong, her characters -- both new and old -- are brilliantly human (even when inhuman) every time, and her world is irresistibly rich. The whole package rings with the weight of mythos and the freshness of a genuine talent. I have high hopes for future series -- and, of course, heartily recommend this one to any fantasy fans, as well as to others who find fantasy too formulaic. This series may change your mind. show less