Steve LaForest's Reviews > The Stone Sky

The page count for this book includes 18 pages of appendices - A catalogue of Fifth Seasons; a Glossary (both are the same as in volumes 1 and 2); and Acknowledgements. This page count felt a bit like padding.

SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT
The text below includes spoilers.

The novel was interesting BUT I do NOT like teleporting around the planet. Also - I do NOT like the stone-eaters very much at all. The imminent apocalypse makes it all seem rather pointless. It is a bit like our current situation - I am diligently cataloguing my books on Goodreads / rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic - while the average global temperature of my home planet creeps up toward and past the apocalyptic 1.6 degrees.

The process of getting to the moon in the novel was asinine. Was this really the best the author could do??? If so - leave it out altogether!

Being a geologist, I really enjoyed the first novel of the series, and found it very thought-provoking. When it arrived, at the about the same time as Naomi Novik's excellent fantasy "Uprooted", I was torn between the two - undecided over which was the better of the two. As with a great many (most?) series, the general trendline of the Broken Earth series quality was downward - with a rather abrupt drop-off (for me) between the second and third novels. All the more surprising, then, that this third novel won a Nebula as well as a Hugo.

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Incidentally, it is noteworthy that that every single novel in this trilogy won a Hugo Award. This is apparently the first time that it has happened. This is a major achievement, and I want to state clearly that I fully acknowledge her success, and have no wish to detract from it.

However, if you were to judge by the clamour over this event, you would misjudge what has occurred. The big, striking record overall for Hugo Awards for novel is the fact that Robert A. Heinlein won an astounding four in his career - more than anyone else ever. And he did so way back in 1966 (only 13 years after the awards were instituted)! Were the commentators who were obsessing over N.K. Jemisin’s 3 Hugos unaware of these facts – did they not have access to a search engine/computer/smartphone? Even a quick check of Wikipedia would have set the record straight.

If we pull back and focus on the big picture, I look at which novels have won one or the other of the two biggest awards each year – namely the Hugos and the Nebulas. A total of 106 novels have won either a Hugo and/or a Nebula Award (begun in 1966), as of Aug. 1, 2024 – it might increase by 1 next week). I think the vast majority of SF & F fans (at least in the west) would regard the Hugo and Nebula as the 2 of the major awards (and it really is not clear that one or the other takes precedence). On that score, only 1 author has won 5 awards (Lois McMaster Bujold), 3 authors have won 4 awards (Ursula K. Le Guin, Kim Stanley Robinson, and the aforementioned RAH). When you go one step further – to authors who have won an award for 3 different novels – there are FOUR authors – namely Joe Haldeman, Vernor Vinge and Connie Willis – in addition to N.K. Jemisin.

Winning a Hugo Award for every novel in a series is important, but it is equally important to place this feat in context.

My rating system:
Since Goodreads only allows 1 to 5 stars (no half-stars), you have no option but to be ruthless. I reserve one star for a book that is a BOMB - or poor (equivalent to a letter grade of F, E, or at most D). Progressing upwards, 2 stars is equivalent to C (C -, C or C+), 3 stars (equals to B - or B), 4 stars (equals B+ or A -), and 5 stars (equals A or A+). As a result, I maximize my rating space for good books, and don't waste half or more of that rating space on books that are of marginal quality.
I rated this book C+. This translates to a Goodreads score of 2 stars.

I can't really recommend this novel.