On The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

[rhivolution]

So I sorta promised were_duck on Twitter that I would talk about N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, which I plowed through at lightspeed the other day and really enjoyed.

I want to talk about it, badly...I just have no idea where to start. I suppose I could start with a couple of points and people can work outwards from there. Please try to keep comments at one journal (preferably Dreamwidth? idek) so that everyone can follow the discussion.

- Sieh reminds me a lot of unholynotions' GYO Hermes, to the point where I almost got them twisted in my head...and that did some shit to my brainspace, let me tell you, though it also meant I loved Sieh (despite my frustration with children overall). This probably will make no sense to anyone reading this. Sorry.

- I'd like to have seen some explanation of the incest taboo in the human Kingdoms, as it's just understood that Yeine is slightly thrown by it amongst the gods, but yet not to the point of finding it utterly disgusting like she finds much of Amn culture. Yes, I know it's almost a given in most cultures in our world...then again, maybe that would have been focusing on the wrong thing. Perhaps because of Enefa's soul?

- I appreciate the following: flawed but tough female narrator, realistic depiction of sexuality, enough twists that I had no idea what was going to happen or what had happened!, most excellent political struggles, worldbuilding, uncertainty of what is truth in the narrative.

- Really, I want to see more about the history of the Darre, as what's hinted at is very, very interesting. I'd like to think of it as natural consequences of a 70s-style feminist separatist utopia, but that might just be me being snarky towards said concept.

- The end seems a bit abrupt. I realise it's the end of the story, and I know we'll find out more secondhand in the later books, but I don't know. I feel like I wasn't given enough time to adjust to Yeine's transformation as her narrative style shifts, but that discomfiting is probably intentional.

- Did this almost read like SF to anyone else? I know it's fantasy, because it's magic and gods and whatever, but everything is so well-explained and...yeah. I can't really articulate why I got that feeling, but it's not a bad one.

Comments

[were_duck]

Yay, you wrote it!

As for your observations about Darre being the natural outcome of a 70s feminist utopia, I totally agree. Actually I found that to be the most fascinating aspect of Yeine's character, that she had all these unthinking little sexist thoughts about men. I really liked how Darre culture felt real through its effects on her in that way, even if we don't actually see a lot of it in the book itself. I don't know if you follow the author's blog, but she posted an interesting piece about 'Writing a Post-Feminist Character' a few months back.

I really appreciate the unstable narrative of the book--I liked that it didn't over-explain things to me, but it kept doling out enough information to make me feel invested in the story. I made my book club read it and most of them liked it--the few that didn't I think are people who don't prefer this kind of unstable narration that flips back and forth in time, while I totally eat that stuff up.

One of the parts I struggled the most with was the abruptly shifting characterizations of Naha/doth. What did you think of pet!human!Naha? It took me a while (and a second reading) to come around on that characterization, because while it was cool and befit the god of change to have such wildly different personalities, it felt like there wasn't quite enough there for cohesion. I don't know.

The only character who wasn't as interesting as I needed/wanted her to be was Scimina. She was just straight-up evil and power-hungry and crazy, and I am starting to get rubbed the wrong way by characterizations where power + ambition = crazy & dangerous, particularly in women.

My take on incest was that it was assumed to be part of the morally decayed society of the Amn? I'm not sure. I'll have to think about that one.

The other thing I didn't love about the book is that it focuses so tightly (claustrophobically, even) on the privileged and powerful caste. While it has a less-privileged narrator and her insights really help dispel some of that, I am really looking forward to the next book, especially given the teaser chapter we've gotten. YES.

[reflectedeve]

Oh, I’m excited that you’ve read this already! I literally finished it five minutes before you tweeted about recs from Wiscon. I loved it to bits; it certainly left me with a lot to think through.

I agree so much about wanting more about Darre. Yeine’s parent culture was so important to her character, but the details we were given felt far too sparse, and always so subjective (since it was almost always Yeine’s highly personal recollections, or occasionally a little Amn prejudice). I wish the book could have spent a little more time there, so we could have seen more through Yeine’s eyes than her memories, which were tantalizing.

As far as the incest taboo thing goes, I think that Yeine was able to accept that the gods were just fundamentally different from humans. They’re not exactly flesh, they’re not “born” the way humans are … it just doesn’t mean the same thing, necessarily, particularly between the Three. They’re all inherently connected, but on a highly symbolic/spiritual level. (The relationship between the Three and their children struck me as a little more “human” somehow – if only because they were deliberately and consciously created - which could be why Yeine seemed more thrown at the idea of Nahadoth sleeping with the other Enefah.)

I have to run out the door, so I’ll just leave these disjointed thoughts for now, but yeah. Quite an engaging, original piece of fantasy writing; I can’t wait for the follow-up. (More thoughts later, maybe.)

[brainwane]

Did this almost read like SF to anyone else? I know it's fantasy, because it's magic and gods and whatever, but everything is so well-explained and...yeah. I can't really articulate why I got that feeling, but it's not a bad one.

You might consider it "hard fantasy" -- that's a phrase that's going around for fantasy with way less handwaving...