The Stone Sky (Jemisin)

4/5. Okay, I went and read The Stone Sky and it was really extremely good and I was not sure it was possible to follow up Fifth Season with something even more intense (Obelisk Gate was very good, but not, I think, more intense), but in fact it did turn out to be the case. I basically finished this book saying to myself, "Yup, don't even need to read anything else published this year," because I will be shocked if this one doesn't win both the Hugo and the Nebula. (That being said, I have read really not that much published this year, including Provenance, so I should perhaps hedge my bets — and feel free to suggest other possibilities to me :) ) Also, I turned out to be wrong about the second book, which I like a lot more in retrospect, and I thought there was a particular mode of failure in this book (but I might be wrong given that I was wrong about the second book).

( Cut for mild, mostly implied spoilers. )

( Cut for fairly chunky spoilers. )