The Kingdom of Gods
by N.K. Jemisin
Published: Orbit,
2011
Series: Book 3 of the
Inheritance Trilogy
Awards Nominated: Nebula Award
Spoiler warning! This
is the 3rd book of a series, and past this point there are some
major spoilers of the first book (The
Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)!
The Book:
“After
Yeine’s rise to godhood and the freeing of the enslaved gods, the Arameri
family’s power is on the decline.
Years later, the godling of childhood Sieh may now be free, but he is still
confined by his fundamental nature and haunted by the betrayal and torture he
has endured. As the oldest of the
godlings, he is also very alone—not powerful enough to be one of the Three, but
still separate from his younger siblings.
In his
loneliness, he meets and cautiously befriends twin Arameri children, Dekarta
and Shahar. However, when they
attempt to swear an innocent pact of friendship, something much stranger and
more dangerous occurs. While Sieh and others attempt to make sense of what has
happened to them, secrets from the past are beginning to come to light—secrets
which threaten not only Sieh’s life, but the existence of the entire universe.”
~Allie
With
this book, I believe that I’ve read all of N.K. Jemisin’s published
novels! It looks like she’s going
to have another book for a new series in 2015, The Fifth Season, so I’m looking forward to that coming out. I read
this novel with a group read-along, and you can find our spoiler-filled
discussions here: 1,2,3,4,5. This novel fits into my “I Just HAVE to Read More
of That Author” Challenge, the “Fantasia” Challenge, and “The Second Best”
Challenge (as a Nebula nominee).
My Thoughts:
The Kingdom of Gods takes place years after the
events of the first two novels, and the main character is the godling of
childhood, Sieh. I thought he was
a really interesting protagonist, but he’s not extremely sympathetic. He’s the
oldest of the godlings, but he obeys his nature by deliberately behaving in
childish, bratty ways. By his
words, he always “does what feels good” in the moment, which is not always great
for the people around him. He also
indulges in quite a bit of adolescent melodrama, and he often lingers over his
desperate loneliness and desire to be loved. I really appreciated that his flaws were not glossed over by
the story, or easily forgiven by the characters within it. I also really enjoy
these kinds of capricious, faux-childlike characters, and I felt like his
loneliness and whining were understandable, given what he’d suffered during his
long life.
It’s
Sieh’s loneliness that prompts him to initially begin his friendship with the
other two major characters, Shahar and Dekarta Arameri. Together, the three of them learn about
friendship, love, and how to deal with hurting or being hurt by the ones you
love. However, I sometimes felt
like they didn’t spend enough time together to really support the intensity of
their connection. Their
relationship was not exactly instant-love (it was a bit more complicated), but
it was somewhere in that area.
Aside from Sieh and his friends, a number of old characters also make
reappearances in the novel, and I enjoyed seeing what had happened to them in
the intervening years.
While
I did enjoy the story, I think that it was a little less focused at times than
the previous two novels. For
instance, I felt like the personal story of Sieh didn’t always gel especially
well with the larger political and cosmic plots that were happening around
him. I can’t say the larger developments
were not foreshadowed, but many of the main players were new and only very lightly
developed. The story was still
really entertaining, though, and I especially liked how various characters arcs
echoed different ideas. There was
a lot of examination of parent-child relationships, and of how being harmed
does not excuse one from taking actions that harm another. Especially in Sieh’s
case, the story also examined the conflict between the need to grow, change,
and heal, and the need to remain true to oneself. I thought all of this came together beautifully in the climax
and resolution of the story.
My Rating: 4/5
The Kingdom of Gods was a fitting conclusion to an
enjoyable trilogy. The story features the godling Sieh, who does his best to
behave like a child. I adored his narration and his carefully impetuous nature,
but I can see how he could be a difficult character to like. The novel combined the personal story of
Sieh’s loneliness with some more momentous schemes, and I didn’t always feel
like the two fit together especially well. Even so, I really enjoyed how everything
came together in the end, and I also enjoyed seeing a bit of how life had
turned out for some of the characters from previous novels. I’m looking forward
to N.K. Jemisin’s next book!
