Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her
mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the
majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to
the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily
won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle with cousins she
never knew she had. As she fights for her life, she draws ever closer to
the secrets of her mother's death and her family's bloody history.
With
the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Yeine will learn how
perilous it can be when love and hate -- and gods and mortals -- are
bound inseparably together.
417 pages
Published December 2, 2009
It's not often that I come across books that are so full of political turmoil and murder and other dark subjects, and yet I end up slipping into them like a warm bath, the sort that never gets cold and you don't really want to leave even though you have other things to be getting on with. That's how The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was for me. It's the sort of book that draws you in and gives you ample reason to stay, even when the subject matter can get distinctly uncomfortable at times. It's the sort of book that's so expertly composed that you can't help but get caught up in the story.
Written in the first person, from Yeine's perspective, we see her struggles to survive a political landscape she in no way is prepared for, and in which almost nobody wants her. She gets caught up in the machinations of both human and god, conflicted between the two, and while there's very little action in the story, it always feels like Yeine just can't catch a break. She's always being pulled from one side to the other. Not always because she agrees with either side, but because she gets herself entwined in situations that require careful navigating, making allies or making enemies. It's such a compelling story.
Yeine herself is an unreliable narrator, her thoughts occasionally jumping around as she tries to figure out situations, certain about some things that turn out to be completely wrong. Or at least, her interpretations of them are wrong. It's a little disorienting sometimes, as nearly everything involving an unreliable narrator can be. You get so used to books giving you what you need, telling you the facts of a situation, that when you encounter a narrator who stops in the middle of sentences to backtrack and add clarity, or who says that this is how things are only to change that later... It can be a little strange to adjust how you read to accommodate that sort of dissonance.
But the best thing is that this book improves with a second reading, which I did as soon as I finished it the first time. So many sections look like Yeine is talking to herself inside her own head, the way most of us do, but toward the end we get the revelation that some of what we thought were Yeine's thoughts actually weren't. That knowledge changes the flavour of certain scenes, gives additional perspective that only becomes clear when you, the reader, looks back and re-examines things in the same way that Yeine had to. This aspect was so well done, and it made me wonder how many times the author had to rewrite those scenes so that both interpretations made sense to the reader, that fine balance between giving hints that are clear in hindsight but without spoiling anything the first time around.
I was particularly fascinated by the gods in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. NK Jemisin has written a very deep and realistic theology here, the gods having their own complicated relationships and associations and emotions toward each other and to their slavers and to Yeine, and none of it feels extraneous. It all feels relevant to the story at hand without feeling incomplete. I admit a particular fascination with Nahadoth, being the Nightlord and not being entirely sane due to the trauma and betrayal he's gone through, and with Sieh, the god of childhood and who has all the love and cruelty that children can harbour. Admittedly, these two are the gods that are seen by Yeine most often, so it's not difficult to get attached to them. They're definitely the most developed. But I love it when deities play a clear and tangible role in stories. It's a weakness of mine, especially when it's done as well as it was here.
I will say, though, that there's some very difficult subject matter within The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Even beyond the political plotting that sometimes results in death, all of the gods are enslaved by the Arameri, rulers of the city of Sky and of most of the world. There's painful betrayal. There's the examination of family bonds being tested, strained, broken, and questioning how much loyalty one owes to their family, how much family can hurt you and yet you still love them. There's abuse aplenty, sometimes abuse of children, and it's horrible to read about. It's written so unflinchingly, and yet it's clear that we're not supposed to condone what's happened, not supposed to side with the abusers (as though there was risk of that; what decent person condones child abuse, anyway?). But interwoven with that material is also the matter of cultural relativity. What might seem abusive to one culture is just a matter of course to another, and we may not always have the right to judge how other people live their lives. It's a fine line to walk, and I think the author did it well, though that didn't make some scenes any more comfortable to read. I might have enjoyed reading this book, and as I said, sometimes returning to it felt like the literary equivalent of getting into a nice warm bath, but there were still a number of events that weren't exactly cozy. It's funny how that can happen with some books, isn't it?
Though this book is hardly a new release, it feels timeless. It's the sort of book that you can read 10, 20, 30 years after publication and still enjoy the story without it feeling outdated. It's fantastically evocative, with brilliant world-building and a writing style that I can't help but love, unreliable narrator and all. There's such rich depth to this novel that I don't think I can really do it justice in a review, except to highly recommend it to people. If somehow you haven't read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms yet (after all, I hadn't until recently), then you're missing out on a stellar story filled with danger and mystery and romance and everything else you could crave in a fantasy novel. I couldn't ask for a better beginning to a trilogy.