Review: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Well that was definitely something different. It's hard to explain my impressions and thoughts about this book, so I'm afraid I'm going to ramble on too much. But there are things I wished I'd known when I was deciding to read it, so I'll give it a shot.

What I did like was the mythology of the three gods, and the result of their wars with each other. Their current dilemma of being trapped in mortal form was a really interesting twist, and two of the gods were the most compelling characters in the book.

Because the mythology is the most developed aspect, the entire book feels like reading ancient mythology, wondering from a distance what the gods will do in their capriciousness. The unpredictable nature of the gods creates chaos, and a sense of the unattainable. Even what romance exists is part of that overall feeling. Everything else that is unrelated to the gods or mythology is unimportant, out of focus, and lacks detail.

Unfortunately the part where the gods meet the mortals is where my interest completely waned. The world and the other supporting characters were not very well developed, the narrative style was jarring at times, and there wasn't really much of a plot. Yeine, the heroine, just runs around without a clue what to do, clearly out of her depth. When she does act, it creates huge problems that merely feel like a side-note to pass the time until the actual event we're waiting for occurs.

For a book with a title like The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, I expected there to be a lot more about those kingdoms, but that wasn't what it was about at all. In fact, my knowledge of the kingdoms, and even the city outside of the fortress, is very vague. And within the fortress itself, I can confidently imagine a couple of rooms. The world-building was far too vague for me, in spite of the history info dumps at the beginning.

I also had difficulties relating to any of the characters. There are mainly capricious gods and vicious humans, none of whom we know very well. For a long time I was just watching events unfold, and hoping they would hurry and get to the point, which I knew would probably not be until the end. So yeah, I was speed-reading quite a bit.

I also didn't really connect with Yeine, even though it was from her point of view, and I didn't like that she was essentially alone. There was no one who proved her ally until the end, and she didn't really prove herself to anyone else either. I guess too many of the characters were bad guys or ambiguous. So it wasn't exactly a comfortable, warm read.

There is a bit of romance. Actually that might be the main storyline, but it was hard to tell until afterwards. The big clue being that more time was spent on it than much of anything else. The relationship is something different and inherently untrustworthy, though, so not the kind of romance I usually enjoy.

I can't deny that the last hundred pages held my attention, prior speed-reading aside. There was a payoff for finishing, with a cool showdown, a couple of twists, and the kind of changes that make me wonder what the world will look like in the follow-up novel. But I'm really still not sure what I think on the whole, or if I care enough to read the next book. Although it was something different, which is usually good, I don't think I liked it all that much.

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