Synopsis:
Essun has found shelter, but not her missing daughter. Instead, there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request that would seal the fate of the Stillness forever.
Review:
"It's never a waste of time to educate others." With an impeccable foundation laid through The Fifth Season, the second book of The Broken Earth is all about bringing the reader up to speed on all things present. With the three character threads in the first book been already woven into a single complex storyline, Jemisin has finally found the time to introduce Nassun into the group. We are finally being told the entire backstory of Essun's family until now, filling probably the most annoying gap in the first book's plot (okay, maybe there's still some stuff need explaining, but I'll settle for this for now). While it looks like the meeting between Essun and Nassun is not going to happen for a while, there's plenty new happening with The Obelisk Gate. Once again, from character development to world building to narrative, the author is perfect. Each new character complements the storyline in most unexpected ways, and one do indeed forget even the major events of the underlying plot when going through some of the short-term developments and minor backstories here. All these little things help the story progress, with Jemisin using her ability in converging the threads to set things up masterfully for the last book. As the title implies, there's a lot about the 'flying artifacts' here, but that's not all. Finally, I'm no longer bothered by the perspective of the narrative at all: it appears that any other way would've actually been damaging. Understandably, it's not easy to make a middle book of a trilogy better compared to the first or third. However, for me, the transition from the first as well as the preparation of threads for the last were quite good, making The Obelisk Gate a great second book. "Relationships chisel the final shape of one's being."
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