Review: The Stone Sky

What a fitting ending for the series. Essun, suffering the same fate as Alabaster. Orogenes, suffering under the same oppressive boot as Hoa and his kin. The return of the moon not immediately magicking away the fifth season, and actually making it worse; it is only a promise of less vengeful behavior from the planet. Which, turns out, is pretty darn sentient. I thought that was a nice touch, an anthropomorphization of the "human against nature" confict style.

Speaking more broadly about the series, I appreciate Damaya/Syenite/Essun as a character; she isn't an all-powerful protagonist, isn't some flawless paragon, but a profoundly human woman. Nassun's not so gradual disillusionment was also very well done. Revealing Hoa as the narrater felt very natural in the face of the second-person singular used in Essun's chapters.

I really do appreciate how Schaffa isn't brought back as a cheap villain. I know I addressed it already in my review for the second book, but it would have been so easy to have him come back as an evil agent of the Evil Earth on a mission to kill Essun; that he is brought back and spends a good chunk of the remainder of his life fighting that force which resuscitated him in an effort to be a better person is a just about perfect character arc.

I think my overall conclusion from the first book still stands: if you're looking for a fantasy series that eschews all the tropes and themes, and is instead focused on deeply human people trying to survive their pasts and presents in a wholly original setting, then I can highly recommend The Broken Earth trilogy.