The Inheritance Trilogy, N.K. Jemisin

 The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (re-read)

The Broken Kingdoms (re-read)

The Kingdom of Gods (finally reading)

Nine years ago I read the first book in this trilogy, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, about a young woman summoned to her mother's homeland, to learn she is now one of the candidates to succeed her grandfather as the head of the titular kingdoms. But she also learns that she is intended to be the sacrifice that brings one of her cousins to the real power. Things don't quite work out as her grandfather intended, and in the process, some powerful and vengeful gods are freed from enslavement to her family.

This was the first book I read by N.K. Jemisin, and I've just learned it was her first book published. I was so blown away by the book, the world she created, and her characters. I immediately inhaled the second book, The Broken Kingdoms, where a woman living in the capital city of the capital kingdom takes in a fallen god. An artist, she is blind, but she can see his power. With him she is drawn into a mystery about who is murdering godlings, and what role the magic in her art might play, amid the rise of a new religious group. I loved this story even more, because of the main character Oree. I never wrote about it though, perhaps because I immediately started the third book, The Kingdom of Gods.

I don't remember exactly why after all these years, but I gave up on the third book very quickly. I not only gave up reading it, I gave it away to the library sales. It's honestly a bit frustrating not to remember why I took such exception to it. The other day I got a sudden urge to revisit these stories, and a determination to try the final book again. The first two were as good as I remembered, and the last book? I'm also frustrated with myself for missing such a great story. 

The Kingdom of Gods has as its main character Sieh the Trickster, a godling who plays a major part in the first story. He is a god of childhood, usually appearing as a child. In this story he meets a mortal girl and boy, later heirs to the kingdoms. He swears an oath of friendship with them, which has the appalling consequence of making him mortal, and aging at an accelerated rate. At the same time a dangerous new godling has appeared, who wants to overthrow the existing hierarchy of gods and rule alone - but that will destroy the mortal world.

These stories are definitely not cozy fantasy. There is on-page violence, people and groups seen as lesser are abused and sacrificed, the enslaved gods suffer physical and sexual abuse, and the gods mate among themselves in ways that qualify as incest in the human world (gender is fluid for many of them). I sometimes find N.K. Jemisin's stories too bleak, but the Inheritance Trilogy has a permanent place on my shelves - all three books, now.