He then uses his enormous power to fracture the entire continent across its length, threatening to cause the worst Fifth Season in recorded history.

One day, she arrives home to find her young son has been beaten to death by her husband after inadvertently revealing his orogenic abilities.

Numb with grief and rage, she instinctually shunts the massive earthquake from the events of the prologue, which has just arrived from up north, around the comm which saves it from complete destruction, but alerts the townspeople an orogene is present.

In a rage, she kills many townspeople by leeching the heat from their bodies, freezing them solid, accidentally destroying the comm's only water supply in the process.

Damaya reluctantly helps her enter, where they find a huge faceted pit, lined with sharp iron shards.

As they travel to their destination, Alabaster frequently alludes to hidden knowledge about the obelisks, strange crystals the size of buildings that drift amongst the clouds.

Officially, each contains an orogene whose job it is to constantly quell small earthquakes that could endanger the larger continent, and it is assumed to be dull work.

Alabaster reveals the truth, which is that the orogenes in the nodes have all been mutilated and lobotomized from an early age, causing them to quell all quakes by instinct, but leaving them barely alive.

To her shock, she discovers that the blockage is, in fact, an obelisk lying on its side underwater, which responds to her presence and rises up out of the water.

The Guardian succeeds in incapacitating Alabaster, and is just about to kill Syenite when she instinctively reaches out to the obelisk (which strangely also seems to have a Stone Eater trapped in it).

However, when Syenite quells the volcano formed due to her destruction with the Obelisk out of guilt, they are discovered by the Fulcrum, who sends multiple ships with Guardians to retrieve them.

In her grief and anger, she connects with a nearby obelisk, destroying the ship and killing most of the Guardians present as well as many fleeing islanders.

Here it is revealed that Damaya, Syenite, and Essun are all the same woman at different points in her life (and also that Tonkee was the young girl who sneaked into the Fulcrum).

[4][5] The New York Times' review stated "The Fifth Season invites us to imagine a dismantling of the earth in both the literal and the metaphorical sense, and suggests the possibility of a richer and more fundamental escape.

"[6] NPR wrote that "Jemisin brilliantly illustrates the belief that, yes, imaginative world-building is a vital element of fantasy—but also that every character is a world unto herself.

"[7] In August 2017 it was announced that The Fifth Season is being adapted for television by TNT[8][9] with rapper and actor Daveed Diggs attached as an executive producer.