Review: The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin

Hey all, Dani here.

Are you ready for my second review of the day? This one isn’t quite as backlisted as this morning’s post, because this is a book I read in February. I’m going through my list/count of books read so far this year and looking at the ones that I haven’t written up reviews for. I want to get them together and ready for posting so I can actually be caught up for once. Though I also realize that if I get caught up on all the reviews I owe from the past, it might mean slightly slowing down on content in the future. Then again, in most months I average 12 book reviews and 7-9 manga reviews, and I have been reading like 20-25 books a month, so I guess I can still do double post days for a good chunk of the month.

How is your Saturday going? I think I’m all ready for our social distancing Easter tomorrow. I made sure to get a small ham for Damian and I, and I absolutely keep plenty of potatoes in the house–we eat them mashed, baked, fried, in soups and stews, etc, and I made sure to get some canned vegetables and dinner rolls. So, it should be a nice little meal for us.

Oh, and we’ve also tried a couple different Instant Pot soup recipes and they have been great so far. After I’ve made a few more recipes with my new kitchen appliance, I might make a post about it. Would you guys maybe be interested in a foodie post…maybe with a few reading recommendations that have good food descriptions in them? Let me know in the comments.

Okay, let’s jump into the review.

Book Details

Format: Paperback

Pages: 418

Publisher: Orbit Books

Publication Date: May 1, 2012

ISBN: 0356500764 (ISBN13: 9780356500768)

Summary

THE CITY BURNED BENEATH THE DREAMING MOON

In the ancient city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Upon its rooftops and among the shadows of its cobbled streets wait the Gatherers – the keepers of this peace. Priests of the dream-goddess, their duty is to harvest the magic of the sleeping mind and use it to heal, soothe…and kill those judged corrupt.

But when a conspiracy blooms within Gujaareh’s great temple, the Gatherer Ehiru must question everything he knows. Someone, or something, is murdering innocent dreamers in the goddess’s name, and Ehiru must now protect the woman he was sent to kill – or watch the city be devoured by war and forbidden magic.

My Thoughts

Rating: 5 stars

Okay, so I read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin back in 2014, and I fully intended to keep reading the trilogy, and then following along with some of the author’s other releases. Fast forward to 2020 and I still haven’t accomplished that, though I have purchased most of her novels, and have heard pretty much nothing but wonderful things about her writing.

I look over all of her books, decide that this one, The Killing Moon, or technically the entire Dreamblood Duology, and choose them as what I want to try of hers “first.” I have to say it in quotation marks because it wasn’t technically first, though I have forgotten pretty much everything that happened in my first Jemisin read, and only remember that I enjoyed the experience.

N.K. Jemisin writes wonderfully complex and diverse and fantastic fantasy tales that weave together so many different elements that it honestly becomes extremely difficult to try and sum them up simply. They are somewhat genre-bending and just utterly entrancing. I get drawn in by the wonderful world-building.

This book in particular dealt heavily with dreams and death, but there was also so much political machinations, some religion with a monk like sect that we follow. There is a decently sized cast of characters, come from different regions of the world, with differing cultures and beliefs, and I love how that made the reading experience feel more rich and developed.

Though this book is over 400 pages long, I feel like I read it so quickly. I wanted to keep reading, to find out what was going on, and who was behind things, and if they would find a solution.

Now, obviously, this is the first book in a duology, so there are still so many questions, and there is so much story left to tell. I really need to pick up the sequel/conclusion, because I need to know what is going to happen next.

Also, I kind of really want to challenge myself to read all the other N.K. Jemisin books in 2020. I don’t know if it will happen because the world is chaos right now and there are just so very many books that I want to read, but you know what, I’m going to try. If I fail then I can always just try again next year.

Where to Get a Copy

You can grab your own copy of this book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-million, Book Depository, or your local independent bookstore through IndieBound.

You can also check with your local library.