{"id":5295,"date":"2020-10-26T05:00:28","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=5295"},"modified":"2020-10-19T14:59:09","modified_gmt":"2020-10-19T21:59:09","slug":"mark-reads-the-stone-sky-chapter-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2020\/10\/mark-reads-the-stone-sky-chapter-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Stone Sky’: Chapter 9"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the ninth chapter of The Stone Sky<\/i>, Castrima ventures across the desert. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Broken Earth<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For talk of death<\/b><\/p>\n

Hey, so! Brief little thing that I just can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go without saying: I love that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m reading this just a few weeks after publishing my secondary fantasy book that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s set in a post-apocalyptic environment and involves a long trek across the desert. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an odd and delightful coincidence. Well, not the only one: both this series and my book deal with the weight of storytelling, and I also toy with first- and second-person narration. I mean, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all surface level similarity, as my book is vastly, vastly different, and also I wish<\/i> I could write at like…. half the level of this series. A TENTH OF THE SKILL AND CRAFT MASTERY.<\/p>\n

Anyway, just wanted to mention that as I dive into this NIGHTMARE because I weirdly know more than the average person about how to survive long walks across the desert? I did months and months of research for Each of Us a Desert<\/i>, which included a trip to the Sonoran Desert, where I gave myself (with supervision) the initial stages of heat exhaustion because of course I did. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M FINE, I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T RECOMMEND IT. This helps me appreciate the immense thing that Jemisin accomplishes in a chapter that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not nearly as long as it could have been. Which is the point, one which Hoa will make later on. This chapter has a visceral feel to it, and Jemisin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prose brings us into this hellish experience. So, on that level, I do<\/i> appreciate that we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get every detail, that this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an hour-by-hour journey. Over the course of a few weeks, the people of Castrima suffer, all in the hope that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll reach the other side of the Merz and enter the Rennanis territory.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hope is literally the only thing that keeps these people going, because lord, there is not much else. However, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to note that while Castrima as a whole has a specific goal, Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s is slightly different. We know she is still going to separate from Castrima to attempt to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153catch\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the Moon, so her journey across the Merz is devoted more to the survival of this comm. Plus, she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to worry about herself. If things go bad for her, Hoa can always just nab her and take her to Corepoint. However, she commits herself to staying and helping, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a sign that she is genuinely taking Ykka\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s words about community to heart:<\/p>\n

Except you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to help as much as you can\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand because you won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t die, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to watch a lot of other people suffer. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the least you can do, now that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve committed to the cause of Castrima. Bear witness, and fight like earthfires to keep death from claiming more than its share.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which she does. Like I said, it displays a new thinking: Essun is trying to see herself as part of a whole, something that does not come natural to her. Over the course of chapter nine, she does what she can. Unfortunately, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also limited because of her brush with the Obelisk Gate in the last book. If she uses her orogeny, more of her body will turn to stone. Thus, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thrust into a role that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s less active than she might normally take! She doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t use orogeny; she isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t in a leadership position; so she must persist, and she must observe. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very, very different for Essun, and even from a narrative perspective, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a jarring change. She mostly walks, rests, seeks some comfort and warmth from Lerna, and watches. She bears witness.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That makes Hoa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interruption so much more powerful. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost like he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing this out of courtesy to her, knowing how much suffering she went through, how much she saw in other people. I say that because he definitely<\/i> did what he could to help the others. God, I loved those reveals, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. Hoa is not heartless, and he gave small mercies to those who needed it. Of all the things he did, though, this one RUINED me:<\/p>\n

Ontrag, who had not told Ykka about the growing pain in her side and chest, or her shortness of breath, did not live long after the comm left her behind. I went back to her on the night that she died, and tuned away what little pain she felt. (You heard the song. Antimony sang it for Alabaster once. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll sing it for you, if… ) She was not alone, at the end.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

LIKE. OKAY. FIRST OF ALL. Even if this didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t explain a HUGE thing from the last book, it still would have destroyed me. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just so intimate? And kind? But it DOES have that extra bit of context! Now we know what Antimony was doing in the last book, which means that all stone eaters still possess their abilities as tuners, right???\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one other thing I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t address, and I want to loop back to talk about it. I am SUPER into the idea that Essun will take both Danel and Lerna with her on her journey. I made a joke below about them being a ragtag band of human disasters, but honestly? I love when this trope crops up! There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much potential here for growth, for plot twists, for interesting character dynamics to pop up. What will Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey look like if she actually accepts help? Because we all know she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the kind of person who thinks doing it alone is necessary, and in this specific context, she has no reason to seek out people to come with her. Yet both Lerna and Danel make it clear that if Essun allows it, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be there with her.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to work. Will Hoa take all of them to Corepoint, one at a time? And once they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re there, how will the others help? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know yet, but I sure as hell want to find out.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

NOTES<\/b><\/p>\n