***This post contains spoilers and discussion of difficult
material, especially child abuse and murder.***
I am beyond thrilled that in exactly one week the final book
in NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy
is going to be released to the general public. This series should be required
reading for everyone who calls themselves a geologist, geophysicist or other
kind of earth scientist. First of all, it is the only series I have ever read
that centers on geology. Not like how mountains are important in The
Lord of The Rings series, climaxing at the molten core of Mordor. No. In this
series some people are TIED to the land with the gift/curse of orogeny. These
orogenes (derogatory term: rogga) are capable of literally moving mountains.
This creates an incredibly intricate and rare thing to occur: Jemisin aggressively does not allow the separation of the doer of science from the
scientist as a person. In American science academia, separating the work of
a scientist from the health and wellbeing of the scientist themselves is an
imperative mechanism upon which STEM practitioners rely to keep discriminatory
practices in place. By presenting a world where no such separation can
exist, the Broken Earth series shines
a light into what it may be like to be a scientist of color.
I mention specifically that this is a racial experience
because, as a White woman, this book was the first time I have experienced
vicariously what it like to be the victim of a structure based on
oppression of “my (the protagonists’)” people. Jemisin accomplishes this
tremendous feat by immersing us in an excellently built world with relatable
characters and then bombarding her characters with intense personal tragedies.
In the world of the ironically named Stillness, everything
has sinister movement just below the surface. Thumbing through Appendix 1 (both
books), we get the abridged history of all Fifth Seasons in the Stillness. Many
of the Seasons are mentioned throughout the book but none are discussed in
great detail because they were long before the living memory of our characters.
I particularly love this section because The Seasons are named for of the types
of tectonic blowback that would make a planet uninhabitable for 2-100 years.
The specific attention to detail of what would actually happen if a global scale
tectonic event occurred allowed me to completely suspend my disbelief in this
world. Jemisin didn’t just read a few Amazing Geologist posts and surf
around on mindat.org. She thought through what would actually happen if
an entire ocean became acidified for 100 years. (This information is
terrifyingly relevant.) The series hinges on the opening of a continental
rupture the likes of which would make the breakup of Pangea tame and sweet. The
environment responds similarly to how we project the Earth would
respond to such tectonic upheaval. Across two books I have only found very
minor issues with her geologic constructs and I let them go because Jemisin is
not a trained geologist and she is human. And humans are allowed to change
physics for artistic license sometimes. See: any video game ever.
Starting from this place of incredibly well researched world
building I entered into the Broken Earth
trilogy able to suspend disbelief to an unusually deep degree. Part of
investing in this world, I quickly come to discover, is accepting the systems
of oppression that allow The Stillness to “function.” The Sanzed’s crumbling
empire is built on the hatred and fear of orogenes. Now, to be somewhat
holistic on this viewpoint--orogenes have TREMENDOUS power and it is in fact an
orogene who literally severs the
continent in half.
The fear of this power is the justification Sanzed uses to
completely subjugate, coerce, immobilize and borderline encourage murder of
orogenes. The main reason they don’t fully endorse genocide is because they
empire seems to know there are non-human entities which will quickly overpower
all humans if there were no orogene protectors.
So I am brought along on the journey of several orogene
characters and am held witness to the atrocities of their lives. What stands
out to me, what I never ever get used to, is the unrelenting violence against
children. The rite of passage into the school for orogenes is a cruel trust
ceremony where each Guardians breaks the hands of their wards. (Toto, I don’t
think we’re at Hogwarts anymore…) I am helpless on the sidelines as the
characters witness the murder of their children. I watch parents murder their
children. I come to expect the interaction of the Guardian caste to be cold
abusers, enticing children to do their villainous (also sometimes murderous)
bidding.
I think it is this aspect that has increased my appreciation
for certain American Earth communities, particularly Black communities. Within
communities of color this level of devastation is real and felt on a scale I
cannot understand. Prior to reading the Broken
Earth series, I have read about and sometimes marched in Black Lives Matter
events. Not being within any community of color myself, I have always been a
generic ally without having direct connection to the pain and tragedy behind
this movement.
But the murders of kids like Trayvon Martin are the reality
that some of my friends and co-workers experience. There was a deeply moving
video that went around a while back where Black parents explained to
their kids how to act if they were stopped by a police officer. One day a
mentor of mine, a brilliant scientist who is a pioneer in their field, told me
the gripping story of getting beaten up for driving while Black in America.
Even though I have heard these stories, I still don’t have to check the local
and national news every day to see if anyone I know directly has been murdered.
As Dr. Chandra Prescod-Weinstein
mentions in her interview with Ebro being Black in science is still a
taboo topic to directly discuss. But in not discussing it, scientists ask
members of the Black community to essentially check their identities at the
door.
With the Broken Earth
series, NK Jemisin opens us to a world of hurt, a world of love, a world of
geology that I have never thought possible to understand so intuitively. By
refusing to separate the people of the Stillness universe from the ground of
the Stillness we see the orogenes perhaps as more whole than we allow ourselves
to see each other.
