Book Review: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It took me a while to get into this story, but once I committed myself to finishing it, I started to enjoy it. N.K. Jemisin has created a fascinating world that hints at things already in existence, but she makes them entirely her own. My friends had the good chance of meeting her at a book reading, and I wish that I could have been there, too.

I came to a realization as I was finishing this that one of the things I really love about fantasy is the history of the universe that has been created. It's something that I obsess over in my own writing, it's what made me love Tolkien, and it is perhaps what ultimately always makes me give every fantasy I come across a chance. Part of my love of history is a love of culture, religion and language. I was forcing myself to keep reading Hundred Thousand Kingdoms until the story started turning more to the mythology and creation history of this realm. I picked up this book at page 80-something this morning and finished the whole thing before the afternoon was done - I was that enthralled. I hope that N.K. Jemisin continues to write, and I look forward to reading the next installment in this series.



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GoodReads.com 2011 Reading Challenge

I was browsing on goodreads.com a few weeks ago and saw that they have a reading challenge for 2011. It's the second year that they've done this: you set a personal goal of how many books you'd like to read for the year. It sounded like loads of fun, so I joined up. Perhaps, though, I was a bit too ambitious: 45 is my number, but this has been a very slow year for reading for me. I've only managed to read 8 books so far, far below where I need to be to complete my goal. Currently I'm reading N. K. Jensin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I started it a while ago, but put it down in favor of other books, but now I'm at it again. It was a bit rocky to begin reading this one, but I think that now, about a third of the way through, I'm beginnnig to get the hang of the style of Jensin's writing. The story is ok; I hope that it continues to pull me in and keep me going. My goal is to finish this before the end of the month; I have a lot of other books to get to!

Perhaps another problem I have is that I tend to pick up more than one book at a time. I do this with all my hobbies, really. I currently have two stories I'm writing, a basketful of knitting/crochet projects, and more ideas waiting in the wings than I know what to do with. Even my bjds are waiting patiently for new accessories and outfits. I should probably start working on simplifying things and focus on one book, one story, one project at a time. I mean, there's no question why I couldn't finish a book when I was reading 8 at once!