Five New Yorkers must band together to defend their city in the first book of a stunning new series by Hugo award-winning and New York Times bestselling author N. K. Jemisin.

Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She's got five.

But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.

This is a tricky book to review. I intensely disliked the first half of the story; it was all build-up with no action. I found the sycophantic attitude to New York alienating and pretentious. I only stuck with it because I enjoyed the author's previous book "How Long 'til Black Future Month?" I'm glad I did - because it has an immensely satisfying pay-off.

At the start, it's confusing whirligig of a book. I don't get the fetishisation that some city dwellers have for people from their sub-regions. Like, are Brooklynites really so different from Manhattanites? The sole British character is... Well, let's say Jemisin writes the English accent about as well as I do the New York accent and leave it at that, eh? Luckily they don't appear again after the first few chapters. The "only-with-our-powers-combined" story felt a little like a Captain Planet episode.

The constant thinly veiled attacks on white-flight and white-gentrification felt heavy-handed and clumsy.

And then...

The last few chapters really showed the author's teeth. Lots of little seeds planted early began to sprout and bear fruit. It completely flipped my experience of the first half of the book. Transforming it into something much more intense and exciting than I'd initially given it credit for.

The slow build up and recycled tropes absolutely works in its favour. It's hard to say much more without giving the game away - so open the spoiler box at your peril.

It's sort of a superhero novel - ordinary people getting super powers and saving their city. But I think it's also a book about lost people trying to save themselves, and each other, from a desperate psychological state. It rewrites the history of some classic stories in a surprising way. Highly recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy. The book can be ordered from the following links:

In the first collection of her evocative short fiction, Jemisin equally challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption. In these stories, Jemisin sharply examines modern society, infusing magic into the mundane, and drawing deft parallels in the fantasy realms of her imagination.

The preface of this book unreasonably annoyed me. It rails against the unjust nature of contemporary publishing, throws around industry-insider terms without explanation, and complains about the state of the sci-fi market.

I accept that fandom may be problematic, and the publishing industry might be deeply discriminatory - but I'm just a casual sci-fi / fantasy fan. Unless there's a photo of the author on the jacket, I don't know their age, race, gender, or much else. I didn't like feeling as though I was being castigated for something beyond my control.

(Aside: I know there's a long history of women authors using male or androgynous pseudonyms. And I can't help wondering if Nora Jemisin becoming N. K. Jemisin is a deliberate obfuscation strategy.)

Once I got over myself and my insecurities, I was blown away by her stories. I'd gladly have read a full novel of all of them. One or two would be on the top of my Netflix miniseries queue. The writing, plotting, pacing, and characterisation is superb.

But it leads me to a question that I find uncomfortable: what is "black" sci-fi? The author has a great blog post about being relegated to the African American section of a library, and I understand that I can't fully empathise with her position.

When I read books, I kinda randomly distribute characters between my friends and celebrities. Unless they are obviously described as having black skin, or blonde hair, or towering height - in which case they get a nearest-match.

Now, that in itself isn't bias free. The movies I watch almost certainly don't reflect the diversity of society. But I sort of assumed that people didn't just default all characters to looking like them.

One of the curious things about this collection of stories is how rarely race is mentioned. That took me down an interesting intellectual exercise of forcing me to recognise every character as implicitly non-white. Does it change the way you view the actions of the protagonists in, say, Harry Potter if you picture them all as non-white? Is Hermione a harmful stereotype of the book-smart Chinese kid? Is Draco a problematic trope of a violent Latin-American gang member? Is Harry a role-model for black students?

Jemisin's collection of stories is fantastic. Each one is a precious jewel. And, I'm glad to have my biases and reading choices examined and recalibrated.