The City We Became by NK Jemisin

 ☺☺☺☺☺

 

 

Where to start? How do I review this novel without sounding like a gushing fanboy, because at age 59, I am too old for that. Okay, let me start here, I came late to NK Jemisin. It was just two years ago that The Fifth Season was recommended to me. I know, late to the game. And it really wasn’t until I got to The Stone Sky that I was really hooked by Jemisin’s writing and world building. I finished the trilogy this summer, just in time for The City We Became to land on my book pile, and I was blown away. 

 

It is one thing to build new worlds. It is hard to do, but you have a blank canvas to work on. In this book, Jemisin has based her science fiction firmly in our world, in fact, in the city I have lived and worked in my entire life. To do this, to take a real place in current time, and turn it into a multidimensional battleground in which nothing less than the existence of humanity is at stake, is gutsy and inspired. And NK Jemisin does it with style and panache. 

 

 

The basic premise of The City is that when cities become old enough and diverse enough they become living entities. Its energy becomes focused and collectivized. When this happens, one resident of the city becomes its living avatar, its soul and protector. But as this “birthing process” is happening to New York, it comes under attack from an alien force, one strong enough to physically tear down the Williamsburg Bridge. All of this brings about, not just the city’s avatar, but five more, one for each borough. 

 

Their enemy is "The White Woman", who leads the attack on New York. That attack is based in racism and gentrification. In the world created by NK Jemisin, cities come to life when they have created a unique collection of integrated cultures. The foothold in our world for these creatures from other dimensions is a movement to make all cities the same. The replacing of the local and diverse with the generic and uniform. She takes our existential fight to keep New York real and turns it into an existential fight for the world’s very existence. 

 

 In a recent tweet Ms. Jemisin asked if she “got it right?” As a lifelong New Yorker who feeds on the diverse cultures of the city I can respond YES! YOU DID! Ms. Jemisin is a master world builder and all of her talents are on display in The City We Became. I can’t wait for the rest of the trilogy.