Author Guide · Fantasy and Science Fiction
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Between 2016 and 2018 N. K. Jemisin won the Hugo Award for Best Novel three years running, once for each book of the Broken Earth trilogy — something no writer had done before. Until May 2016 she was still working as a counsellor, when a Patreon campaign raised enough for her to quit and write full-time. She was born in Iowa City in 1972, grew up between New York and Mobile, Alabama, and published her first novel at 37. Her fantasy runs on gods held as slaves, a continent that keeps ending, and New York City coming alive in human bodies. This guide covers her 11 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 2010–2022 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
N. K. Jemisin has published ten novels in four series and one story collection. Her best-known books are the Broken Earth trilogy: The Fifth Season (2015), The Obelisk Gate (2016) and The Stone Sky (2017), each of which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. Start with The Fifth Season; below you will find each series in reading order and what the other books are about.
Where to Start with N. K. Jemisin
If you want her defining book
→ The Fifth Season (2015) — the first of three consecutive Hugo winners.
If you want epic fantasy about gods and an empire
→ The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010) — her debut and the start of the Inheritance Trilogy.
If you want something set in the present day
→ The City We Became (2020) — New York City as a living being.
If you want to sample her first
→ How Long ’til Black Future Month? (2018) — stories from 2004 to 2017 in one book.
11 N. K. Jemisin Books, in Order
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
After her mother dies in mysterious circumstances, Yeine Darr, chieftain of a small northern people, is summoned to Sky, the floating palace of the Arameri family who rule the world, and named one of three possible heirs. The Arameri hold captive gods as their weapons, and Yeine finds that the soul of a dead goddess is inside her. It was a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
The Broken Kingdoms
Oree Shoth, a blind artist in the city of Shadow beneath the World Tree, takes in a strange homeless man. When godlings living among mortals start turning up murdered, she is drawn into a conspiracy with him at its centre.
The Kingdom of Gods
The gods are free and the Arameri’s hold on the world is slipping. The trickster godling Sieh and Shahar, the last heir of the Arameri, are caught between love and duty as new magic threatens the world. A novella, The Awakened Kingdom (2014), follows on from it.
The Killing Moon
In Gujaareh, a city-state modelled loosely on ancient Egypt, temple priests called Gatherers harvest the dreams of the dying and kill those judged corrupt. The Gatherer Ehiru and his apprentice Nijiri uncover a plot by the city’s own prince to use dream-magic to make himself immortal.
The Shadowed Sun
Ten years later Gujaareh is occupied by neighbouring Kisua. Hanani, the first woman trained as a healer-priest, is sent to Wanahomen, the exiled prince raising the desert tribes in revolt, while a plague of deadly dreams spreads through the city.
The Fifth Season
On the Stillness, a supercontinent wracked by “Fifth Seasons” — catastrophes that can block out the sun for years — orogenes, people who can move the earth, are feared and controlled. Essun comes home to find her husband has killed their son for being one and taken their daughter. Parts are told in the second person. It made Jemisin the first African-American writer to win the Hugo for Best Novel.
The Obelisk Gate
Essun shelters in Castrima, an underground community, and learns from her old mentor Alabaster what the floating obelisks can do. Her daughter Nassun, travelling south with her father, is taken under the wing of the Guardian Schaffa.
The Stone Sky
Essun and Nassun race to Corepoint, one to return the Moon to its orbit and end the Seasons, the other to destroy the world. The narrator, the stone eater Hoa, tells how the Seasons began, in the city of Syl Anagist. It also won the Locus Award and completed her three consecutive Hugos.
How Long ’til Black Future Month?
Her short fiction from 2004 to 2017 plus four new pieces, including “The City Born Great”, the story that grew into The City We Became. It received an Alex Award from the American Library Association in 2019.
The City We Became
Great cities come alive through human avatars, and New York is waking up: one avatar for the city and one for each borough. They must find one another and fight an invading force from another universe, the Woman in White. It was a Hugo finalist.
The World We Make
Three months on, the avatars of New York face Senator Ruben Panfilo, a candidate for mayor backed by a racist group, while the Woman in White recruits Staten Island to her side. Brooklyn runs for mayor herself. A note at the end says the planned trilogy is now complete as a duology.
In What Order to Read N. K. Jemisin
Jemisin writes in self-contained series, so you can start with any of them. Within a series, read in order: the Broken Earth books are one continuous story, and so are the two Great Cities novels. The Inheritance books each have a new narrator and move forward in time, but they depend on what happened before. The two Dreamblood novels are ten years apart in story time and can be read separately.
Publication order shows a shift: the first five novels are secondary-world fantasy in the classic mould, the Broken Earth trilogy breaks with that in form and voice, and the Great Cities books bring her into present-day New York.
A reading path
1. The Fifth Season (2015)
2. The Obelisk Gate (2016)
3. The Stone Sky (2017)
4. How Long ’til Black Future Month? (2018)
5. The City We Became (2020)
6. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010)
Everything Else N. K. Jemisin Published
Beyond the 11 key books: 5 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Novellas and short collections
2
2 books · 2014–2015
- 2014The Awakened Kingdomnovella set after The Kingdom of Gods, in the trilogy omnibus and as an ebook
- 2015Shades in Shadowthree Inheritance stories, including a prequel
Comics, tie-ins and nonfiction
3
3 books · 2011–2019
- 2011Geek Wisdomessays on nerd culture, with Stephen H. Segal and others
- 2017Mass Effect: Andromeda Initiationtie-in novel with Mac Walters
- 2019Far Sectortwelve-issue Green Lantern series for DC Comics with the artist Jamal Campbell; Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story 2022
The years · 1972–2025
Quick facts about N. K. Jemisin
- Known for
- N. K. Jemisin is known as the first writer to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel three years in a row, for all three books of the Broken Earth trilogy.
- 1972
- Born in Iowa City, Iowa
- 2015
- The Fifth Season
- 2025
- Named SFWA Grand Master
- Born
- 19 September 1972, Iowa City, Iowa; grew up in New York City and Mobile, Alabama
- Education
- Tulane University (psychology, 1994); M.Ed. in counselling, University of Maryland
- Before writing
- Mental health and career counsellor, until a Patreon campaign in 2016 let her write full-time
- Hugo Awards
- Best Novel 2016, 2017, 2018; novelette 2020; graphic story 2022
- Honours
- MacArthur Fellowship (2020); Time 100 (2021); SFWA Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master (2025)
- Lives
- Brooklyn, New York
The red mark is 2015: The Fifth Season, the first book of the Broken Earth trilogy.
How N. K. Jemisin Writes: Worlds Built on Who Holds Power
Her worlds are built around a system of control. In the Inheritance Trilogy a ruling family keeps gods as weapons; in the Broken Earth trilogy orogenes are trained and controlled by Guardians, and called “roggas” by everyone else; in Gujaareh priests decide who is corrupt enough to kill. The plots follow people inside those systems, and the world-building explains how the system works and who benefits from it.
She takes risks with narrative voice. The Fifth Season tells part of Essun’s story in the second person, and runs three strands that turn out to be one woman at different ages; The Stone Sky reveals who has been saying “you” all along. The Inheritance books each have a first-person narrator — a human heir, a blind artist, a god — whose limits shape what the reader learns.
The Great Cities novels move her into the present: New York’s boroughs become characters, and the enemy is partly cosmic horror, partly a political campaign. A short story often comes first — “The City Born Great” (2016) became The City We Became — so How Long ’til Black Future Month? also works as a map of her ideas.
Watch
N. K. Jemisin and Robin Miles on The Broken Earth
N. K. Jemisin talks with Robin Miles, narrator of the audiobooks, about The Broken Earth trilogy. From the official Orbit Books channel.
Frequently asked questions about N. K. Jemisin’s books
How many books has N. K. Jemisin written?
Ten novels in four series — Inheritance (3), Dreamblood (2), Broken Earth (3) and Great Cities (2) — and one story collection, the 11 key books on this page. She has also published a novella, a short story triptych, a video game tie-in novel, a nonfiction collaboration and the comic series Far Sector.
What are N. K. Jemisin’s books in order?
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), The Broken Kingdoms (2010), The Kingdom of Gods (2011), The Killing Moon (2012), The Shadowed Sun (2012), The Fifth Season (2015), The Obelisk Gate (2016), The Stone Sky (2017), How Long ’til Black Future Month? (2018), The City We Became (2020) and The World We Make (2022).
Where should I start with N. K. Jemisin?
The Fifth Season (2015), the first book of the Broken Earth trilogy. If you prefer more traditional epic fantasy, start with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms; if you want something set now, The City We Became.
What is N. K. Jemisin’s most famous book?
The Fifth Season, which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2016 and made her the first African-American writer to win that category. The trilogy it begins has sold more than two million copies, according to SFWA.
What order should I read the Broken Earth trilogy in?
The Fifth Season (2015), The Obelisk Gate (2016), The Stone Sky (2017). It is one continuous story, so read them in that order.
Is the Broken Earth trilogy being adapted?
It has been optioned more than once. A TV series was announced at TNT in 2017; in June 2021 Sony’s TriStar Pictures bought the film rights in a seven-figure deal, with Jemisin adapting the books herself. No film or series has been released.
Will there be a third Great Cities book?
No. The series was planned as a trilogy, but a note at the end of The World We Make (2022) says the story ends there, as a duology.
What awards has N. K. Jemisin won?
Five Hugo Awards (Best Novel in 2016, 2017 and 2018, Best Novelette in 2020 for “Emergency Skin”, and Best Graphic Story in 2022 for Far Sector), the Nebula for The Stone Sky, several Locus Awards and a BSFA Award. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2020 and was named the 42nd SFWA Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master in November 2025.
What was N. K. Jemisin’s 2013 Continuum speech about?
In her Guest of Honour speech at Continuum in Australia in 2013 she noted that about 10 percent of SFWA voters had supported Theodore Beale (“Vox Day”) for president of the organisation, and argued that staying silent about his views enabled them. Beale’s reply, which attacked her, was widely condemned as racist, and SFWA’s board voted that year to expel him.
Is N. K. Jemisin still alive?
Yes. She was born on 19 September 1972 in Iowa City, Iowa, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Footnotes
- N. K. Jemisin — Wikipedia
- The Stone Sky — Wikipedia
- The Inheritance Trilogy — nkjemisin.com
- SFWA names N. K. Jemisin 42nd Grand Master — SFWA, 2025
- Gary K. Wolfe reviews The World We Make — Locus, 2022
- The Shadowed Sun — Kirkus Reviews
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all hers.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we?”
— N. K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season (2015), the first line of the prologue
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