Sagas & Sass covered The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin in 2021; this is our summary of book 3- The Stone Sky – as it was written to introduce Episode 23, covering the entirety of that novel.
Alright, y’all, it’s time to dive into The Stone Sky, the third and final book in N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy! Jumping in after the end of The Obelisk Gate, we join the former inhabitants of Castrima-under as they move North after the battle with Rennanis destroyed the geode and ultimately the comm. Essun, who has been in a coma since opening the Obelisk Gate, awakens to find that her right arm has turned to stone as a consequence of harnessing the Gate in order to unleash the boil bugs on their enemies and imprison the Stone Eaters in obelisks. She is nursed back to health, and learns she needs to try to harness the moon in order to hopefully end the fifth season. No big deal, right?
Meanwhile, Essun’s daughter Nassun is recovering from the shock of using an obelisk to kill her father by turning him to stone. Despondent and angry, she resolves to use the Obelisk Gate to cause the approaching Moon to collide with Earth and destroy, well, everything and everyone. Her Guardian Schaffa agrees to help her reach the only city on the other side of the planet, Corepoint, because she can activate the Gate from there without the need for the onyx obelisk, which is essentially the central control obelisk and the one that her mother used. Again, NBD.
Castrima-under and the ragtag bunch of people they have collected reach Rennanis after a costly desert crossing. Essun has learned that her daughter is planning to open the Gate as she herself did, which will almost certainly kill Nassun. She also learns that Jija is dead by Nassun’s hand, and that Essun’s former guardian, Schaffa, is still alive and is now with Nassun, and realizes that the way she and Jija raised Nassun made her susceptible to Schaffa’s love. #TraumaLife :-/
In the midst of all this, Hoa’s story is revealed via flashbacks: in the distant past, human technology, which seamlessly fused advanced biotechnology and magic, had reached its pinnacle with the creation of the Obelisk Gate. This network of obelisks was designed to tap the Earth’s magical essence and therefore generate an inexhaustible source of energy. To accomplish this, scientists created a race of humans with exquisite sensitivity to magic by basing their DNA on that of a race of people whom the now-dominant culture defeated and subjugated. These “tuners” were meant to control the Gate and tap the magic from Earth’s core. However, the night before the Gate was supposed to be activated, the tuners discovered the fate of the people their genetic code was based on: they were being kept alive as human “batteries”, wired to the obelisks to charge them with magical energy, in eternal torment. #HowAboutAnotherHelpingOfTrauma (no seriously WTF)
So Hoa and the other tuners decided to turn the Gate’s energies back onto the city of Syl Anagist, destroying it rather than perpetuating this injustice. But as he and his fellow tuners attempted to do so, the Earth itself took control of the obelisks and tried to use them to melt the crust of the Earth, which would have sterilized it, killing almost all life forms. Hoa and the other tuners managed to avert this catastrophe by preventing some of the obelisks from activating, but this was done at the expense of their physical bodies: they were all transformed into the first Stone Eaters, and the Moon was flung into a high elliptical orbit by the massive energies involved. Nevertheless, enough of the obelisks were activated to cause worldwide devastation and plunge humanity into a dark age, wracked by the Fifth Seasons. This is also known as “The Shattering”.
Back in the present, Nassun and Schaffa reach the ruins of a city in the Antarctic region, from which Schaffa believes transportation is available to Corepoint. They descend into the ruins and find a functional transportation system that links to Corepoint by going directly through the center of the planet. But during their trip through the earth’s core, Father Earth removes its iron shard from Schaffa, condemning him to an early death. Nassun is distraught and soon decides to use the Gate to transform everyone on Earth into Stone Eaters, rather than destroying the Earth and Moon outright.
Essun departs for Corepoint with a small company, hoping to intercept Nassun and prevent her from killing herself and destroying the Earth. Just prior to leaving, she figures out that she is pregnant again, having begun a relationship with Lerna, the comm’s doctor and her longtime friend. Hoa, the stone eater who has been following her since she left Tirimo, offers to take Essun and her little crew to Corepoint by transporting them directly through the Earth; unfortunately, as they traverse through the center of the planet (skirting around the core), they are attacked by a rival faction of Stone Eaters and Lerna is killed. Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool. #SoMuchTrauma
Essun arrives and attempts to seize control by using the onyx obelisk to return the Moon to orbit. She and Nassun struggle against each other, but neither can gain an upper edge, and rather than risk her daughter’s destruction, Essun eventually gives up, in hopes of allowing Nassun to complete her task. When Essun relinquishes her control of the Gate, she is completely turned to stone, and Nassun, moved by the sight, decides to follow her mother’s path instead, using the Gate to return the Moon to orbit.
In the aftermath, the Fifth Seasons are ended and civilization begins to rebuild. In a cave deep underground, Hoa patiently awaits the rebirth of Essun as a stone eater. She emerges from a geode and expresses her familiar wish to make the world better. Hoa and Essun set off together to do so, and this is how we as readers learn that the Broken Earth trilogy is comprised of Hoa describing Essun’s life to her as a means of reminding her of her previous life, in order to connect Stone Eater Essun with her “lost” human self.
QUOTES WE LOVED
“A legacy is something obsolete, but which you cannot get rid of entirely. Something no longer wanted, but still needed.”
“There have always been those who use despair and desperation as weapons.”
“I could have taken you from the desert. You did not have to suffer as they did. And yet…they have become part of you, the people of this comm. Your friends. Your fellows. You needed to see them through. Suffering is your healing, at least for now.”
“For some crimes, there is no fitting justice – only reparation.”
“I have decided that I am in love, but love is a painful hotspot roil beneath the surface of me in a place where once there was stability, and I do not like it.”
“…this is one of the taller buildings of the city, though it’s only six or seven stories altogether. (Only, sneers Syenite. Only? Thinks Damaya, in wonder. Yes, only, you snap at both, to shut them up.)”
“‘Antimony used that…’ Too-small lump of brown stone. “Used Alabaster. As raw material to – to, oh rust, to make another stone eater. And she made it look like him.’ You hate Antimony all over again.
‘He chose his own shape. We all do.’”
