The City We Became

By: N. K. Jemisin

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of Best Fantasy at the Audie Awards.

Winner of the BSFA Award for Best Novel.

Shortlisted for the Hugo Awards.

Nominated for the Nebula Awards.

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 best-selling 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.

©2020 N. K. Jemisin (P)2020 Hachette Audio UK

Critic reviews

"A glorious fantasy, set in that most imaginary of cities, New York." (Neil Gaiman on The City We Became)

"The most celebrated science fiction and fantasy writer of her generation...Jemisin seems able to do just about everything." (New York Times)

"Jemisin is now a pillar of speculative fiction, breathtakingly imaginative and narratively bold." (Entertainment Weekly)

Intertextual extravaganza

This is one book out a small handful of others, that made me laugh out in sheer joy more than once. Highly highly recommended.

wonderful and amaizing!

This book is amazing I loved it so much! the story is incredible and well written and well narrated! Robin Miles does a great job and N.K. Jemisin has become one of my favorites! Will be looking what else she has! And the feeling of NY.. and it's people! loved it!

A really cool concept but execution is lacking.

I loved her series so was pretty excited about this book and it was somewhat enjoyable but I really found quite a few points in the story very strange and overall confusing.

It was building up the tension and meandering for the whole book and then suddenly just deus ex and everything is good.

The Island character is really not believable at all (although I guess Trump supporters exist and I find this unbelievable as well).

The rest of the characters are barely any better.

I really don't like fiction where the ground rules are not set and then pretty much whenever there is a tight corner voila let's change the rules to fix the problem. I.e. give me an umbrella to play Don Quijote while riding a taxi...

The main issue really is lack of cohesion to the story, too many random things happening for practically no reason and the actual main plot points get very little "screen time".

10 out of 5 stars

Favourite read of 2020 by far! Dynamic and interesting and wonderfully performed! Highly recommend reading!

AMAZING

The narration, the writing, the characters the plot everything came to life (ha see what I did there?) I loved it.

Brilliant, engaging and fun!

Eldritch horrors, interdimensional rap battles and a serious examination of manifestations of systemic opression both personal and abstract? What's not to love!

This book might seem terrifyingly prescient but it really is just a sign of how skilled Jemisin is at bringing worlds to life. This New York felt almost too real despite the surrealism and abstraction that overlays everything. Not a sappy love letter but something raw, honest and true from someone who nevertheless clearly loves the city a great deal.

The story fairly clips along. Despite having so much ground to cover it never feels like it's dragging. If anything it feels like it can be a little abrupt and could have used a little bit more room to breathe - particularly with one character (P.P.) - but as the first in the series it's not something that bothered me at all. There was maybe a little bit too much exposition but to paraphrase from the book "there's a lot of weird ****" and a sizable cast of POV characters with different perspectives, so it didn't grate.

Speaking of, the characters are great. For manifestations of archetypes they are very human with hopes and flaws and their own peculiarities. Some of the most fun superheroes I've ever had the pleasure to spend time with. Even when you want to give them a stern talking to. The prevalence of queer characters without their queerness being ancillary or all-consuming is wonderful to see as always.

And the performance by Robin Miles was amazing - as per usual. Though this audiobook does have some production elements (music, sound effects, voice manipulation) that are used sparingly but prominently. To me, it felt a little like listening to a really good one-woman radio play, but if that's not your jam then here's your warning. Should still read the book though, it's amazing.

Challenging, slow, strange

Didn't make me care for New York.
Based on author's earlier work, I was expecting a novel concept. Book's got that all right. But the implementation isn't that great.

The book is so packed with today subcultaral references out which I'm only well infused Lovecraftian ones that I felt missing big chunks of the fascination from early on.

The audiobook performer is really professional but for me, in the whole, over does it and only amplifies my alienation. Great work still.

Really original and fun

It takes a while for the book to get going. The concept is so strange and ridiculous. After the start it's really fun. Very different from her earlier works.