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The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
N. K. Jemisin
2010 · Fantasy
How it reads
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is fantasy (gods-and-power fantasy, specifically), and its dominant mood is dark. It goes to difficult places and doesn't look away. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.
It's set in an invented world, in no single period, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are power and politics, identity and redemption. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It opens a series. It ends on a cliffhanger, so have the next book ready. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something dark
- you want something to chew on
- you like disappearing into an invented world
Maybe not if…
- you need something cosy, heartwarming or funny
- you hate waiting for a sequel
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- fantasy
- Author gender
- female
- Author experience
- early career
- Setting: place
- fictional world
- Setting: time
- timeless or multiple
- Mood / feeling
- dark
- Pace
- moderate
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- medium
- Narrative style
- third person, one viewpoint
- Publication era
- recent
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- first in a series
- Themes
- power and politics, identity, redemption
- Ending style
- cliffhanger
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
- The Traitor Baru CormorantSeth DickinsonShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
The Ruin of KingsJenn LyonsShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace- Prince of ThornsMark LawrenceShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, cliffhanger ending
The Wolf and the WoodsmanAva ReidShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
A Dance with DragonsGeorge R.R. MartinShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
AlchemisedSenLinYuShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
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