The Stone Sky is propelled by its own gravity. As the Earth’s lost moon returns, the massive fissure across the planet’s equator continues to spew ash and lava-hot fragments. The sky is dark and the rain is acidic and survival rests on hard choices, discipline and stonelore. Independently Essun and her lost daughter Nassun are seeking the same answers and the same powers.

As with the previous books, we have three interweaved accounts. Essun and Nassun form two, continuing from the events of The Obelisk Gate. The third takes us thousands of years into the past, to an apparent utopia with a dark past, on the brink of creating unlimited power through the creation of gemstone obelisks.

In my first rambling review of The Fifth Season, while I was trying to get my head around a story that left me feeling shaken and awestruck, I talked about how utopian fiction is connected both to dystopian fiction but also apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction. In Western literature, Plato’s Atlantis myth lurks at the root of each of them. For Plato Atlantis was a model of a better society, for modern readers that society and the rigid stratification of roles in Plato’s Republic can be seen as the prototype of fascism and fascist-like models that have plagued us for millennia.[ETA I mangled Plato somewhat there – conflating Atlantis with Plato’s ideal of ancient Athens. Apologies :)] In modern popular culture, Atlantis has been reimagined again as a parable of hubris or the sin of Frankenstein – letting intellectual desire surpass moral constraints.

Syl Anagist is N.K.Jemisin’s synthesis of the Atlantean tropes, less clearly regimented than the society of the Stillness we see thousands of years later, but still dangerous and brutal and willing to treat people as tools and objects. Syl Anagist is the source of the “Dead Civ” remains scattered through the first two books. Beautiful and majestic and replete with wonders, it is both a city, a nation and the whole world. We are constantly reminded that in Syl Anagist life is sacred.

It is no spoiler to say that Syl Anagist is doomed. The chapters detailing its demise are numbered as a count down, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. We know that the Earth will lose the moon and that the planet will become the tectonically seasonal monster of The Fifth Season. The fantasy elements (magical powers, sentient rocks) of the story become more distinct, while the science fictional elements (futuristic cities, incredible technology) become more overt. The human tragedy becomes more intense.

The future world, the one in which most of the books is set, has descended further into physical disaster. The former community of Castrima is now a band of refugees heading towards an empty city in a brutal march which many won’t survive. In a different novel, this struggle would be an account of good and evil but Jemisin avoids treating even monstrous people as monsters. There is no character that appears in any one of the trilogy who is not granted some compassion by the writer – not Schaffa the murderous guardian, nor Jija the child murdering father. Yet this compassion is not at the expense of a strong moral centre to the story and a channelled anger at the use of hate to dehumanise and to brutalise a society.

Is The Stone Sky as good as the previous books? I’m not sure the question can be answered or makes sense. It can’t possibly have the same impact as The Fifth Season but it feels to me like the right end to the trilogy. There is a sense of understanding of the world by the end of the book that feels like a resolution even though some questions remain. I’m not sure if the conflict between the Stone Eater factions is clear to me, nor am I entirely clear about the nature of the Guardians. However, some of that comes from reading too quickly.

It is not a happy end to the trilogy but it is a good end and an end that is not devoid of hope.

Canadian television – apologies to Canada but while there must be Canadian TV shows I can’t think of any. The shadow of the TV behemoth south of the Canadian border looms large. So a Canadian answer to Firefly doesn’t immediately sound likely. [eta: apologies to Canada, I’d forgotten about Orphan Black among others]

I watched a couple of episodes of Season 1 initially, just because it appeared on the list of things people were nominating for a Dragon Award (it didn’t get onto the final ballot) but not long after it also got a positive write up in the Guardian.

Those first episodes were not great though and I pretty much decided not to bother watching the rest of the series. Then, once again bored on a train too noisy to read comfortably and having exhausted all available episodes of Rick and Morty, I watched some more and…it got better.

The initial premise of the show was this. On a planetary system with a bunch of human colonised moons (known as the Quad), a kind of freelance, bounty-hunting, law enforcement agency called the RAC catches (or sometimes kills) wanted criminals. The bounty hunters are known as Killjoys because “joys” are the local currency and they (occasionally) kill people. At the start of the season, the two main characters are a two person team Dutch (an ex-assassin) and Johnny Jaqobi (a less amoral and more geeky pilot) as well as their (stolen) spaceship/AI Lucy. The initial episodes involved the arrival of Johnny’s brother Da’vin into the system, an ex-soldier with psychological trauma.

While not terrible, it also wasn’t great. The three main actors were good, in particular, Hannah John-Kamen as Dutch managed to stop her role as sexy-badass-assassin from being actively bad and say corny lines with conviction. The stories themselves were a bit dull (mainly catch the baddy of the week) and while the premise of the show was original it all somehow felt terribly derivative. The Firefly DNA was obvious but also a heap of tropes from everywhere and everything just piled up together in the apparent hope that something would stick. Dutch’s backstory as a child raised to be a deadly killer who got away from that life etc smacked of a show that wanted depth just by throwing tragedy at its characters.

Episode 5, the midway point of Series 1, managed the first story that had some real strength. The crew find a derelict space ship, climb aboard to get the salvage and find things that aren’t what they seem. A decent episode with enough twists and nasty premise but also a bit of shift in direction.

From that point on the show spent more time on the bigger story arcs, let the three main characters play off against each other with both more humour and emotions and it got better.

It still tries too hard for ‘cool’ and ‘sexy’ and doesn’t always manage to hit its target of Wheedon-style humour. Given it also wants gritty, violent and central characters with a past of psychological trauma, it also sails into consequences of plots that it doesn’t always handle well (in particular, without giving spoilers, violence between people after a sexual relationship). However, even then it is clearly trying to navigate issues in a way that is positive.

Although it doesn’t have much in common storywise with Torchwood, Killjoys finds itself often in that same tonal-minefield. Violence, sex, psychological abuse, mixed with questions about torture, life-or-death decisions and hitting the not-nice SF tropes around mind control and consent is heavy stuff…and mixing that with quips and comradery doesn’t always work. But like Torchwood, it often finds a route through and a strong cast keeps it going.

Season 2 is much stronger by being more willing to accept that ‘space bounty hunters’ is a pretext for a show rather than a basis for each episode. Conspiracies, ancient warrior monks, super-soldiers, green goo, it piles on the silliness with confidence that a show like this needs over the top story lines and thinks that don’t make sense if you think about them for too long.

Should you watch it? Lots of fight scenes. Fans of classic Doctor Who will enjoy the frequent use of old quarries repurposed as different planets (sorry ‘moons’). The bad guys are an evil corporation and rich people. Lots of shooting. Episodes 1 to 4 of season1 are a bit meh, after that stronger but sometimes more problematic.

Season 3 is apparently airing or will be soon but is not yet on Netflix.