How Many N.K. Jemisin Books Are There, and in What Order?

N.K. Jemisin has written across several series, several formats and more than one publisher, so a clear N.K. Jemisin reading order is genuinely useful before you pick up your first book. Bleepia currently tracks 17 books by her, and this guide walks through them in groups so you can see how the pieces fit together.

Jemisin's catalogue isn't one long chain. It's really three self-contained series, plus a handful of standalone and shorter works. Knowing which series you're starting makes the whole thing much less daunting.

The first is the Inheritance Trilogy: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), The Broken Kingdoms (2010) and The Kingdom of Gods (2011). A companion novella, The Awakened Kingdom (2014), follows on afterwards and works best once you've read the trilogy itself.

The second is the Dreamblood duology, made up of The Killing Moon (2012) and The Shadowed Sun (2012). It's a separate world from the Inheritance books, with its own magic system, so there's no need to have read the others first.

The third, and the series most newcomers ask about, is Broken Earth: The Fifth Season (2015), The Obelisk Gate (2016) and The Stone Sky (2017). These three are best read in that order, since they follow a single unfolding story rather than standing alone.

Jemisin also began a more recent series, the Great Cities duology: The City We Became (2020) and The World We Make (2022). Her short story "The City Born Great" (2016) is set in the same world and is worth knowing about even if you choose not to track it down before the novels.

Alongside the series work sits How Long 'til Black Future Month? (2018), a collection of her short fiction. It isn't tied to any particular series, which makes it a reasonable entry point if you'd rather sample her writing in smaller pieces before committing to a trilogy.

The remaining titles we track are comic work: Far Sector, Shades in Shadow, DC Power 2024 and DC Power 2024 (2024) #1. We don't have confirmed publication years for all of these, so we've left the dates off rather than guess. They sit apart from the prose series and aren't required reading for any of the trilogies above, but they're worth knowing about if you want the fuller picture of her output.

That's the full set of 17 books we track for N.K. Jemisin. If you're after a strict starting point, most readers begin with either the Inheritance Trilogy or Broken Earth, depending on whether they want a self-contained story or a longer build.

If you enjoy Jemisin's world-building and want something else in the same vein while you wait on new announcements, two upcoming fantasy releases we're tracking might suit: Mark of the Warrior by Fonda Lee, out 27 October 2026, and For Ever More by Sue Lynn Tan, out 29 October 2026. Readers who like big constructed worlds also tend to get along with Robin Hobb and Brandon Sanderson.

Jemisin doesn't publish on a fixed schedule, so it's easy to miss a new book or a reissue if you're not actively checking. The simplest fix is to follow your authors on Bleepia, including N.K. Jemisin, so you get an email the day something new of hers goes on sale.

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