Encompassing a fresh-born godling’s origin story and three tales showing us Jemisin’s more familiar characters in their adventures beyond her novels’ pages, The Awakened Kingdom and Other Stories gives readers of The Inheritance Trilogy what we all long for: a return to its deep, wild magic. In the title novella we meet Shill, offspring of Yeine, Nahadoth, and ‘Papa Tempa’. All godlings have a true nature, and Shill is eager to discover hers. She’d better do it quickly, before she hurts or kills anyone irreversibly or ends up banished from the mortal realm.

Each part of “Shades in Shadow,” the triptych following Shill’s story, expands on a passage from the original trilogy. “The Wild Boy” tells how Nahadoth, god of night and chaos, comes to be shaped by a mortal as cruel and fascinating as himself. “The God Without a Name” is the voyage of Nahadoth’s once-human avatar through eternal whoredom and divine pimphood. In “The Third Why,” the demon Glee searches for the god who is her father and finds crucial answers to questions about her existence, her father’s fate, and how the world can be made better.