The Priory of the Orange Tree

Meh.

I enjoyed the feminist version of fantasy literature, certainly better than most previous attempts that I've read. The world building is very strong. I love the way the empire is set up around the knightly virtues, but not always good.

My problem is that with the exception of Roos, I wasn't really a fan of any of the characters. Nothing specifically wrong with any of them, just that none of them really ever interested me or grabbed my attention. The book was worth finishing, but I don't know that I'll continue the series.

Hoo boy. Priory of the Orange Tree was a book that had a lot to live up to. This book has one of the most evangelical fanbases that I've ever experienced, so in my mind that meant there had to be something to it, that it was going to be this phenomenal book that would never leave me when I finished it. Then, in the buildup to the release of it's prequel, dissenting opinions began to arise, decrying the pacing, complaining about the YA nature of it, saying Shannon's prose was weak. And I'll admit, I put the book off because of those opinions. I really shouldn't have. Priory of the Orange Tree slaps, despite it's issues (some of which I've already mentioned), and I wish that I'd read it much sooner than I did.

I adore the world of the book, and how Shannon has managed to weave a thoroughly convincing history into the world, even down to how that history has been rewritten. The magic system, the unique cultures, both the systems of faith, and the methods in which they're governed all feel well developed and thought out, which is no mean feat for how short a time she has relative to other contemporaries. In just 800 pages, she manages to flesh out 3 different cultures, and touch on 2 others, all the while pushing the story forward with every single page. I've seen other authors struggle to do less in longer series, so I was pleasantly surprised by how she nailed the cultures in this book, as I didn't expect them to be this well developed when I started reading it.

I particularly enjoyed how the Inysh culture developed throughout the book, as they have a really unique religion, where they're ruled by a line of Queens who's bloodline keeps an ancient evil at bay as long as it goes on. Seeing the culture be challenged by the events of the book was an absolute treat, and left Inysh the most developed of all the cultures by the end, both in part due to the amount of time spent in that culture, and it's importance upon world politics within the story.

The characters are second to none, having no characters that I thought were bad. There were characters who I hated fairly distinctly, but for the most part, those were characters you were meant to hate. The way Shannon writes character arts is one that I really appreciate when I see it, since it feels much more real, and I'm glad that it's so common in modern fantasy. Characters don't let their guard down around people they don't know, so it takes time for you to see their true character, which gives you a huge amount of insight to the kind of person that they are.
Of particular note is Sabran, who at the beginning of the book, was my most hated character. I couldn't stand how rude and arrogant she was to Ead, the PoV character who's chapters Sabran appeared in. But by the end of the book, Sabran was one of, if not my favourite, characters in the book. Seeing her worldview and values be challenged and warped by the events of the book was stellar, every event slowly cracking the façade that she'd put around herself. It was masterfully done, and her ending felt so earned. I'll gladly admit to crying at the last chapter she was in.

Most of the PoVs are fantastic, with one particular exception. Ead, Loth and Niclays are all excellent, though Niclays is a bastard and I hate him. Tané however, was at best, mildly interesting, and at her worst, a total slog to read. She is probably the worst character in the book, having a neutered amalgamation of multiple other character's arcs, with very little to set her apart, and the personality of a wet rag. It took nearly the entire book for her to get moderately enjoyable, and she never rose higher than that. The only saving grace of her chapters was getting to see the Eastern culture be developed upon, as she was the only PoV who was born and raised in it, so she was realistically our only glimpse into the inner workings of the culture. I genuinely believe that Tané is the single reason that people drop this book in the early stages, as she's so dry to read, which is doubly impressive, considering her culture is based heavily around water.

The romance in the book is phenomenal. I haven't been this invested in a romance in a fantasy story in years. As a matter of fact, I can't recall what the last romance I was invested in was. It's a sapphic slow burn romance, and I ate that shit up. It could have ended up feeling very forced, but Shannon does a phenomenal job of selling the reader on it, making it feel extremely authentic.

I only have one more gripe with the book, though it's a massive spoiler, so read on at your own risk. If you do decide to not read on, I recommend the book, it's really good. Anyway, onto the spoiler.

The final battle of the book, that it spends 700+ pages building up to, amounted to a grand total of 40 something pages. This on it's own wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, and I'm not looking for a Wheel of Time length final battle, but it just felt rushed. There were much more minor parts of the book that had more page time, which sucks. But on top of this, it was just kind of mediocre. The character moments were pretty decent, but there was so few epic moments in the battle itself, that it didn't lend itself to the buildup it had received in the slightest.

I'm actually surprised that I don't hear more about this, as I personally felt extremely let down when I reached this, so it shocks me that nobody else has seemingly shared this opinion. I really do think it could have benefitted from about 20-30 pages more, since the books already really long, so what would the harm have been in ensuring that the battle was the best part of the book. It's ultimately not so much of an issue that I dislike the book, but I was definitely disappointed by that aspect of the book.

Overall, as I said before, you should get this book, it's fantastic. It's part of a series now, but you can read it as a standalone, and it will 100% work well as one. 4.5/5 Stars

I will say the only reason I got this book was because the cover looked cool and book has high quality paper. The story itself disappointed me though. If you're a feminist or LBGT then you might appreciate this book more than I did. It was a decent story with some parts that were really really good but it's not enough action. There's a lot of drama and politics but i want fighting and blood. I thought it was cool reading about Tané being trained to be a dragon rider but that only consisted of a couple chapters. The author could have dived into that but she half assed it. I do appreciate her writing about mythological creatures that I've never heard of before though.

I really wanted to love this book. I heard some people say it's a 5/5, and others say it's a 0/5. Unfortunately, it landed smack dab in the middle for me. 

Ultimately this was a mediocre book that was hindered further by an atrocious narrator. I only pushed past like 15% because I was reading it with 2 friends.

At 225k words, this book was the same length as Best Served Cold, and had roughly the same number of POV characters, so I feel like I can compare them a little here:

There is no comparison. 

I didn't care about any of the characters, story elements were dropped, the plot was generic and stretched out to fill pages, and while the narrator's “narrating” voice was actually quite pleasant, her voices for the male characters, dragons, and even one female character were just horrific.

She even managed to mess up a line in the last 10% that COMPLETELY changed the meaning of the sentence, and after a double take, I pulled up the ebook to check who messed up.

All that said, I did manage to enjoy the middle 50-60% somehow, the world was cool I guess? But ultimately I'm probably going to forget all about this one, except for the Emperor who was apparently from Texas.

Another beautifully written book that was set in an interesting world, following multiple people.

Samantha Shannon has done it again after ADoFN, and managed to flesh out another book I couldn't wait to read. It was very interesting with my knowledge from the prequel going into this book and seeing how everything fit in.

The ending seemed to be rushed after the epic high point, just missed a little sweet spot.

Rating: 4.5

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Overall a really good book !
The beginning (1/3 of the book) was for me a little too long, too slow, too descriptive... The building of the word and setting in the characters could and should be shorter in my opinion. But the 2/3 after that really did it for me ! I'm surprised I liked it that much in the end. The end lift for me a lot of questions. Maybe a second book in the series ?

It took me a really long time to finish this book. Maybe if I read it faster my opinion would be better or worse. Either way I'm really happy with how it turned out to be.

Highly recommend if you like heavy plot and well build world and characters ! A wonderful adult fantasy !

I'm now wondering if the other book in the series is worth reading since it comes before that and not after ?
Let me know what you think.

This is a huge single-volume fantasy epic. It has a lot going for it, there are assassins, pirates, two kinds of dragons, conflicting religions, and sapphic romance (if you like that sorta thing – meh). But it's mostly about three main characters plus one not-as-interesting one. The most interesting characters are the women, Ead (a mage from the South on a secret mission in the North), and Tané, a young woman destined to be a dragonrider from the East. There's also a Queen without an heir, a witch, and a sisterhood of the title. There's a lot going on. There's an historic timeline in the back, lists of characters, and a glossary of terms.

I struggled a bit with this one. I thought there was too much description that was not essential to the story. And I put the book down multiple times, detouring with other reading. But then, around page 290, things started to get more interesting, and the middle of the book had a LOT more going on and I got much more invested in the story.

There's some cool surprises in store and an epic denouement. Overall, I thought it was fun but I wouldn't rave about it.

A solid fantasy book. Story follows the queen and her handmaiden (secretly a trained killer) in the west where dragons are hated, and a girl aspiring to become a dragon rider in the east, where dragons are revered.

I'm a big fan of dragons but unfortunately the dragons in this book are more in the background when compared to the people (who are all well-written). It's also interesting (and nice) to see that society is fairly egalitarian, where queens are fit to rule on their own, and firstborn children are the heirs to their family regardless of gender.

This book was...not good. And I'm gonna rant about it.

The sense of scale that the author is trying to build doesn't hold up to the slightest critical thought.
What should be huge cultural, political, and intellectual shifts in the world get glossed over, explained away with one or two sentences. (holy shit did I really wanna be in the room when Sabran spends - what was it - 2 weeks right? - convincing the council to break their MILLENNIA LONG embargo with another nation!!! Why didn't we get to see any of that??? Why do people say this is a political fantasy book but we rarely get to see any of the actual politics being made?) Shannon ignores valuable opportunities to meaningfully build the world and the culture - they get hand-waved in favor of spending time describing architecture and clothing with constant use of archaic 18th century language from England (it's worth noting here that only the “Western Europe” analog in this world gets this treatment. If the author had used archaic Chinese or Japanese words for her “Asia” stand-in, or, like, Arabic words for her “Africa” stand-in I wouldn't be nearly as critical, but of course she didn't :) The Euro-centricity is....uh, glaring)

Other people have gotten into this next point much more coherently than I will so I'll just say: It's very obvious that Shannon has strong opinions about motherhood, and they are probably universally bad takes. This book is feminist in that very specific “choice feminism” way that ignores history and context and intersectionality.

If you strip away names and places, 3 of the POV characters' inner monologues are indistinguishable (the only exception is Niclays, who is the only stand out character imho, and the only POV I regularly looked forward to getting back to. Love a coward POV <3)

There are multiple points where a literally earth-shattering truth is dropped on a character. One that destroys the very basis of their religion or political power. And a majority of the time they just kind of....shrug? Accept very quickly and move on b/c the plot has to keep moving, no time to wait up for a character to have an existential crisis or be in denial or grieve. When this /is/ addressed, it's all very “tell not show”. We'll get a line that says “[character x] is grappling with this new idea” or “[character y] is grieving for their friend” and then like, nothing else. Sabran specifically gets snapped out of what we're told is a multi week depressive episode by being talked to sternly for 3 minutes. Cue eye roll.

The magic also has no internal logic. This isn't always a bad thing, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to who has power and why. Dragons are powerful gods of the sea....except when they're kidnapped by pirates and then they're no more intimidating than a large caged predator. Magic done by humans seems to have very few limits with very few consequences, even for beginners.

This book managed to be dense without being even a little complex. Such a shame.

“The Priory of the Orange Tree” is a standout fantasy novel that expertly weaves together a complex world where the East and West coexist under a fragile truce. Dragons, revered as divine beings in the East and feared as demonic entities in the West, become the focal point of this cultural divide. With the re-emergence of an ancient draconic enemy, these disparate societies must set aside centuries-old mistrust for a unified stand.

While the novel spans an impressive length, it is testament to the author's skill that it doesn't feel drawn out or slow-paced. Instead, readers are gifted with a richly detailed world and an engrossing narrative that holds you captive from the first page to the last.

One of the book's defining characteristics is its captivating portrayal of characters. Each individual, irrespective of their role, is finely etched, bringing a unique flavor to the overall narrative and contributing significantly to the reader's immersion.

Although the story reaches a conclusive end, it leaves one with an undeniable urge to delve deeper into this intricately designed universe. This book is a must-read for any fans of compelling storytelling and intricate world-building. Its allure lies in its unique ability to be both expansive in scope yet intimate in its exploration of characters and cultures.

 I got a lot of mixed feelings about Priory.
I love how much lore and history I got out of this book. I really want more out of this world and hopefully a sequel one day. I enjoyed a lot of the side characters in this to the point of wishing they had more important roles haha. (Specifically, the pirates!)

I'm putting this in the middle cause its part good, part bad: I think the magic in this universe is super interesting, but I felt like it was a letdown a lot of the time when it was used.


The multiple POVs worked for the most part but at times it felt like I spent too much time away from specific characters that could've used more development time. While it did have its hype the ending felt very rushed which was odd in a book that seemed to take its time with everything else. A side effect of maybe the changing POVs and the depth of this book is that I didn't really get attached to many characters on an emotional level, so it made some things fall flat for me.

All-in-all, I liked The Priory of the Orange Tree and I'm looking forward to reading more from Samantha Shannon. 

No sé qué esperaba de este libro, pero no lo cumplió. Tal vez me lo hypearon demasiado, tal vez Sanderson me arruinó para otros autores de fantasía xD El worldbuilding y los personajes estaban bien, aunque había un personaje que estuvo la mitad del libro sólo existiendo y aportando poco y nada a la trama, lo cual no es muy copado q digamos cuando vas alternando entre distintos POV. Tuve que googlear sobre el final de otro de los personajes porque no había entendido qué pasó y al parecer no soy la única. Quedaron un par de cabos sin atar que podrían haber sido atados tranquilamente, tal vez se resolverán en una posible continuación? Si la hay, no la voy a leer :v

My first DNF.

What an utter disappointment this book's been. I cannot for the love of me understand how could anyone compare this to Lord of the Rings. The Priory of the Orange Tree just vomits names and characters and POVs at the you and expects you to remember everything. There is no main character, there are dozen and a half plot-lines without any distinction as what is important and what's secondary.

Labeling chapters as a cardinal direction was the stupidest choice I've ever seen. The approach of “Chapter 1” or named chapters is fine. A Song of Ice and Fire's approach of naming chapters after the POV character would be fantastic here as the sheer amount of characters you go through is staggering at times.

I've had easier time reading DUNE, the Silmarillion, or any literary classic. Joyce's Ulysses would probably keep me entertained better than this. Not that I hate it but it's presented terribly. The writing is weird, the characters are not memorable what so ever besides a few of them but by virtue of the multiple scattered POVs it's impossible to root for any of them (Except Sulyard who is killed "off-screen" WHAT THE HELL?

I've gone through some 400 pages of this and I can't stomach another 400. Nope! I'm sorry but not only this is nowhere near Lord of the Rings, this is plain sub-par run of the mill fantasy.