The Priory of the Orange Tree (Roots of Chaos)

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Puts Samantha Shannon in the same league as Robin Hobb and George R.R. Martin. Shannon is a master of dragons' Starburst William Shakespeare’s Richard II: Act Two ➾ for hereditary rights coupled with political reality, or the fact that the male view of the world leaves out an entire realm of perception What this book does well: the love story. Despite the fact that this book has four perspectives, Ead's story is clearly the tentpole for the whole book. And Ead has an INCREDIBLE queer love story! There is such a dearth of f/f love stories in fantasy, particularly f/f love stories that don't fetishize lesbian relationships. We get a beautifully told romance between two complicated, well-developed ladies. I loved it.

I also have some... thoughts... about the gender politics of this world. On the one hand it's incredibly refreshing to see women just casually treated as capable and strong and competent. Love that! Love that it's just there and doesn't need to be commented on!! A rarity in high fantasy books. On the other hand, that also just... didn't make sense to me? An enormous head towered over the fence of Orisima. It belonged to a creature born of jewel and sea. The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction--but assassins are getting closer to her door. The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction – but assassins are getting closer to her door. Attention to semantics is vital not only to the politics of Shannon’s writing but also to her naming system in the Roots of Chaos cycle. The names in her novels are derived from older forms of existing languages or from extinct languages, such as Gothic and Sumerian. It may take the entire course of writing and editing to get the names right, but the detail in the results is undeniable. Dumai—“from an ancient word for a dream”—is taken from an old form of Japanese; Tunuva Melim, drawn from old Persian and Siberian, translates as “splendid strength”, a name befitting the finest spear-woman in the Priory.

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Ead (POV): A mage and strong warrior, with an open heart and open mind, she smells secrets and roots them out. I can’t even begin to explain the love I feel for this inspiring young woman. But the biggest annoyance and disappointment about The Priory of the Orange Tree is that this was supposed to be a feminist story. IT ISN’T. Making most of your characters female doesn’t automatically make a story feminist. Making two of your characters lesbians doesn’t automatically make a story feminist. Switching gender rolls only to engage in the same sexist tropes certainly doesn’t make a story feminist. There is NOTHING empowering or inspiring about this book! The other things that bothered me were fairly minor but I'm curious to see if anyone else felt the same. Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic. I don’t want to carry on! Do you not understand? Does nobody in this world understand, damn you? Is no one else haunted?”

What about the story itself, the pacing and such? I don't know, while reading I just kept thinking that it might have been a better idea to make this a series as then you would have more time to give characters personality and growth while also immersing the reader into the world. The story was filled with tropes and it was highly unoriginal if you keep in mind the bigger picture of fantasy genre as a whole. I get that it is hard to make something completely original these days, so it doesn't bother me as much. This book could even be a not-entirely-terrible start for someone who wants to get into fantasy. However, the first third of the book was incredibly slow but it's fiiiine, I know, the author had to set up all the things. But later it became so fast-paced that even the more important events lost their meaning because there were so many things happening at all times that you couldn't discern between the important ones and the fillers. With a very divided East and West who are refusing to forgive the past, one or all of the four must force the unlikely alliance of all kingdoms as the forces of evil are slowly arising from their thousand-year sleep, and the mythical creatures in the East and West start to lose their powers. An exceptionally gifted author that brought sincerity to the characters many of whom were strong but flawed, combatants but compassionate; deadly but loyal. A series of plots that were so intricately woven you can only admire the author for being able to keep all this in her head when writing this epic fairy tale. Then finally the world building that I missed when I finished this book. It was simply brilliant. As you've probably already garnered from the above summary, the scope of The Priory of The Orange Tree is majestic, brimming with detail and ideas and teeming with characters, languages, and perspectives. Though this is a single novel, it feels rather like several books meticulously stitched together. In lesser hands, it would be a bewildering welter. Fortunately for us, Shannon possesses the inerrant skills to make it all come together so splendidly. There is so much wandering (fetch-quest style) and yet obstacles are removed with ridiculous ease. Over and over and over the characters just happen to find the object they need, or some coincidence leads to their miraculous escape, or they arrive in a huge city and immediately find the one person they need to find. The entire plot is built upon these obnoxious coincidences. It removes any tension or suspense because you always know that another miracle is right around the corner.On top of everything, and this really drove me bonkers, even though she knows that a whole lot of things depends on her getting married and getting laid pregnant, she is as obstinate when it comes to this issue as a four-year-old eating her greens. Pining after immortality and jealous of her baby to be - can one fall any lower? As these are the evil Queen-mother staples, you’d think THIS is an antagonist perhaps? Wrong. This is the significant other. This brings me to the second problem. The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for more than 1000 years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran IX must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—for it is believed that as long as a Berethnet rules in Virtudom, the monster beneath the sea will sleep. But assassins are getting closer to the queen, and Ead Duryan, the outsider lady-in-waiting at court and in truth a mage of the South, is tasked with secretly protecting Sabran with forbidden magic.

I am asking myself why, oh why, I have thought that reading “The Priory of the Orange Tree” was a good idea at all. Having critically scrutinised my motivations I have come to this conclusion: A queen who doesn’t want to conceive although it’s her to be or not to be; a girl who spent her whole life to earn the red cloak of a slayer and refuses it because; a dragon rider who was not told anything about dragons by her teachers; a gal able to win marital duels in a full Victorian dress; the living Kinder Surprise Egg (now, that was rich!). I could continue, but I’ll spare you. The most important effect of this is that the most dramatic turns of events instead of being riveting were hilarious in their absurdity.Overwhelmed by a sense of their own destinies, their differences become lightweight. This is a danger, a disaster, a calamity—and they alone can stop it.