(Surprise! A second article this week! Enjoy!)
QS stands for “Quickshot”, a series of short form review/preview/opinion articles.
I’m a huge reader. One of my favorite things to do is read. And consistently, one of the most entertaining genres to read in is Fantasy. These massive sweeping epics present such amazing and inspiring worlds and characters that not only do I have a blast while reading, but I also find myself consistently inspired to work more to improve my own writings! It’s a really addicting feedback loop.
Anyway, I love Fantasy books, and that also means I’m constantly on the lookout for a new read. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that my attention was inevitably drawn to the popular Fantasy book from a few years back, Priory of the Orange Tree.
I can’t help it. I see an 800-page Fantasy book sitting on a shelf, and I want to pick that sucker up and jump on it! I just really get pulled into these extra-long Fantasy series, because those additional pages are just more space for insane worldbuilding, intricate plotting, and compelling character arcs. And let me just say, on all of those fronts, Priory of the Orange Tree excels. It’s one of the best Fantasy stories I’ve ever read, and I had a hard time putting it down each night.
Now, let me get the elephant-in-the-room out of the way first. Priory of the Orange Tree is not your typical Fantasy story in one big way, and if you go into the book with the wrong mindset (or put another way, a too-stubborn mindset) you probably won’t have a good time.
Samantha Shannon is an author with complete mastery over her own particular style, and that’s something I can respect. She’s also an author who knows what she isn’t the best at, and she stays away from those areas in her storytelling and writing. As a fellow author, that’s actually something I can appreciate. I know I’m not the best at rich details of settings, and so I don’t try to do so in my stories anymore than I absolutely must. I kinda just let the reader form their own mental image of what a place looks like.
For Samantha Shannon, she’s not the best at depicting action. So she, for the most part, just doesn’t. What that means is that, in this 800-page behemoth of a book, you could probably count the number of action scenes on one hand, maybe two. 95% of this book is dialogue, whether in the form of multiple characters talking, or a single character having an internal monologue.
This is extremely rare for Fantasy of this epic nature. You’d expect massive wars, huge battles, and lots of power struggles, right? And to be fair, there’s a ton of that in the lore of the story, entwined with the worldbuilding. And there even are a few actual action scenes in the book. They just pass by in the blink of an eye, Samantha Shannon speeding through them to get back to what she clearly cares most about, and is best at writing: dialogue.
If you want action…you won’t really find it here.
But please note that just because the book lacks a lot of action typical of the Fantasy genre, that doesn’t mean that there is some gaping hole missing in the book’s structure. It’s not a flaw of the book that there isn’t a lot of action. It’s a purposeful stylistic choice by the author. Nor is there zero action, as I can actually still vividly visualize a tense chase scene early in the novel, and a fun frenetic climax near the finale. It has its place in the novel, minimal though it may be.
So let’s instead circle back around to that word I highlighted earlier: dialogue.
Priory of the Orange Tree‘s dialogue (and by extension, the character development and worldbuilding accomplished through it) is some of the very best in the business. I loved practically every character in the novel, I adore watching this world come together so naturally and addictingly, and I ravenously wanted to read more each night. You wouldn’t expect a tome this heavy could be this addicting, but it sure was!
Utilizing split POVs across two continents separated by a deadly ocean (a queen’s attendant and a knight-on-a-mission in the West, and a dragonrider and an alchemist in the East), Priory of the Orange Tree creates a uniquely nuanced and complicated world filled with conflicting mythologies/religions, delicate political balances, and a prophecy about a demon from the depths coming to end all life at the center of practically every character and nation’s actions and behaviors. It’s tense, it’s gripping, and I loved every page of it.
It’s also a standalone novel, which is extremely rare for Fantasy these days. Packed into those 800 pages is a complete story with a satisfying and resonant finale that ties up loose ends and lends itself to a great sensation of catharsis. But if you do find yourself wanting more, the series did get an additional installment in the form of another self-contained story (this time a prequel), and I heard that a third entry is on the horizon (if I had to guess, it’ll probably be set centuries into the future). My point is, aside from the commitment of 800 pages, it’s shockingly easy to get into this book and finish it off feeling satisfied!
Seriously, give Priory of the Orange Tree a read, and then maybe check out that standalone prequel afterwards (I’m reading it now, and it’s also exceptionally good). This is some peak Fantasy right here!
The Contrarian Corner 