(no subject)

[skygiants]

Right, so, the thing is, if I had known that Samantha Shannon's Priory of the Orange Tree, which I have seen variously recced, was eight hundred pages long, I probably would have acquired the ebook. But in fact I did not know and therefore spent a week stubbornly hauling the the eight hundred page library hardback with me all around the city of Boston, and that ... may have impacted my feelings about the book ....

I mean, it's a perfectly reasonable Epic Fantasy, with worldbuilding that draws specifically on Spenser and the chivalric ideal in some unusual ways; also, I was reliably informed that there were lesbians and indeed there turn out to be so. I just found myself wishing quite often at times that it was a few hundred pages shorter.

The plot: on one side of the world, in Chivalric Fantasy Europe, undercover battle nun Ead Duryan is posing as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth I Sabine, part of a hereditary line of monarchy that according to the religion of Chivalric Fantasy Europe) holds off the rise of the evil dragons of absolute evil just by existing. The rest of the world largely thinks this is bullshit, but since they also, would nonetheless prefer the evil dragons not rise, Ead's nunnery has sent her to keep the queen alive in the spirit of "eh, can't hurt."

On the other side of the world, in Fantasy Japan Has Dragons (But Not The Evil Kind) (But Try Telling That To Chivalric Fantasy Europe), dragonrider hopeful Tané buries a secret in order not to miss her chance to take part in dragonrider trials, that unsurprisingly ends up biting her in the ass as well as the local exiled Fantasy Dutch alchemist who's gotten accidentally caught up in it.

Meanwhile, the evil dragons are indeed rising, so sooner or later everyone's going to have to work together to find the right combination of MacGuffins to get them to stop -- and sooner or later everybody does, but it takes about four hundred pages of maneuvering people into position before anyone starts to do much that is useful. So that's part of it; and part of it, also, is that, while I appreciate complicating national myth and memory, and I get the temptation to have Fantasy Europe be very emphatically wrong, I wish it had turned out to be a little more complicated than Their Religion Is Based On A Lie Whereas Ours Is Based On A Feminist Truth...

But mostly, I think, this is just a perfectly reasonable example of a kind of book that just doesn't do as much for me anymore as it would have ten or fifteen years ago. There's nothing inherently wrong with a plot about bringing the world together to defeat the evil dragons of absolute evil, but it takes a lot of really good character work to make that plot feel interesting to me, personally, and character work is just not the thing that Samantha Shannon seems interested in.

(... I say, sheepishly looking at my holds on the Mallorean books at the library; but a.) nostalgia, b.) intentionally or unintentionally the David Eddings books are definitely funny, whereas only two people in the entire cast of Priory of the Orange Tree ever give any evidence of possessing a sense of humor, in the whole enormous cast of the book, and one of them dies two hundred pages in, and neither of them is the author.)

Comments

[shadaras]

I think your comment about Shannon not being interested in character work crystallizes for me why I (a) stopped reading Priory a couple hundred pages in and then (b) didn't put any effort into picking it up again. And, like, I enjoy epic fantasy! Dragons and cool women should've gotten me into this book, and yet... it just didn't captivate me.

I wonder if it would've worked better if we'd only gotten one of the threads? Like, I really enjoyed Ead's storyline, and Tane's storyline had promise, and what's-his-name, the knight, was maaaaaybe starting to do something interesting when I fell off, but... each storyline took far too long to get set up, and so it just didn't work, because I'd forget details about each storyline while off in the others. (Despite being a long-time fantasy reader who's actually quite good at remembering obscure details most of the time.)

So, yeah, your perspective sounds about right to me, even though I didn't finish the novel.

[aamcnamara]

WAIT YOU'RE ON DREAMWIDTH AND KNOW skygiants I mean that's good, you should know each other, but what

[skygiants]

Yeah, I agree; I think it could very easily have been a novel About Ead and could have been stronger for it. Actually, I think maybe part of the problem too was that -- I mean, it felt to me kind of like Shannon really wanted to love all her children equally, but actually she very much loved Ead the most, and all the other POV characters are kind of trudging on through these reams of pages that really only have about half of Shannon's attention until the point comes when they intersect with Ead.

[osprey_archer]

Aw, that sounds so potentially interesting! (And I love the title.) And then such a letdown! Are Ead Duryan and Tané the lesbians, or are there other lesbians floating around somewhere in the 800 pages?

You know, I'm struggling to think of an 800 page book that I read where I felt "You know, that needed every single page. You could not have improved the book by slicing out a couple hundred pages here or there." Maybe the Count of Monte Cristo? At least there's always something happening in The Count of Monte Cristo; Dumas never stops the book dead to share His Thoughts on Napoleon (Hugo and Tolstoy, I'm looking at both of you).

[skygiants]

Ead is one of the lesbians! Spoilers: she ends up falling in love with the queen, which honestly should have been a hundred percent my jam given the fact that I've recently gotten very into Padme Amidala and her handmaiden bodyguards, and instead ... it was fine? But again, the relatively sparse character work meant I never quite understood why they were so drawn to each other in any way beyond the archetypal plot tracks along which they were both progressing.

TRUE, though if I remember The Black Count right, there's an argument to be made that the entirety of The Count of Monte Cristo is Dumas sharing His Thoughts On Napoleon (And What He Did To Dumas Senior, REVENGE!!!) But others really are difficult to think of! The Once and Future King is 650 pages and I love almost all of them, but that doesn't mean that none of them could be sliced ... I also really love Bleak House but I just went to look at my last post about Bleak House and it literally begins "It's way too long."

[musesfool]

It was definitely too long, but I still enjoyed a lot of it, though I think more of Ead and the priory and less of annoying alchemist dude would have improved it.

[skygiants]

I spent the entire book genuinely wondering why the alchemist was in it ... a.) at all, b.) as a POV character. What did he do for the plot again? Failed to asssassinate the queen? I mean, good job, I guess?

[yasaman]

I got like 150 pages in before I gave up because it was still mostly exposition and also like all four of the POV characters were just entirely lacking in personality. If the plot or writing were compelling enough, I'd have kept going, but they emphatically were not. I truly do miss epic fantasy of this same general kind, but damn, give me something worth sticking around for.

[skygiants]

I'd say around the four hundred page mark is about where the book started picking up for me, which is ... too late for a book to pick up, I would say, probably. The characters didn't gain that much more personality but at least at that point they were doing many more things!

[cinaed]

Ha, I checked out the ebook without realizing it was 800 pages, forgot about it until it was due back in three days, and started reading it. Two hours later I switched computers and got the 'you have 20% of the way into this book' notice and went "wait, how long is this-- oh...800 pages...yeah I'm not finishing this in three days."

And honestly didn't really feel disappointed because it was taking so long for all the characters to do anything! (And yeah I paused right around the time the one character who had a sense of humor died, heh.)

[skygiants]

I was SO DETERMINED to finish my copy before it went back to the library that I started reading it a week early, and ... well, I got close? I only returned it a day late, that's not so bad!

(WHY EVEN INTRODUCE HIM IF HE WAS JUST GOING TO DIE IMMEDIATELY)

[katherine]

Hah, I did similiar with the giant hardcover from the library, except didn't get that far I don't think. I wanted more dragons sooner.

[rushthatspeaks]

I was sent this book to review independently by TWO SEPARATE VENUES and so it is taking up literally more than a foot of shelf space. Literally. Must get around to donating my copies, as the amount I would prefer it take up in my house is none. I mean, it wasn't terrible, but.

[skygiants]

It wasn't terrible! It was perfectly fine! It in no way needs to occupy a SOLID FOOT of space in anyone's home where one could fit, for example, an entire Wimsey collection, and get much more joy out of it.

[vass]

only two people in the entire cast of Priory of the Orange Tree ever give any evidence of possessing a sense of humor, in the whole enormous cast of the book, and one of them dies two hundred pages in, and neither of them is the author.

In an alternate universe somewhere, this book was published posthumously in its unfinished form, tragically cut short at two hundred pages with the author's death. It is, however, quite funny.

[skygiants]

It would increase the jokes-to-pagecount ratio from infinitesimally small to something approaching at least two percent...

[sovay]

Meanwhile, the evil dragons are indeed rising

I'm just disappointed in a novel with evil dragons of absolute evil that turn out to be actually evil! Dragons deserve better.

[skygiants]

Absolutely agreed, and the fact that there are Good Dragons too (and that isn't complicated either) doesn't really improve it for me -- fire dragons bad and evil! Water dragons good and virtuous! OK sure I guess?

(The fire dragons also cause PLAGUE.)

[dimestore_romeo]

I'm so relieved, because I was attempting the ebook from my library the other week and I just... couldn't do it. There was something about it from the get go that I just kind of thought, if I was thirteen it would be fine, but I'm not.

[skygiants]

EXACTLY. Honestly, would have genuinely loved it if I were thirteen, would have been thrilled (although would not yet have understood why I was thrilled probably) by the high fantasy lesbians, hope many thirteen-year-old girls encounter the high fantasy lesbians and are indeed thrilled by them, but for me I think the moment has passed.

[starlady]

Very glad I wasn't assigned to review this book. I will put the time into reading A Sword Named Truth instead.

[skygiants]

I keep forgetting there's a new Indaverse book somehow! I think it's because I haven't properly decided yet whether to dive right in, or to reread all the Inda books first ...

[larryhammer]

evil dragons of absolute evil (so styled in all lowercase) shall be the name of my next Silk Road metal band.

[skygiants]

Perfect! First single title: "They Also Bring Plague"

[chestnut_pod]

Well, I am glad to have seen this, because I was under the clearly erroneous impression that this book was a doom-and-gloom Handmaid's Tale-style dystopic sci-fi. I'm still not going to read it, but I am glad that at least a book about undercover battle nuns exists, simplistic or no.