About the same time I finished Samantha Shannon‘s 2019 novel, The Priory of the Orange Tree, I decided to wait to publish things on Reading Well until series of books were complete (or, at least, as complete as current information allowed). As such, I have waited until now, having finished Shannon’s 2023 prequel, A Day of Fallen Night, to post a review of the two books.
Just when I think I understand how fantasy is marketed in the early 21st century, something surprises me. In this case, it’s that both of these novels were released as extremely hefty, single volumes. Clocking in at just shy of 900 pages, I would have expected each of them to be released as a duology at minimum, if not a trilogy.
These are fun reads, not terribly complicated, but certainly very, very deeply immersive. They are as much (explicitly queer-friendly) romance epics as fantasy epics, which will make them significantly more or less appealing to different readers. The world is nicely realized, if a mite predictable, and, in each novel, the handful of primary narrators are sufficiently separate, both in perspective and plot, to hold your interest throughout. The protagonists encompass a nice range of types–from the emerging adolescent to the height-of-her-powers leader to the wizened and mysterious elder, and many points in between. That helps separate Shannon’s work from the very popular “cohort’s journey,” which I enjoyed.
Both novels focus on a world in imminent danger, caught in an eternal conflict between humans and a particular strain of unimaginably destructive dragons. The world is (perhaps overly) neatly divided culturally and especially in the framing of the relationship between humans and dragons (in the East, dragons are worshipped and even ridden; in the west, they are feared and hunted). All of that is a little too pat, but it holds together.
Now comes the weird part: I don’t know which book I would recommend to start with. I enjoyed A Day of Fallen Night more, and it is the prequel. So I would probably start there. However, I wonder if knowing the plot of The Priory of the Orange Tree contributed to my increased enjoyment of the “second” novel. I think it’s just as likely a reflection of the author’s growth in skill and comfort: A Day of Fallen Night is more nuanced, more subtle, than Priory, and the world-building feels a little more connected, less rigidly constructed.
If your wrists can support the heft of the books, recommended.