Of The Priory Of The Orange Tree Review

I crowdsourced my reading list from twitter:

Current Reading Status: Bookless

I am open to suggestions preferably fantasy ideally but not limited to afrofuturism… @obukiko @curatereads @afrobloggers

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) September 16, 2019

MusamboTheMuse suggested I read The Priory Of The Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon and used the word epic… I am a sucker for epic.

just to confirm, did you mean;

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) September 17, 2019

The Priory Of The Orange Tree

The Priory Of  The Orange Tree is a 2019 epic high fantasy novel by Samantha Shannon. Clocking in at a cool 848 pages this tome is one thick edition.

Author’s note: The fictional lands of The Priory of the Orange Tree are inspired by events and legends from various parts of the world. None is intended as a faithful representation of any one country or culture at any point in history.

The book opens with a prologue Chapter Stories of Old a quote of a bible verse from the book of Revelation 20.1–3 about the devil being bound from deceiving for a thousand years…….

The Priory Of The Orange Tree is a stand-alone novel fantasy filled with rich world building that could almost rival Game Of Thrones and an extensive host of characters that take quite a bit of getting used to know who is who and who is where. Trying to package this whole tale into one volume is probably why this is such a large volume and the world building slows down the initial pace of the plot but the story arcs eventually converge after some interesting twists to an expected climax.  

The story unfolds from the viewpoints of four Storytellers: Arteloth “Loth” Beck, Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra, Niclays Roos and Tané sometimes in overlaping locations but mostly in different settings each chapter beginning with a cue that tells you whether you are East, West or South.

The Priory Of The Orange Tree has badass female characters, ruling queendoms, running pirate empires, riding dragons and being kickass ninja warrior mages slaying wyrms and taking names.

How can can a book with dragons not be awesome not too long ago I used to stay up till 3 in the morning to stream dragons  (read that as Game Of Thrones) on the internet. And just like Game Of thrones don’t get too attached to the characters, all men must die but though Samantha does not kill off characters as much as George Martin did in A Song Of Fire And Ice.

Dragons, magic, the Nameless one and his army about to awaken and cause grief in a world of clashing political and religious beliefs in this compellingly thought provoking epic fantasy.

“… but monsters often have soft faces. They know how to mask themselves….” #TPOTOT

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) September 22, 2019

The Priory Of The Orange Tree also explores some provocative  fundamentals on religious doctrine which results in people of a certain faith feeling they are the ones morally superior and everyone else heretics and how truth can get lost, warped and replaced with an unquestioning faith.

“When history fails to shed light on the truth, myth creates its own.”#TPOTOT@say_shannon

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) September 23, 2019

This is book is a standalone novel but I feel that world created is fertile ground for lots of development not necessarily this story but maybe spin-off sequels exploring the lesser evolved story arcs.

If you are a fantasy fan I recommend this book, if you have read this book I would appreciate your thoughts.

current status: Book Hungover
after finishing @say_shannon 's epic TPOTOT cannot start another book because I have been thoroughly immersed in the worlds East, West and of course a little to the South.

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) September 24, 2019

~B

PS Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra is the baddest ^_^