Rating: 4/5, good
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It reminded me of how fun fantasy novels can be! When I was reading this, I was reading it only at night and I was super excited to go to bed because I could read it before going to sleep.
It was a little intimidating at around 800 pages, but it goes by smoothly. The pacing in this is really interesting; it certainly takes its time but it focuses more on the characters and worldbuilding than the plot so the pace feels leisurely instead of slow. It hits this sweet spot where it’s relaxing to read but has just enough important events sprinkled in to keep the reader engaged.
If I had to describe it, I would say it’s like a less grimdark game of Thrones with LGBT romance. It has political intrigue, dragons, and pirates (similar to GoT). There’s a lesbian relationship at the center with a queen and her bodyguard and a gay relationship with side characters.
Priory has an East-meets-West theme with the fantasy East and West cultures roughly corresponding to those on Earth. The most important distinction between the two is that dragons in the West are fire-breathing monsters, and dragons in the East are protective water creatures. This leads to a fundamental cultural misunderstanding as one side of the world worships dragons as deities while the other views them as threats to be destroyed.
Besides the cultural clash between the West and the East, there is one between the West and the South. The West has a religion called Virtudom (which is very similar to Christianity) that is founded on the myth that Galian Berethnet (corresponding to St. George) slew a dragon and saved the Princess Cleolind. The South has a different origin story that Cleolind slew the dragon and Galian took the credit. This is why the author says that Priory is a feminist retelling of the St. George and the dragon story.
One of the main characters, Ead, is from the South, and the other, Sabran, is Queen of Inys (a country in the West). Ead is serving as one of Sabran’s chambermaids, but she’s also an agent of the Priory, a matriarchal secret society in the South. The Priory gave Ead the task of protecting Queen Sabran to preserve the delicate peace between the nations of the West. There are multiple assassination attempts over the course of the book from mysterious sources, so Ead certainly has her hands full defending the Queen!
Besides having to protect Sabran, Ead also has to blend in with the court by pretending to convert to Virtudom and hold her tongue whenever something is said that contradicts her own religion. I really related to this part as a Jew living in American society. There is a unique cognitive dissonance and othering you feel when you’re a minority religion and others assume you’re the majority religion that Samantha Shannon portrays pretty well.
Priory is a woven narrative with three threads following different characters. One thread follows Ead and Sabran and the court intrigue in the North, another follows Tané and Niclays in the East as Tané strives to become a dragon rider and Niclays tries to stay out of trouble (not an easy task for him), and the third thread follows Loth, a Northern nobleman who was kidnapped along with his friend Kit.
Tané didn’t stand out to me much, though she seemed like a good person and I was rooting for her. Niclays, an exiled alchemist, was an interesting character but it was kind of disappointing that his partner died before the story started so we only get to see their relationship through flashbacks.
There was a character death near the beginning that made me angry because I was really starting to like that character… if you read this book, you’ll know which one I mean.
I liked the writing style through most of it. There were a fair amount of fantasy words but I could guess most of them from context. There is a glossary at the end, but I was reading on the Kindle version, so I didn’t realize that until I finished the book. The maps unfortunately were really hard to read so it was a little tricky to get oriented, especially towards the beginning, but as long as you know which countries are in the North, East, and South, you can basically follow what’s going on. The only critique I have is that I felt like Samantha Shannon was holding back on the descriptions of the action scenes. They seemed a little bit restrained and not as bombastic as they could have been considering the action that was taking place.
I would say this is a light, easy read, but there are a couple dark/gory scenes. There’s some sex but it’s not too explicit. I would still recommend this for ages 16 and up.
Overall, this a really fun book that doesn’t make you think too deeply. The prose is good, the world is immersive, the characters are entertaining and memorable, and the dragons are cool! It brings Eastern and Western mythology together in a really interesting way. I can’t say personally if it’s accurate, but I’m white so I don’t know… if you thought it was Orientalist, let me know! I’m interested to hear what Middle Eastern or Asian people thought of this. The focus on mythology and the fact that I didn’t really have to think about it throws some red flags…
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