Reading Wednesday
Sep. 25th, 2019 03:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhThe Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. An old-school fantasy novel with a complete story contained in a single book. On the one hand, sometimes it's just so very refreshing not to have to commit to a trilogy or, god forbid, a nine-book series. On the other hand, this does mean that The Priory of the Orange Tree is a massive doorstopper of a book; I was obliged to read it as an ebook, since my wrists couldn't hold up the hardcover for more than a few minutes.
The Priory of the Orange Tree is old-school in more ways than one. Here we have a story of thousand-year-old mysterious prophecies, dark gods that threaten to rise again, dragons, dragon riders, dragon fighters, pirates, literal underground conspiracies, magic, magic scorned as witchcraft, lonely young and beautiful queens, court politics, legendary swords, knights, jewels imbued with powerful spells, family secrets that have been kept for generations, and a supernatural plague. It's the sort of book where you can easily check off the influences, from Tolkien to Arthurian legend to Earthsea. It's a throwback to the many, many epic fantasies that I devoured as a teenager – which is not a criticism! It was great to revisit this style. In short: The Priory of the Orange Tree is a book that has a map on the opening pages. That's enough to let you know if you want to read it or not.
One major difference between The Priory of the Orange Tree and the many epic fantasy books it resembles, however, is that The Priory of the Orange Tree has queer characters. Many of them! The main romance is f/f and another PoV character is an elderly gay man mourning his lost love (who is dead, but due to falling afoul of an ancient evil, not anything homophobic).
It seems almost redundant to give a plot summary, since it's basically just "mash up Lord of the Rings and The Mist of Avalon", but here I go: in this world's England-equivalent, Sabran is the young, unmarried queen reluctantly contemplating a political marriage. All through her family's history, every queen has given birth to only one daughter, each of whom looks exactly like her mother; it's believed that as long as their bloodline endures, their mere presence keep an evil world-destroying dragon contained below the surface of the earth. One of Sabran's ladies-in-waiting is Ead, from a country far to the south. Unbeknownst to anyone at court, Ead secretly belongs to the Priory of the Orange Tree, a hidden, women-only order dedicated to keeping the dragons in check through magic, fighting skills, and their connection to the woman who long ago sealed the dragons away. Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe in the Japan-equivalent, Tane is in training to become a dragon rider – but these are Eastern-style, water-based dragons, good and kind and dedicated to fighting the fire-breathing evil Western-style dragons. Also in Japan-equivalent lives Niclays Roos, a Western alchemist who was banished by Sabran for promising her an elixir of immortality and failing to deliver. All of their lives are disturbed when evidence begins to build that the past thousand years of safety from the evil Western dragons are ending. Will East and West manage to team up in time to fight the dragons together? Will they find the secret macguffins that give them the power to kill the evil dragons permanently? And, most importantly, will Sabran and Ead successfully make the transition from enemies to lovers?
There's so many plots with so many twists and turns that I felt the emotional beats didn't have the time to breathe they needed, which often left what were supposed to be deep moments of insight or loss or victory feeling somewhat shallow. If not melodramatic or even cheesy. Other than that, I did actually enjoy The Priory of the Orange Tree a great deal. It's a quick read despite its length, the sort of book that keeps you turning the pages. The worldbuilding is a lot of fun, and I particularly liked the way Shannon used the distinction between Western and Eastern style dragons.
But in the end, if old-school epic fantasy starring a lesbian romance is the book for you, you probably knew that without any of the rest of this review.
The Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos, and Other Tales from the Wild Side of Wildlife by Lucy Cooke. Nonfiction about weird animal facts, which is possibly my very favorite kind of nonfiction, especially on days when I don't want to think too deeply. Cooke organizes this book around animal myths that many of us believe (or used to believe, once upon a time) and then presents the truth – which not infrequently is odder than the myths.
Of course, some of the myths are pretty outrageous in and of themselves. I did not know that medieval Europeans thought beavers, when hunted, would tear off their testicles and throw them away as a distraction. I also did not know that early modern Europeans thought beavers had elaborate governments, complete with laws, police, and a class structure. I know their dams are impressive, but... wow, early modern Europeans. Wow.
Though I love history almost as much as I love weird animal facts, most of the myths Cooke refutes are modern and more likely to be familiar to the average reader. Certainly I'd heard that pandas are really bad at sex and reproduction, and that moose get drunk on rotting fruit. I'm familiar with the stereotypes that sloths are lazy and that vultures are gross. I've seen the Disney documentaries and picture books starring penguins' sweet monogamous romances. I remember being told that storks bring babies (okay, probably no one reading The Truth About Animals thinks that last one is literally true, but it was interesting to find out where the myth came from!). These modern myths were possibly even more fascinating than the bizarre historical ones, because several times Cooke managed to overturn an assumption that I myself had been convinced was true.
If you, like me, are a connoisseur of books about weird animal facts, you will see a few well-known stories reused here: that Freud dissected hundreds of eels looking for their missing testicles; Pablo Escobar's escaped Colombian hippos; the chimpanzee raised in a suburban American household; female hyenas' massive clitorises. However, The Truth About Animals had a much greater new-to-me/old-news ratio than I expect from a book in this genre. I also really loved Cooke's style, which was breezy and hilarious while still being informative and well-researched. Her writing reminded me of Mary Roach's, mixing silliness with in-depth considerations of context and background.
Definitely recommended to anyone who has spent too much time watching animal videos on Youtube.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
The Priory of the Orange Tree is old-school in more ways than one. Here we have a story of thousand-year-old mysterious prophecies, dark gods that threaten to rise again, dragons, dragon riders, dragon fighters, pirates, literal underground conspiracies, magic, magic scorned as witchcraft, lonely young and beautiful queens, court politics, legendary swords, knights, jewels imbued with powerful spells, family secrets that have been kept for generations, and a supernatural plague. It's the sort of book where you can easily check off the influences, from Tolkien to Arthurian legend to Earthsea. It's a throwback to the many, many epic fantasies that I devoured as a teenager – which is not a criticism! It was great to revisit this style. In short: The Priory of the Orange Tree is a book that has a map on the opening pages. That's enough to let you know if you want to read it or not.
One major difference between The Priory of the Orange Tree and the many epic fantasy books it resembles, however, is that The Priory of the Orange Tree has queer characters. Many of them! The main romance is f/f and another PoV character is an elderly gay man mourning his lost love (who is dead, but due to falling afoul of an ancient evil, not anything homophobic).
It seems almost redundant to give a plot summary, since it's basically just "mash up Lord of the Rings and The Mist of Avalon", but here I go: in this world's England-equivalent, Sabran is the young, unmarried queen reluctantly contemplating a political marriage. All through her family's history, every queen has given birth to only one daughter, each of whom looks exactly like her mother; it's believed that as long as their bloodline endures, their mere presence keep an evil world-destroying dragon contained below the surface of the earth. One of Sabran's ladies-in-waiting is Ead, from a country far to the south. Unbeknownst to anyone at court, Ead secretly belongs to the Priory of the Orange Tree, a hidden, women-only order dedicated to keeping the dragons in check through magic, fighting skills, and their connection to the woman who long ago sealed the dragons away. Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe in the Japan-equivalent, Tane is in training to become a dragon rider – but these are Eastern-style, water-based dragons, good and kind and dedicated to fighting the fire-breathing evil Western-style dragons. Also in Japan-equivalent lives Niclays Roos, a Western alchemist who was banished by Sabran for promising her an elixir of immortality and failing to deliver. All of their lives are disturbed when evidence begins to build that the past thousand years of safety from the evil Western dragons are ending. Will East and West manage to team up in time to fight the dragons together? Will they find the secret macguffins that give them the power to kill the evil dragons permanently? And, most importantly, will Sabran and Ead successfully make the transition from enemies to lovers?
There's so many plots with so many twists and turns that I felt the emotional beats didn't have the time to breathe they needed, which often left what were supposed to be deep moments of insight or loss or victory feeling somewhat shallow. If not melodramatic or even cheesy. Other than that, I did actually enjoy The Priory of the Orange Tree a great deal. It's a quick read despite its length, the sort of book that keeps you turning the pages. The worldbuilding is a lot of fun, and I particularly liked the way Shannon used the distinction between Western and Eastern style dragons.
But in the end, if old-school epic fantasy starring a lesbian romance is the book for you, you probably knew that without any of the rest of this review.
The Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos, and Other Tales from the Wild Side of Wildlife by Lucy Cooke. Nonfiction about weird animal facts, which is possibly my very favorite kind of nonfiction, especially on days when I don't want to think too deeply. Cooke organizes this book around animal myths that many of us believe (or used to believe, once upon a time) and then presents the truth – which not infrequently is odder than the myths.
Of course, some of the myths are pretty outrageous in and of themselves. I did not know that medieval Europeans thought beavers, when hunted, would tear off their testicles and throw them away as a distraction. I also did not know that early modern Europeans thought beavers had elaborate governments, complete with laws, police, and a class structure. I know their dams are impressive, but... wow, early modern Europeans. Wow.
Though I love history almost as much as I love weird animal facts, most of the myths Cooke refutes are modern and more likely to be familiar to the average reader. Certainly I'd heard that pandas are really bad at sex and reproduction, and that moose get drunk on rotting fruit. I'm familiar with the stereotypes that sloths are lazy and that vultures are gross. I've seen the Disney documentaries and picture books starring penguins' sweet monogamous romances. I remember being told that storks bring babies (okay, probably no one reading The Truth About Animals thinks that last one is literally true, but it was interesting to find out where the myth came from!). These modern myths were possibly even more fascinating than the bizarre historical ones, because several times Cooke managed to overturn an assumption that I myself had been convinced was true.
If you, like me, are a connoisseur of books about weird animal facts, you will see a few well-known stories reused here: that Freud dissected hundreds of eels looking for their missing testicles; Pablo Escobar's escaped Colombian hippos; the chimpanzee raised in a suburban American household; female hyenas' massive clitorises. However, The Truth About Animals had a much greater new-to-me/old-news ratio than I expect from a book in this genre. I also really loved Cooke's style, which was breezy and hilarious while still being informative and well-researched. Her writing reminded me of Mary Roach's, mixing silliness with in-depth considerations of context and background.
Definitely recommended to anyone who has spent too much time watching animal videos on Youtube.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-26 01:46 am (UTC)I did know that and I have no idea why. I did not know about the beaver police.
So are pandas actually fine at reproducing?
no subject
Date: 2019-09-30 02:39 pm (UTC)They are indeed really bad at it in zoos, but in the wild it's apparently a loud, enthusiastic and frequent performance. The problem seems to be the isolation, the lack of normal environment, and introducing them to just one potential partner instead of a whole crowd from which to choose. Somewhat likes humans, honestly, if we were expected to reproduce with whoever our alien overlords stuck us with.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-26 12:22 pm (UTC)Yes, this! THREE highly hyped fantasy books came out early this year, and this was the one that delivered!
no subject
Date: 2019-09-30 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-30 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-30 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-30 02:59 pm (UTC)