Better than enough | 'A Day of Fallen Night' by Samantha Shannon | review
I've heard that 'A Day of Fallen Night' is mesmerising but God, that was surprisingly breathtaking! When I've read 'The Priory of the Orange Tree', a novel 'A Day of Fallen Night' is a prequel for, I loved it. However, I felt like 'The Priory of the Orange Tree' is missing something. I can't desciribe what precisely, but something. And while reading NIGHT, I definitely wasn't feeling that it isn't enough - it was totally better than enough!
What is 'A Day of Fallen Night' about?
Tunuva Melim is a sister of the Priory. With her life-long partner Esbar uq-Nāra, she lives a happy life despite living with the ongoing fear of the Nameless One's return. The sisters still train in breathtaking fighting sequences to defeat wyrms. But among the youth develops a crisis of faith in the Mother and a reason of the existance of the Priory. A symbol of unfaithfull young generation is Siyu uq-Nāra, a birthdauther of Esbar, a girl who perpetrates various sacriledges against the Mother. Siyu will become a reason why Tunuva will experience a rising of the mythical wyrms, the Nameless One's servants.
Dumai is a godsinger living in The High Temple of Kwiriki in the highest parts of mountains. Dumai's spend her whole life at the summits, serving the dragon god Kwiriki with her mother Unora. Her peaceful existance stops when someone from her mother's past appear in The High Temple. Soon, Dumai will have to leave mountains for the first time to serve - not Kwiriki this time but an empire she's related to. Dumai will come across courtly intrigues and a dragon she'll create a bond with.
Glorian Berethnet is an only successor of Sabran VI the Ambitious, a queen who ended the Century of Disconent. Sabran is a perfect queen of Inys but Glorian doesn't feel like she'd want to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a mother. Being a mother is the main role of the Berethnet queens - it is believed to be the only way to keep the Nameless One asleep. But Glorian preferes to be in her parent's shadows and only for now she is able to maintain this state.
These three women, unconnected at the first sight, will come across the same danger - the propable second raise of the Nameless One, the encarnation of evil.
A fantasy epopeia | a review without spoilers |
As I've already said you, I am in love with 'A Day of Fallen Night'! It's a great example of Samantha Shannon in her prime. The lyricism of the style, the epicness of the plot - perfection. The title itself is so poetic and rich in romanticism, fantastic.
The only thing I find strenous in Samantha's works is how hard it is to understand the world building at the begining of the book. But thank's to NIGHT being a prequel, it wasn't a problem for me to enter this world. It was like coming back to the beloved universe but better way. And speaking of Samantha's writing style, I love what progress has she made since her debut - NIGHT is written like an epopeia, gorgeously beautiful.
The epicness of 'A Day of Fallen Night' is not only hidden in how it was written! Like 'The Priory of the Orange Tree', NIGHT has multiple POVs. And when in PRIORY it wasn't my favourite part of the book, it's one of the things that make NIGHT so magical. This time I didn't have a sense that I am bored by any POV (I didn't like Tane's one in PRIORY), I love them all. I think it's partly a consequence of the superior characters.
When I was saying that I liked the characters in PRIORY more then I liked 'The Bone Season' ones, I didn't have an idea how much better they would be in NIGHT! As I said in my post about 'The Priory of the Orange Tree', I don't feel any specific connection to the characters in 'The Bone Season' since I absolutely love this series due to the magnificent world building. And because 'The Bone Season' the novel is Samantha's debut, the character building on the other hand is quite mid and isn't anything special. But while growing up as an author, Samantha was starting to write deeper and more complex characters both in the newest volumes of 'The Bone Season' ('The Mask Falling' and 'The Dark Mirror') and 'The Roots of Chaos' universe. And NIGHT is the best of them all considering character building - I loved every single one: Tuva, Dumai, Glorian and every side character is built in such impressing way.
Another thing worth mentioning is a beautifully construction of female characters. Samantha proves how females in literature can be strong and independent. Samantha as an author contributes to the feminist mission to popularise female characters in fantasy genre that aren't another dumb side of shallow romance like in some romantasy but they can and should make the best main characters possible.
Cover image © Bloomsbury Publishing House. Used with permission.
