I was browsing through my eReader the other day and there are so many authors that I would like to try at least one book of. Everyone will be familiar with the saying So many book, so little time, so obviously, this is a project that will take ages but brought me to Trudi Canavan's Priestess of The White.

Auraya is chosen as one of the five White, priests who are immortal and have a direct link to the gods.

I do not know with this book. I thought it was very long and I got annoyed by how easy Auraya seemed to be able to solve the problems that apparently everyone had been struggling with for ages. Especially what is the job of some of the other Whites. As such, it has some troubles keeping my attention through the whole book.

Not sure yet if I will give the second book a try.

I must say it has been a long time since I was as disappointed in a book as I am in this one. My expectations for this book were sky high. I had seen a lot of good buzz about it and the premise sounded amazing. A high fantasy with orcs and elves, mages and assassins? And brought to me by Tor Books? Sign me up! Here just have my money!! Then, in the end, it was just a giant feeling of “whomp whomp”. That makes me sad. Especially because this book had a ton of potential.

Csorwe had the potential to be an amazing character. She was raised her entire life to know that she will be sacrificed to her god on a specific day and that is her only purpose. And then, at the last moment, she is offered an alternate destiny. A chance to become an assassin, a sword hand for a wronged wizard who wants his power back. And she just so happens to be an orc priestess too. Unfortunately, she was also incredibly boring. I had no emotional connection to her at all. Probably because we only see her in action packed moments. We only see her in the moments preceding battle, the midst of battle and the immediate aftermath of battle. Characters are created in the little moments. The moments that the character spends training, planning, preparing, and theorizing about what is to come. There was absolutely none of that in this book. We go from Csorwe leaving behind her destiny to several years later when she’s already largely trained. We are told that she really enjoyed training with a mercenary group, but we never actually see that happen. We are told that she is a remarkable fighter and assassin. Except she only does this actual task one or two times, neither of which could be considered wildly successful. Mostly she gets her ass kicked. To the brink of death. Seemingly every day.

Tal’s character was slightly more fleshed out but I got the feeling that he was there purely as an adversary for Csorwe and occasional comic relief. That was a shame because I felt like there was untapped potential there. Shuthmili was a good character and I found myself connecting with her at times, but since she isn’t a major factor in a lot of the book it was hard to develop any lasting feelings about her.  And her romance with Csorwe was very sweet.

The most memorable character was Oranna. I had some deep feelings about her and thought she was the best character as a whole. She actually felt like a real person instead of a cardboard stand-in for a real person. She was wonderful although I don’t think that I ever completely grasped her motivation behind everything that she did. I know what she told us her motivation was but it seemed hollow and shallow. I suspect it wasn’t entirely the truth.

The writing was technically solid and I found myself reading large swathes of pages at a time without realizing the time was going by. That was the good part. The problem was the disjointed nature of the narrative. We start with Csorwe at 14, then we jumped a few years to about 17 or 18, then jump again to her at around 22. Every time we arrive in a new time period, things are already figured out and a plan is already well underway for what needs to happen. It was confusing. I never got a chance to get invested in a particular narrative before it was over and we moved on to the next thing. There was also absolutely no showing in this book, just telling. We are told that people felt a certain way. We are told that things work a certain way. We are told that this is the answer to the entire thing. We are told that this is what will happen next. It made things very boring and without a connection to the story.

I am not sure why the author tried to make different races of beings. I forgot that Csorwe was an orc for most of the book because it is never mentioned and it doesn’t influence how she behaves, speaks or her interactions with others. Similarly, I completely forgot that Tal was an elf until I was writing this review and remembered some tidbit about his ears and skin color. I don’t need Tolkien levels of race building here. Frankly I am glad it wasn’t because Tolkien’s 4 page narratives about a tree bore the bejesus out of me (I know, I pronounced myself a heretic on that one, haha!). But you need to give me something because these characters were painfully human.

Because of all this showing and not telling, I also have no idea how this world looks or how it works. I got some vague stuff about gates that remind me of Stargate and some kind of ship. It is alternately described as a wooden ship or a barge, and has an “alchemical engine” which gives me steampunk airship vibes. But I have no idea if any of these interpretations are correct. The world itself was not fleshed out well. So as interesting as a Maze that eats dead worlds is, unless you can describe it for me then it’s just an interesting idea and nothing else.

One aspect that I loved was the pantheon of gods, how they are worshipped and the magic system of this world. That was all completely stellar. I am always on board with some good ole fashioned god worship, complete with sacrifices. I also really enjoyed the rules for using magic in this world. Magic comes with a price, exacting a physical toll on the user. So there is a delicate balance that must be struck and maintained. That was all fabulous and one of the big things that kept me going on this book.

My final issue is that I have no idea why this book was called The Unspoken Name. We have the Unspoken One, Csorwe’s patron god. But they are only referred to as the Unspoken One. Never as anything else. The term unspoken name weren’t actually in the book until page 435 and it seemed to be mostly used as an exasperated expletive. “We need to think. We need to – Oh, by the twelve hundred Unspeakable names, what in hell is that?” This probably shouldn’t get on my nerves but it did.

In the end, this book was okay. It shows some signs of brilliance and I can see that the author is very talented. But that brilliance was not curated properly and so the final result ends up being messy and disappointing.

Otherworld is shaken by war and devastation. Thousands are dead and thousands more will die before the end.

But the war against the demons and their allies is not the only battle. Something ancient is awakening. Something from the depth of the world’s history – and something driven for revenge

To face such a power of old, only another ancient power will match it. But getting to him will be hard- and if they can awaken him from their long sleep, can they even guarantee he will help them?

I was reading this book, enjoying this book and waiting for the plot to get going. I saw the intro, was reintroduced to the characters again. I was reminded of the many adventures the team has been through, I was reminded of the terrible trials they’ve endured and also reminded of some of the allies they’ve made and powers they’ve gained over this huge series

I also remembered that in the last few books things got a lot more serious with outright devastating war tearing across the Otherworld

All laid out, with sufficient ominous foreshadowing and visions of something big and terrifying beginning to arise – time to enter an epic… what the hell we’re nearly half way through?

No, really, after covering all of that which was really more of a giant recap more than anything else, with a random encounter tucked in there as well, and half the book is gone. A huge chunk of the book has just passed and not a great deal of things has actually happened.

It’s not awful, because the world, these characters, this meta plot is all really fascinating and great fun to explore and roll around in. It’s one thing I’ve always loved about this entire series. I love this world. I love this series. I love this raising, shining metaplot. But half a book on recap and reiteration with a random encounter tucked in is a huge, vast amount of space to give without actually advancing anything.

That random encounter is a winter portal that opens up for random reasons, has a random witch involves and then we have yetis and pixies and… whyyyyy whyyy is this here? It’s not even a particularly epic fight. They shoo off some pixies… whyyyy? Why have this in here when we’ve already got so much padding going on?

When we finally get to the plot it’s more interesting – it greatly expands the story of three of the more intriguing characters: the Arthurian legend part of the storyline. They’ve always interested me, I’ve always wanted to see how much of the Arthurian legend actually affects these characters and how that fits the overall meta. I also really like the idea of old powers rising. I think there’s a risk of distracting from the main conflict, but I think it gives us an excellent opportunity to examine these ancient beings, the history of this amazing world and expanded outwards into the hard choices that those ancients made and how things were far less simple than the sisters originally thought. This meta is definitely meta I want to grow – bring it on

I also like the idea of the elder fae and a romp through the lands of these ancient, ominous and legendary beings is always something I’m going to be here for

So the second half of the book? Much much much much better… much better

Buuuuut, I felt that we spent so much on the first half that we kind of missed a lot of the potential of the second half. The Arthurian characters had some nice revelations but didn’t exactly finish in a place to develop that. The epic land of the legendary far was a long hike with vague diversions. The big legendary thing they woke up didn’t do a great deal, and the big legendary thing they had to fight didn’t pose that much of a threat, we had a massive anti-climax. If some of the space used for padding were devoted to the actual threat, development and world then it’d be so much more awesome. I even had hopes because we had a huge recap section – hey with the size of this huge series a big recap post “I’m Camille and….” is not a bad idea. But then call it done and dive in

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Spirits of the Sacred Grove was first published under that title in 1998. In 2001, Thorsons republished it under the title of ‘Druid Priestess’ and in 2014 it was re-released under the original title again, by Moon Books. At this point it became available in ebook form for the first time.

This is less a how-to book, more an experiential piece from one of the most significant figures in turn of the century British Druidry. It gives a strong sense of lived Druidry and personal experience, and is a text that has influenced a great many students of Druidry. There is an animist language and a way of speaking about sacred space and experience that has shaped the writing of many of the Druid authors who have since followed in her footsteps.

Emma Restall Orr (also widely known as Bobcat) was at the time of writing this book, a Druid with an international reputation. In recent years she has apparently stepped away from the term ‘Druid’ to explore mysticism.

 Emma Restall Orr worked for the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids and was Joint Chief of the British Druid Order for nearly ten years. In 2002 she founded the international Druid Network which, by gaining status as a religious charity in 2010, changed the legal definition of religion in Britain. She is celebrated for her uncompromising views on ethics, environmentalism and personal responsibility, and does still give public talks on occasion.

I've tagged the other incarnations of this book for clarity.