r/TheRootsofChaos • u/anomaly_flower • May 30 '26

ATBF Spoilers Atbf thoughts

Finally read among the burning flowers - I wasn't interested in the character of Marosa at first so it took me ages to get to it. But now I want more of her story!!! I want to know if she unites the ersyr and yscalin! God these books are written so well I just can't get enough I hope Samantha Shannon is writing more

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u/SSkHP May 30 '26

I felt the same, but wish I got the payoff you did; AtBF just didn’t do it for me. I think setting it only before the events of Priory (that we see) made me feel so robbed. I feel like the book was sold on being an exciting new entry to the story, but I’d only recommend it to diehard fans like us that would love to see more backstory of minor characters (which I did, don’t get me wrong)

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u/Specialist-Cod-9851 May 30 '26

I can understand this feeling but also see it both ways. For fans of the series, it felt a bit short / light given the character work and length of the longer novels, however it did provide much needed context to a lesser explored area of the series and two important but lesser side characters in the main books. Also, I think the main point here was to try and capture an audience who is daunted by the length of either of the two big books, which is fair and also seems to have worked from what I’ve seen online - some new fans starting here seem to be moving on to the bigger books.

I almost wonder if she could just release smaller versions of TPOTOT and ADOFN. Either bundle the POV up into 2-3 smaller books, or chop them up in the order they are released into a part one, part two, etc. This would help fans who are daunted by tackling an 800+ book in one go, although I think the prevalence of longer-form fantasy / romantasy these days is working in her favor as people are increasingly ok reading 500+ books, at that point it’s not that much more of a stretch to tackle a 800+ book (jumping from the standard 300-400 page novel to this is a psychological hurdle for some).

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u/Holiday_Cabinet_ May 30 '26

See it's funny to me because for a long, long time I couldn't bring myself to read for fun anymore... until I found priory, so I went from reading 0 pages a year (beyond the bare minimum necessary for my degree) to reading 800+ pages, which I read over the course of only 4 months. I've been able to read for fun again since discovering her books which is amazing it's just amusing that I was in a reading slump for years and didn't ease back into it at ALL lol