The Bone Season

Romance Reader

Ignore the hype, but read the book. It's an excellent beginning for this young author.

"Samantha Shannon has been set-up, poor woman! She's being hyped as JK Rowling so naturally everybody goes in with the mindset that it will never, ever be as good as Harry Potter Harry Potter Paperback Box Set (Books 1-7). They're right. Harry Potter is the Lord of the RingsJ.R.R. Tolkien 4-Book Boxed Set: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (Movie Tie-in): The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King of our time. Both are in my top books of all-time list. Every Christmas vacation you'll find me, a thirty-five-year-old woman, hunkered down with hot cocoa reading one of the two, or both! They are like an old friend, a warm blanket, a smile from the one you love. Waxing poetic, yes, but if you're going to actually compare these two authors to anybody else this is what they are competing against. One book in to a 7 book series there is no way whatsoever to even begin to compare Samantha Shannon. That rant aside, I don't know where the Harry Potter comparison is coming from. If anything this is Hunger Games territory. The subject matter is much darker, much more mature. Remember it took us almost a decade to watch Harry, Hermione and Ron grow-up to be dangerous, world-changing characters. The darkest parts of the story came in the later books. In Shannon's work the danger and the dark are front-and-center. For one thing the main character is 19, college territory, and although I wouldn't have ventured to have called myself an "adult" at 19, Paige isn't a kid. She's faced with death, torture, deprivation, slavery, addiction, desire, love, you name it. Very mature themes from the early chapters. While I appreciate other reviewers who have noted that this is more YA than adult, I think we're starting a 7 book series with a 19 year-old, street-wise, young woman who is being forced to grow up really quickly. I am willing to wait Ms. Shannon out because I think the series has the potential to go wonderful places and I think we'll see the more adult themes continue. The main character, Paige, will be exciting to watch. She's no cowering Bella Swan for sure but she isn't tough-as-nails Katniss Everdeen either. I have high hopes she'll get there though. Without giving too much plot away, Paige and her friends are in a world on fire. The human race has been parceled into clairvoyants and non-clairvoyants. Within the clairvoyant mass there are so many sub-types I lost track. I was 6 chapters in reading on the cloud reader before switching to Kindle and realizing there were charts in the front of the book listing them all. Don't do what I did, look at the charts! Otherwise you are going to be lost in a maze of really long names for things you can't remember. Even with the charts you're not going to be able to keep them straight but it's much better than having no description at all. If there is a weakness here it's that, so much info in the early chapters you get lost in the names. It took until about 75% in on Kindle before I felt "at home" in the world and becoming attached to the characters. Again, if it were a one-shot book we'd be in trouble but I'm in it for the long-haul so it's worth the trudge through the brain dump at the beginning. The Warden is an exciting character for me. The closest I can come to a comparison is Jericho Barrons in the FeverThe Fever Series 5-Book Bundle: Darkfever, Bloodfever, Faefever, Dreamfever, Shadowfever series. He's tall, dark and deadly for sure, but you always kind of felt like he maybe wasn't on the bad guy side. We don't know a whole lot about what he is even at the end of the book but we do know what he and his kind are capable of-good and bad. They are a powerful force and coupled with the Scion (the second ruling class introduced), I don't know which are really the bad guys. Maybe they both are? Maybe they are opposing sides? Who knows? We do know the Warden's kind, the Rephaim, are hiding a "secret" and they don't have as cozy a relationship with the Scion as originally implied. I'm not going to lie, I'm routing for the Warden like I was Jericho Barrons. I don't know what it is about bad boys that gets me every time. Ignore the hype but still read the book. It's for sure an entertaining book and a heck of a start for a 22-year-old. ["

Show more

August 21, 2013 Verified Purchase

Constantly Reading Momma

Good but not quite great. This series has a lot of potential.

"I read The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon because it was EVERYWHERE. I mean, there was a lot of hype about this book, most of touting it as the next Harry Potter. It is nothing like the HP books, but I think it was hyped this way for a couple of reasons: Shannon is British, she grew up reading HP, and this is the first of seven books. I guess you could also say it is set in a magical world, but that would be a stretch. Don't get me wrong, this is a very good book. I would make it more dystopian science fiction with a little fantasy thrown in. Shannon does a good job creating this world and creating complete characters that are sympathetic and as real as they can be. The main character is Paige Mahoney is a young woman living in the underground of Scion London in the year 2059. Scion is the security force that runs London, and wants to start running other parts of the world as well. Paige works with an underground criminal group known as The Seven Seals. Paige is a rare type of clairvoyant, a dreamwalker; she can break into other's minds and steal information. All types of voyants are illegal, and just by being she is committing a crime. Paige is arrested and learns that captured voyants go to Oxford, a prison city erased from the map but run by a new race of beings, the Rephaim. They value the voyants as servants and soldiers in their army. Paige is assigned to Warden, a high placed Rephaim who is her enemy, or is he? Paige must learn to trust in herself, her keeper, and those around her. She must learn to harness her power if there is any hope of escape and of a different world. I think this series is only going to get better. Shannon has created a world that is fantastic and perfectly flawed heroine in Paige Mahoney. I can't wait for the next book. I give it a four out of five stars. ["

Show more

November 2, 2013 Verified Purchase

My Friends Are Fiction

Creative and lavish world-building

"The Story: What a complex and complicated world Shannon has created in The Bone Season; a society split between voyants (those with clairvoyant abilities) and the amaurotic (those with no `unnatural' abilities). Voyants, with a variety of differing skills, are considered to be unnatural and criminal by their more `natural' peers. A governing body called Scion works at weeding out any voyants and sending them to a prison ruled by an otherworldly race. With the terminology, slang and different voyant types it can get a bit overwhelming for the reader to grasp the hierarchy of the world and keep track of what is happening. Some readers might find this tedious, but I loved having to really focus on what I was reading and trying to pull it all together so that I could visualize Scion and its inhabitants. Though some of the descriptions were hazy to me, I still felt emotionally moved by many aspects of the book. I found myself completely wrapped into Paige's story. I attribute the emotional pull to Shannon's writing style which is rich and detailed but also realistic. I never doubted her knowledge of her world or her characters and had every confidence that she would pull everything together in the end. The Characters: I really loved following Paige throughout Scion with the Seven Seals and then old Oxford as a captive of the Rephaite. Even though she was thrown into situations that were fantastical and she had a powerful voyant ability Shannon was able to make Paige human and relatable. She was a tough and capable female lead that thought through her decisions and adapted to her surroundings. My emotional connection didn't stop with Paige. I also cared deeply for the secondary characters and worried about them and their fate. I was really interested in all the members of the Seven Seals and liked that we got to see tidbits of the past featuring them and their interactions with Paige. I felt that they were all well rounded and Shannon paid attention to giving them depth and a unique characteristics. I knew that they each had motivations for their actions and I could understand why they acted the way that they did. As for the Rephaite race I was intrigued with what they are and where they came from. Shannon left most of these questions unanswered but I'm sure she will delve into them as the series continues. I could feel the intimidation that Paige felt by their otherworldly-ness and size. The Blood Consort, Arcturus Warden, was a wonderful three dimensional character that I immediately felt drawn too. I loved how much I could tell about his character from his body language alone. Final Thoughts: The Bone Season was an entrancing read that had me reading through it so fast that once I finished I regretted not savoring it and reading slowly. I am impressed with the creativity and lavish world building that Samantha Shannon was capable of in her debut book. ["

Show more

August 20, 2013 Verified Purchase

Rob Blackwell

Unique world, but has flaws

"If I were to rate this novel for world-building, I'd give it 5 stars. Shannon has created a unique dystopian world, one in which so-called "unnaturals" are both hunted and highly prized. The central conceit of an alternative universe England fighting over various psychic powers is intelligently rendered and compelling, assuming you can stay with the book long enough to figure out what's going on. Unfortunately, however, other elements of the book are not as well thought out. The romance subplot is both entirely predictable and completely unrealistic. To me, it made little sense even though I knew the author was going to go that direction (it follows the rom-com rule of two characters that seem like they don't get along only to discover they are attracted to each other). But I also had issues with the book's ending. The build-up to the finale was pretty good, but the finale itself felt really rushed. Without giving anything away, the main character just seemed to suddenly have this well thought-out plan, and it wasn't clear when she came up with it. We're told others will follow her lead, but it's not exactly clear why. Moreover, she ignores a fairly obvious hint from an underused other character about something pretty damn important. Finally, the world presents some challenges in that it's hard to visualize. When a book is talking about characters attacking one another with poltergeists, what does that mean, exactly? If I were making a movie, I don't know what I'd do. But of course, when I read a book, I do make a movie in my head, and this meant reading The Bone Season was problematic at times. It was just hard for me to figure out what was going on. I think Shannon shows tremendous promise and I'll give her credit for creating a mash-up of Clockwork Orange and Harry Potter, but overall I feel this novel was over-hyped and under-delivered. ["

Show more

February 17, 2014 Verified Purchase

Shabadoo

Awesome Idea, Underwhelming Execution.

"I feel like I should have loved The Bone Season. So much of it appeals to me and yet there was something underwhelming about it. I don’t think it was the hype; I’ve heard too much about ‘The next So-and-So/Title’ to take such lauding seriously. I’ll start by talking about what I did like and maybe that will coax out what detracted from everything that was done well in the book. The best thing about the book is the world building. Clairvoyance is threaded into the world from an alternate history and has been given about 200 years to grow into the world we see in 2059. There are several types of clairvoyance with their own abilities and though the book doesn’t go into each of them there is an immersive quality that keeps some things from being spelled out in an info-dumping way (though it sometimes has to happen). The systems behind clairvoyance were the backbone of the story from the dominating organization of Scion, come into power to protect society from the voyants, to the drugs and curious items that would come along with an underworld populated by people with such gifts. The enchanting uses the voyants put their gifts to as they work in syndicates that operate under Scion’s nose and learning about the various gifts and imagining what it would be like to have them was my favorite aspect of the book. The plot and structure were strong and there were some really fantastic moments. Everything meant something and it was well put together with a lot of action and something that should have been a mystery (there are some things that have become obvious devices over the years and years) that was still a strong point to the story. There is always that trouble with foreshadowing—too much and the realization comes too soon, too little and the revelation seems to come out of nowhere. I think The Bone Season was close to a good balance although there were several times that I knew what Paige should do a few pages before she decided to do it and given that we had all the same information (the book being in first person and all) that made me frustrated at her for taking so long. Thus I must come out with my real problem with the book: Paige Mahoney, a protagonist that I couldn’t get behind despite all her great qualities. She is tough and compassionate and righteous and has a powerful and rare gift to master and all different kinds of obstacles to overcome—all of these things spell out a fantastic heroine. Yet I couldn’t seem to really like her or care about her. Supposedly among the Seven Seals, the voyant syndicate she is involved with, she is the boss’s protégé, his ‘mollisher’, but I never got the feeling that she fit into that role. Her gift is yet undeveloped and she had just missed out on a deal when we meet her and she doesn’t seem to command any of that sort of respect from the other Seals. She is combat ready from her freerunner and weapons training from another of the Seals and wields a powerful gift in her dreamwalking so I don’t doubt that she could be a boss but so much of the leadership she gains is foisted upon her because the story demands that she have it. At the beginning of the book she is caught using her spirit in self defense against two of Scion’s guards, killing them. She is sent to Sheol I, a prison for voyants run by strange creatures called the Rephaim. Sheol I is supposed to seem like a terrible place but Paige’s rare power lands her a pretty sweet deal in comparison to everyone else—still slavery but all the real terror of it is from the treatment of the other prisoners around her, which comes off a little exaggerated, look how awful all of this is. Paige is supposed to be in especial danger because of her rare gift, coveted by the Blood-Sovereign but the threat is a loose one. I much more enjoyed the hierarchy that the prisoners are awarded as a way to exemplify Paige’s attitude toward the whole situation: her abilities push her toward the higher ranks but she despises those who accept the role of the Rephaim’s happy army and with valiance resists any attempts to be brought into the traitorous fold, preferring to hang out with the voyants or the people who ended up slaves in Sheol I despite an absence of any clairvoyant abilities and fighting the good fight with them. As much as he contributed to my inability to root for Paige because I never believed her in any lasting danger, I thought the character of Warden and the relationship they develop as teacher and student (it never came off to me as master and slave although I recognize that is exactly what they were) was gradual and fascinating. His history and his own gifts influence the story from plot to the very way the book is written and that is awesome with a capital awe. I’m glad I read The Bone Season because I’d been toying with the idea for a while, not really sure I’d like it but feeling like I should read it. The first in a projected series of seven, it is a solid foundation but I don’t think I’ll read on. In the end it was a great world packed with its own implications and imagery and symbolism using flowers deserves mentioning, but I kept deciding to go to sleep instead of reading into the wee hours of the morning, twice during the last 10% alone, and if that is the sole test of a book then I have to admit that this one wasn’t all it could have been. ["

Show more

December 7, 2013 Verified Purchase