Author: Samantha Shannon
Published: 2023
Target audience: Adults (appropriate ages 15+)
For two centuries, the Republic of Scion has led an oppressive campaign in Europe against clairvoyants and their unnaturalness. In London, Paige Mahoney is a rare type of voyant known as a dreamwalker, and under Scion rule she commits treason by simply existing.
At nineteen years old, Paige has managed to avoid Scion’s detection and rise to a high rank in the city’s underworld. Yet her criminal experience cannot save Paige when she is captured and imprisoned along with numerous other voyants in the old University of Oxford. There, they are forcibly trained to fight monsters and serve the mysterious founders of Scion - powerful beings known as Rephaim. Yet the Rephaim have darker plans for Paige’s unique ability…
If she is to survive, Paige will have to use every skill at her disposal and put her trust in Warden - a handsome and secretive Rephaim who ought to be her enemy.
Review:
‘The Bone Season’ is the debut novel of British author Samantha Shannon of ‘The Priory of the Orange Tree’ acclaim, and the first book in an ongoing series set in an alternative London rife with magic and political intrigue. It was originally published in 2013, but this review is based on the 2023 Tenth Anniversary Edition which is a fully revised version of the story and contains new material. This version is also noted as being the 'Author's Preferred Text’.
‘The Bone Season’ is a gripping, intricate story told in the wrong order. In essence, a young woman is abducted and forced into slavery, yet as she searches for a way to escape, she is slowly drawn to her jailer, Warden. This is an engaging premise, but not one the novel actually seems interested in exploring. Instead, large portions of the book are dedicated to flashbacks to Paige’s past along with chunks of excessive exposition and world building, ultimately relegating plot events and character arcs to a lesser priority. This repeatedly interrupts the flow of the story, bloats an already lengthy page count, and sorely tests the reader's patience and attention span.
It is arguable that Paige’s whole backstory as the ‘Pale Dreamer’ and second-in-command to a crime boss is irrelevant to the current situation. Everything about her past is told in large info dumps separate from the present events that we and the protagonist are experiencing. Coupled with slow narrative pacing, this gives the impression that ‘The Bone Season’ has little plot or character development if you strip the faff away. Worse, many of these flashbacks are attributed to Warden drugging Paige and viewing her memories without her consent, which may adversely affect a reader’s perception of him as a likeable love interest. There are also too many characters between the scores of clairvoyants, Rephaim, and amaurotics (humans who are not clairvoyant) across the present day and flashbacks, resulting in most being underdeveloped, forgettable, and interchangeable. The constant barrage of people, exposition, and flashbacks untethered to anything meaningful renders ‘The Bone Season’ an exhaustingly bland experience. It was not necessary for this book to be nearly 500 pages long.
Instead, I believe it would have been better to split this into two books. There are so many fascinating elements to this tale which deserve proper linear focus to effectively explore and appreciate. The first book would explore the complexity of Paige’s discovery that she is a voyant in a society hostile to those with abilities, her journey to find a place among other voyants, her difficulties in possessing a unique and dangerous power, and her rise to become the right hand man of a criminal organisation.
The second book would then centre around Paige’s kidnap and imprisonment by aliens, the secret arrangements between the Scion government and the Rephaim, being forced to hone her dreamwalking for nefarious reasons, fighting invading monsters, her slowly growing closer to Warden, and plotting her escape. Attempting to tell both simultaneously detracts from everything as the past has little relevancy to Paige’s present situation, and thereby disrupts narrative flow and reader engagement. Furthermore, the protracted inaction of present events feels even slower through comparison to the dynamic pacing and variety of developments depicted in the flashback scenes.
Despite its promising premise, ‘The Bone Season’ is unfortunately overstuffed, undercuts reader engagement, and consequently does not meet it’s potential.
Excerpt:
I forced myself to consider the possibility that all this was real. I understood almost none of it, but if Nashira Sargas was telling the truth, Scion was no more than a puppet government.
The girl behind me cracked. With a desperate sob, she made a break for the door.
She stood no chance against the bullet. […] The killer was human, wearing red. He holstered his revolver and clasped his hands behind his back. Two other guards took the body by the arms and towed it outside, leaving a smear of blood.
‘If any more of you wish to run, now is the time,’ Nashira said. ‘Be assured, we can make room in the grave.’
Nobody moved an inch. If there had been any suspicion left that this was a game or hallucination, the bullet has shattered it.
In the fraught silence that followed, I risked a glance at the other Rephaim.
One of them was looking at me.
