The Bone Season: Tenth Anniversary Edition

When it was released, The Bone Season by Samatha Shannon was marketed as being the next big thing, the new Harry Potter, despite being nothing like Harry Potter. The second in the series is freshly available at a bookshop near yourselves, so it seemed like a good time to read it. It was... okay. Paige Mahony is a clairvoyant in a future alt-England where such powers are illegal. More specifically, she’s a dreamwalker, one of the rarest types of voyant, who can separate her spirit from her body. Paige lives in London where she works for Fagi- erm, Jaxon Hall, her Mime Lord (Gangster boss), until she accidentally kills an Underguard. She’s captured, drugged, and sent to a place she and the rest of the populous didn’t know existed: Oxford. Okay, Sheol 1. Formerly Oxford. There she learns the things which make this book and this review such a challenge: the extensive world building. It is confusing. For a start, there are the various types of voyants. I spent my youth with an orange dot energised by Yuri Geller himself so I came to this knowing terms like ‘cartomancer’ and when I didn’t know I word I could make an educated guess. Then there’s the world of Scion, the government, and its creation in the first place (Edward VII was the first voyant, and also Jack The Ripper, and apparently still Edward VII rather than Prince Albert Edward, despite people knowing this at the time of its occurrence). Then there’s the world of Sheol where the Rephaim – a race of beings from the Netherworld, as scholars of Hebrew mythology will remember – keep voyants as slaves and mobile larders, feeding on their auras. Those who embrace their new overlords can become Red Jackets, a necessary part of the attempt to stop the Emim from overrunning the city and the rest of the world. Then there’s a whole host of other stuff, sometimes with nicknames and a light smattering of Victorian slang in addition to the books own terms, and as a result the book proceeds in fits and starts, bogged down by its own exposition, not really getting into to gear until a good half-way through. It’s intermittently interesting until then but the first 20% is quite a slog requiring more than one consultation of the book’s glossary. Because this is YA, it’s necessary for the MC to be imprisoned in some fashion. Paige becomes the property of a Rephaim who instructs her to call him Warden, even though that’s not his name, whose job it is to train her to earn her Red Jacket. If she doesn’t [world building stuff] but if she does [world building stuff] but there’s also the fact that [character] wants to [spoiler] because [spoiler]. Did I mention this gets a tad bogged down by itself? Some aspects of the plotting are bland and predictable – Paige does something for Warden then repeatedly asks herself why she did it. Then it happens again and she repeatedly asks herself why she d...

The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of London, scouting for information by breaking into people's minds. She is a dreamwalker, and is committing treason simply by breathing. One day her life changes forever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, she is transported to the city of Oxford which has been kept hidden for 200 years, and is controlled by an otherworldly race. She is assigned to Warden, who becomes her trainer. Although he is her natural enemy, she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die. The setting was very interesting and I was hooked right away. Scion London was soooo interesting to read about, and part of me wishes that the whole book had been set there, rather than Oxford. Paige is being held captive in Oxford for the majority of the book, but a few chapters here and there detail her life in both Ireland and London. These chapters were some of my favourite parts of the book. The world-building was done really well, but a lot of times the author just dumped information in, and the reader is expected to know what this means. There is a glossary at the back, however, and I was constantly flicking back and forth so that I could remember what different words mean. I would've liked it if the author had spent more time fleshing things out, but I'll forgive her for this, as the glossary helped a lot. I have conflicting feelings towards most of the characters in this book. At times I loved Paige, and really rooted for her, but at other times, I wish she'd just keep her mouth shut. Too many times, she acts without thinking about the consequences. Warden was very mysterious, but I liked him, and I hope that in future books that a few chapters are told from his point of view. I liked the majority of the other characters, but there were just too many of them to keep track of. I had to keep looking back to see who was who. I'll be honest, if I knew that there were seven books in this series, I probably wouldn't have picked this book up. I often lose interest in series that are several books long but I'm determined to see this one through to the end. Three of the seven books have been published so far, with the fourth coming in January 2020. I've already bought the second book and I'm going to read it as I've read the short prequel to this one. I've no idea where the story is going to go next but I'm really excited to find out.

Die von Samantha Shannon entwickelte Fantasy-Welt ist spannend und eigenständig konstruiert, sie kann sich mit den großen Fantasy-Paradigmen durchaus messen. Zwar wird ein weiteres Mal eine nur dystopische Zukunft geschildert, die komplexer angelegten Visionen etwa von Ursula K. LeGuin sucht man vergebens; die Story erinnerte mich mit ihrem Befreiungskampf gegen ein totalitäres Regime etwas an die "Hunger Games"-Serie. Sie hat aber genug Eigenständigkeit, um zu faszinieren, insbesondere mit der Beschreibung einer magischen Welt, die auf Zaubersprüche à la Harry Potter ganz verzichtet und ein Paradigma nur auf seherischen und/oder den Geist anderer manipulierenden Fähigkeiten aufbaut. Sprachlich und erzähltechnisch ist das Buch (selbst für Fantasy-Lesende, die dabei nicht so viel erwarten mögen) auf mittlerem Niveau. Die Handlung wird chronologisch erzählt, wobei die Ereignisse aus immergleicher Perspektive der Hauptheldin geschildert werden. Längere Reflexionen oder stimmungsgeladene Beschreibungen, bevor das Tempo wieder angezogen wird, würden auch die vielen Action-Szenen schärfer hervortreten lassen. Die Atmosphäre kommt dadurch leider etwas zu kurz (zum Vergleich, was ich mir gewünscht hätte, nenne ich die Romane China Miévilles). Aber das kann sich ja noch entwickeln bei den weiteren Bänden!

Was really looking forward to this book but was disappointed in the quality. The inside cover has a crease in it and it looks like it was not stuck on properly. This does not affect the reading but for a tenth anniversary version, I expected better quality.

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...