The first in a series of books, The Bone Season is a futuristic dystopian novel written by twenty-two year old Oxford graduate, Samantha Shannon. The year is 2059. In the city of Scion, formerly London, marginalised human beings with clairvoyant powers are forced to live in secret or face elimination by the severe government for being, what they call, “unnatural” and a threat to society.
The heroine, Paige Mahoney, is an unnatural with the power to break into people’s minds. At the age of nineteen, she has fallen into the harsh underworld of Scion, using her ability for financial gain. Paige is captured by the government and is transported to the town that was once Oxford, now Sheoul I. Here lives a society of clairvoyants, in service to a formidable race from another world, the Rephaim, who not only exploit the clairvoyants for their own purposes, but also feed on them.
Imprisoned by her otherworldly keeper, Arcturus Warden, Paige plots to escape from the deadly conditions of Sheoul I. She soon discovers that some of the Rephaim are also discontented with the way of life at Sheoul I, and a rebellion is set in motion.
It is a confusing and exhausting read, and Paige’s motivations are shallow at the best of times. Shannon does little to help usher her readers into the complicated world of Scion, other than including a very disconcerting nine page glossary at the back of the book.
In addition to the film rights being sold, The Bone Season has garnered an extravagant amount of hype as being the next Harry Potter, based on the seven-book deal Shannon has signed with Bloomsbury. However, if comparisons must be made, The Bone Season can be likened to The Hunger Games series.
Undeniably talented at word-building and world-building, Shannon has great potential and big ideas. With six sequels to write and her twenties before her, it is a pity that she has not allowed herself to mature as a writer before embarking on such a monumental undertaking.
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