The Bone Season

By Samantha Shannon

The New York Times bestselling first novel in the sensational Bone Season series, a heart-pounding epic fantasy by the author of The Priory of the Orange Tree.

“Intelligent, inventive, dark, and engrossing.” NPR

Welcome to Scion. No safer place.

The year is 2059. For two centuries, the Republic of Scion has led an oppressive campaign against unnaturalness in Europe.

In London, Paige Mahoney holds a high rank in the criminal underworld. The right hand of the ruthless White Binder, Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare and formidable kind of clairvoyant. Under Scion law, she commits treason simply by breathing.

When Paige is arrested for murder, she meets the mysterious founders of Scion, who have designs on her uncommon abilities. If she is to survive and escape, Paige must use every skill at her disposal – and put her trust in someone who ought to be her enemy.

With its intricately imagined world-building, slow burn romance, and “complex, ever evolving, scrappy yet touching” (NPR) heroine, The Bone Season series shows master of fantasy Samantha Shannon at the height of her considerable powers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Aug 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781639734054

Samantha Shannon

Samantha Shannon is the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Season and The Roots of Chaos series. Her work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. She lives in London. samanthashannon.co.uk / @say_shannon

Reviews for The Bone Season

[jennybeast · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It took me a while to get into this one -- so much language, so much unfamiliar cant and a new world on top of that.

Alt-British Dystopian Steampunk-ish? Clairvoyant London with a tough as nails crime syndicate heroine known as the Pale Dreamer. First book of seven planned. *sigh* This is a perfectly fine book, but the complexities weigh it down, and the characters don't engage the reader enough to make a slow book great. If you're looking for excellent paranormal/clairvoyant historical fiction, try Libba Bray's "The Diviners". If you're looking for gritty fast-paced crime syndicate paranormal London, try Ben Aaronovitch's "Midnight Riot". If you want intricate worlds but a totally predictable plot, well then, you are in the right place.

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Nicely built world though didn't capture me interest. Hoped for more as I really enjoyed [The Priory of the Orange Tree].

[arosoff-513117 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Bloomsbury's marketing department should get an award for this book. The author, on the other hand, should not.

The Bone Season isn't outrageously terrible. I didn't have to push myself to finish it. I'll say at the outset that although I love dystopian fiction, the summary left me iffy on whether it would be my taste or not. The problem turned out to be less my personal preferences and more flaws within the novel. There's an art to building a fictional world so that it's realistic but doesn't read like the author's backstory notes, and this fails--too much of it feels like she got so involved in the world-building that she simply sticks it in, and unevenly at that. Some questions are answered too thoroughly; others not at all... though knowing that this is a planned seven book series, I suspect some of it may have been saved for sequels. In some ways it feels a lot like a low-rent Dune in construction, including maps, glossary, and complex lingo/backstory.

The characters aren't terribly complex or interesting--they fall too much into stock types. The prose is acceptable but reliant on clichés.

I have no idea how she's planning to stretch this out for seven books, and I don't plan on sticking around to find out.

[reading_fox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mixed. Didn't quite appeal to me and I'm not sure why. I loved her previous work Priory of the Orange Tree, and this has some of the same feel, but is quite different in many ways especially the very different setting.Quite a rare thing to have an urban fantasy set in a future history. It's one of the disappointments, as there seems to be little reason to have set it so far ahead in time, (2050s) with nothing interesting to show for it, other that to see how the new orwellian oversight has constricted growth. It's not enemies of the state that our sought out, but clairvoyants. It's not quite clear what happened, but Henry VII partook of one seance too many and opened a portal to the spirit world that's never been shut. not only did more ghosts and spirits linger, but more humans were able to see and influence them, and not only ghosts were drawn but two other races, humanoid Reph and somewhat more beastial Elrim. In response the governments created Scion an agreement with the Reph to control the clairvoyants and use them to defend against the Elrim. Voyants became known as unnatural and were ostracized and hunted down, but that didn't stop gangs of them successfully living in all the cities using their abilities to avoid detection. Paige is one such a particularly rare form of gifted ability to jump or leave her own body and visit/invade another's mind. There is no such thing as formal training, but she's been trying to learn and was quickly appreciated by one of London's gangs. However one day she can't avoid all the watchers and she's caught and sent to the Reph camp, where her rarity marks her out for special attention, and she has to decide just how much she's prepared to cope, and whom to trust.I generally like single character viewpoints, but it does rely on that character being relatable and Paige isn't really. I think mostly it's all just a bit too rushed, too many different types of voyant with no clear understanding of their differences or why it matters (only a few skills are ever explained). Apart fro one notable exception at he end all the spirits just become objects to be used - gathered into 'spools' and thrown and an opponent without permission or consequence. There's politics within the gangs, between the gangs, within and between the Reph and the human government, and Paige doesn't experience enough of any of them to matter. She cares about a few characters, but we only get to see these for a few pages in total and so they don't feel meaningful. Liekwise her 200yr old romance is both very sudden, very rushed and quite icky. Sort of Hungergames feel to it, or any YA dystopia but with the novel twist of the spirit world as a backdrop - I think it may not have needed the dystopian setting to have worked better. I'm undecided whether I'll continue the rest of the series.

[readingbeader · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While this was okay, I really felt like I have read this kind of story before in many YA books. I think that adults will like this, it's kind of a grown up mash of magic, adventure, romance (very light,) and rebellion.

I don't plan on buying it for the high school unless someone asks for it specifically. If it's really seven volumns long, several grades will graduate before the series is done.

[menshevixen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Like Echo Bazaar and 1984 had a creepy, sexy baby.

[kohrmanmj · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

1 1/2 stars. The book had potential: an interesting world, a fully-realized concept. It COULD have been good if 1) the characters were more dynamic and not 2-dimensional husks that you either don't remember or don't care about 2) the concepts introduced in the book were fully explored instead of just constantly dumping new, made-up terms with no definition or point and 3)(the biggest one) there was NO ROMANCE.

I really struggled with how to rate this book. I might have actually semi-enjoyed the novel if I wasn't too distracted by the horrific use of YA tropes. Specifically, the brooding, controlling older man that makes a heroine act like an imbecile. Without delving too far into my disgust for the acceptance of this archetype, I was 100% NOT okay with turning the over-controlling authority figure who is 200 years older than the teenage girl into a love story (think of a cross between Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey, except without the racy bits). I don't even need to get into the inter-species aspect; it's less offensive. Why are we teaching teenage girls that it's okay to "love" and submit to men who try to control us? Even when she's "free" she still calls him "Warden" and not his real name. Beyond that, why are we teaching them that it's okay to be preyed on by older men? Sure, he may look 20, but I find it difficult to believe that over the hundreds of years that he's existed, he hasn't mentally matured past the point of a 20 year old. If the relationship aspect was limited to a mentor/mentee scope, I would have given this at least another star.

[pdcread · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The year is 2059 and set in a Britain that is very different to the one we know today. In this future, being a clairvoyant is illegal, and they have three option, hide their skill, join the NVD hunting other with that skill or use their skill for criminal purposes. Paige has chosen the crime route, but on her way home after a job, everything changes when she uses her power to kill someone.

She is quickly tracked down, and sent to the old city of Oxford. This is now run by a race of humanoid creatures call the Rephaim who use the skills that the clairvoyants have for their own purposes. Each harvest of clairvoyants is called the Bone Season and their are assigned to a Rephaim where they are expected to undergo a series of tests. Paige's keeper is called the Warden who does not normally select a human to train. Paige is a feisty character, and the rarest of clairvoyants, a dream walker, and she tries her hardest to find a way out of this place, but finds her plans blocked as the Warden has a greater power than her. As her powers grow with the training she is getting, she starts to see a way that she might, just might escape.

Overall this wasn't a bad read. It is kind of a blend of paranormal and dystopian future with hints of other genres in the mix too. The main characters were ok, but the others occasionally a little two dimensional. There was masses of action in the last few chapters, and it did get a tad confusing at time as to who was doing what to whom, and when. I think 2.5 stars is fair, but for a debut novel it was worth reading.

[treehorse-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Exposition dump here, exposition dump there. Sort of interesting world, but the real reason I got this was because there were (no joke) six copies on the library shelf. Was curious as to what kind of book was that over ordered

[malexmave · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book seems to get a lot of bad reviews at the moment. Some people say it is awesome, some people say it is bad. I was not aware of any hype around this book, so I went into it expecting a book of average quality and was not surprised.

The world is well-written, if not as dystopian as I have been led to believe by some reviews (I may just be jaded from just having read 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm and Brave New World). I also liked the magic system, and the characters are moderately well-written. It can't stand up against something like a Sanderson novel, but then again, few books can.

All in all, the story was predictable, but still enjoyable. I'll probably read the next book of the Series as well and see if it gets better or worse.

[readingwithlynn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

loved this book from start to finish and I can't wait to read The Mime order!

[cindiann_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Augh, if I had known there were going to be seven of these, I'd have waited a while to read it.

[csdaley-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was more of a 3.5 star book for me. It had a great beginning and a great ending but it really lost me in the middle. I almost didn't finish because the book took such an unusual turn after the fantastic start. I am not going to lie, I thought the story about a girl who could control ghosts in a twisted version of London was way more interesting than what happens after she is captured. I finished but honestly don't know if I will read the next one.

[tamaranewman · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Looking forward to the next book.

[pennma05-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Oh why didn't I read this book sooner?! When I first started and saw that chart at the beginning I was a little overwhelmed and thought it might just be too much, but it wasn't. This book was so good. I loved the story and the characters. There was a lot of intensity, especially in the last half of the book. I was planning on reading a different book when I finished this one but now I definitely need to go straight to The Mime Order!

[maggie.chavarria · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I actually loved this book. I wasn't sure if it was going to live up to hype, but I really enjoyed it. Can't wait for the next one!

[wildrequiem · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I haven't been this excited for a series from this genre in a very long time. The book is very complicated for the first 100 pages or so, but it's not rocket science, and it's totally worth it.I wouldn't call the concepts in this book "original", however, because aether is from Stephen King, I believe. How it works in this series is very similar to how it works in Stephen King-verse.

[leahlo89 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I've picked this book and put it down a dozen times. I just can't get through it. The plot is such an interesting concept, but it gets lost in the insane amount of details the author puts about EVERYTHING. I even tried just reading a chapter at a time, but once I realized I kept falling asleep before finishing a chapter, I knew it was done-zo. Maybe I'll pick it back up at another time, but for now I'm calling it quits at 42%.

[krazykiwi-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

DNF. The very first page set my teeth on edge with a stupid contradiction followed by an info dump. Still I tried and tried, and picked it up and put it down a bunch of times, but didn't really get far into it. And now it's due back at the library on Monday and I just don't care.

[mhanover10 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is really different from anything I've ever read for a book set in the future. According to this story, things were different back in the 1800's and life as we know it is really different. The unnatural are outcasts and are feared. Paige is captured and taken to Shoel I in Oxford where The unnatural are being sent to "contain" them. That is where there are some other unnaturals are located. This is a really interesting concept and well written. I got sucked into the story and was cheering for people I didn't think I would want to see succeed and not like the people I possibly should have liked. I recommend this and I look forward to seeing what Samantha does with the next book in the series.

[sasham-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There were many things I liked about this book, but they were overshadowed by the many things I didn't like. To begin with the use of slang sometimes stopped me focusing on the story - there were several times I had to back track to make sense of the sentence or situation.
I found at a point about a third of the way through the book the numerous new characters, slang and various geographical references combined with a lack of narrative pace just got too confusing. I stopped reading for a couple of days until I could face it again.

Also the use of roman numeral combined with arabic numerals got really annoying for me - I was never sure if I should read XX-59-40 as twenty-fiftynine-forty or xx-fiftynine-forty. This also was confusting in sentences refering to various districts of london several times in the sentence I read "I" as a personal pronoun and several words on I realised that it was in fact roman numeral "I" refering to first district.

For the first two thirds of the book the main character is swept along by events - in fact very little of what happens is under her control which, while understandable in the circumstances she finds herself, is more than a little frustrating as a reader.
I also had difficulty keeping track of the timeline in the book. It seems to be tracking from day to day but at one point a character mentions that they have been living there for months when it seemed to me that at best they had been there for a fortnight.
My final gripe is the "relationship" between our protagonist and her keeper / trainer / jailor - it kind of creeped me out - stockholm syndrome anyone?

Form all of that you may be forgiven for thinking I hated it - I didn't- but I did think it reads like a first book, and one that is setting out a very complex world that I hope will become more comprehensible as the series goes on and I will be reading the next book when it is released.
The second half of this book does travel fast and is very readable with a good amount of suspense and action. You just have to get through the first half to get there. I am hoping that the next books explain the political situation in greater depth because I am still kind of trying to work out exactly why the psychics are so feared by the general population as it was stated several times that psychics cannot affect / hurt non-psychics (Not that humanity in general has always needed a reason to hate anyone). Also I'm having a little trouble believing that the rest of europe is so agreeable in their co-operation with britain.

[debbiemccauley-2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's 2059 and nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney works for Jaxon Hall in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials. Her job is to break into people's minds using her dreamwalker abilities. One day she is chased, drugged and kidnapped. She wakes in Oxford, a city kept secret for two hundred years, where an otherworldly race are in control. Paige is chosen by Rephaite Warden, who never choses humans. This prison is where she was meant to die, but Warden has an agenda of his own. Interesting, but wouldn't read the next in the series.

[bravenewbks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3 stars for plot, 4 stars for world-building. The classification of different types of clairvoyants laid an excellent foundation for the story. But for a projected series of seven novels, this was a first book that did both too much and too little. Virtually all of the book's central conflict feels resolved, so I'm not sure what will carry the plots of the next six books. At the same time, there are a couple of things that weren't fully explained--how do you kill Death, anyway?--but I'm not sure I'm invested enough to read another book going for the answers. I can live without them.

[angiestahl-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

About a 3.5 for this debut. Glad I read and experienced it for myself. Unsure that I'll return for more.

Among the weak spots:

- Overhyped. Samantha Shannon is talented and had technical chops. Her technical proficiency hinders and constrains her storytelling.

- Six more books planned? Seems like more potential for reader obligation than anticipation.

- Poor character development. There's nobody really to root for, yet there's not really an antihero thing going on either.
Much is made of one character's loyalty, yet all characters seem to be primarily driven by self interest. Several characters are beaten, tortured or die and it's reported dispassionately. Even if I was supposed to care, I found that I didn't.

- Central characters enter a romance that seems completely forced. Natural enemies to uneasy alliance to romantic abandon happens too quickly and feels like a contrived plot element.

- There is much detail and education given for the worlds/societies in which the narrative unfolds, but little backstory or rationale driving it.

- There's a major scene in which intimacy and trust are established by the sharing of a painful and private memory. I expected it to be a doozy, given it's such a potential turning point for the relationship of two characters. But the memory was essentially an unrequited crush: person a likes person b, but person b is oblivious and likes person c. Seriously? THIS is a character I'm supposed to believe in and root for? Possibly it was meant to humanize, but it just felt really pedestrian.

I could go on. This one is a box checker, checked and easily forgotten.

[libgirl69 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not bad, enjoyable alternate history/fantasy.

[anyaejo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Urgh I'm sorry all, I really did want to love this one as much as everyone else. I've discovered that psychic powers just don't intrigue me much. However, the amount of world-building shoved into these pages is both impressive and too much in my opinion. I felt nothing for the characters because I feel like I never got the chance to know them. I still read Bone Season shockingly quickly due to some addictive quality of the writing and will be trying to continue the series, but I really don't understand the hype I'm afraid. Also there are still blatant typos in the paperback, wtf?

[the_reading_swimmer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

First read this April 2014 and am re-reading this a second time for a book club (January 2015). I like the story as a whole, but some of the details weigh it down. It bothered me more in the second reading than the first.

[smilezforbooks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was truly awesome. In the end there was still so much mystery so I already know that I will be reading the next book when it comes out next year.

[gsb68 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Was a victim of my own expectations. With all the hype this book is receiving I was hoping for great things and came away very disappointed.

[johnn.b4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Summary: The book starts out in the the Scion Citadel of London. For the first few chapters, there was alot of explanation of the plot, A.K.A, "info-dumping". However, after those two or three chapters, the book really begins to shine. The main character, Paige, lives in the criminal underworld of Scion, an empire that sees clairvoyacy (The ability to interact with the aether) as the highest degree of evil, which is why all of the voyants have to live like criminals. One day on the train, the train Paige was on is searched and she instictive defends herself and kills two guards in the process. Worried what Scion security will do to her voyant friends, she stays at her father's, only to get knocked out and taken to the secret city of Oxford (renamed Sheol I) where she is captured by an alien race known as the Rephiam. The Rephiam enslave clairvoyant humans to fight off a parasidic race called the Emim. The Rephiam have no empathy or morality, and view humans as a lower-class being. Only a handful of Rephiam (Known as the Scarred Ones) try help the and mentor the humans to become more than expendable tools. One of them, known as Warden, is Paige's mentor and help her develop her gift to its full potential. Once the timing is right, Paige and the other voyants manage to escape the Rephiam, and to thwart their plan to enslave all of humanity.Review: When I was first reading the book the plot was very lacking. There was alot of "Info-Dumping" Lots of vocabulary and terms, but no character development or plot. However, after those three chapters the plot really picked up. Lots of Rising Action. A very soild climax, even though it was near the end of the book. Very belivable characters. Very believable setting. However, one strong complaint I had with the story was that I thought for sure Paige was going to have a realationship with him, but it didn't happen it seemed, like a last minute descision. Overall though the book looks promising and I can't wait for the sequel.