The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
I was looking for nothing in particular when I found The Bone Season on the Science Fiction shelf of my local library. This was the saving grace of my reading experience of Samantha Shannon’s debut novel. It was not until after finishing the novel that I discovered the hype surrounding the first in Shannon’s planned seven-part series (of which Bloomsbury has already signed her up for three novels).
The novel centres around Paige Mahoney, a clairvoyant who can move in and out of the minds of other people. The slight spanner in the works is that the government (of futuristic 2059) don’t like clairvoyants. In fact, they pretty much capture and get rid of them on contact. So when Paige is caught doing her psychic thing, she is carted off to Oxford, where the Bone Season is occurring. Here she has to fight a bunch of monsters whilst under the control of more powerful supernatural folk than her: the Rephaites.
Like so many fantasy novels before it, The Bone Season has been compared to the Harry Potter series. Shannon is being heralded as the new J K Rowling. Not only must this comparison be a source of crippling angst for the 21-year-old debut novelist, but it also sets readers up with false expectations of the book. The Bone Season is a supernatural dystopian novel with more similarities to the formulaic plots of juggernaut phenomena like The Hunger Games, Twilight and Divergent. Oppressive government forcing all to conform? Check. Gutsy heroine who will rebel against said oppression? Check. Opposing groups based on supernatural traits? Check. Unlikely love triangle? Check.
So, the formula is not entirely original and it often feels that Shannon is trying too hard to follow the fail-safe recipe that has brought fame and success to those who have gone before her. My overriding impression was more formula than feeling. It was hard to feel particularly compassionate towards a protagonist that felt as though she was just a hybrid of Kat-Triss-ella or whatever they’re calling her these days.
What’s more, the novel is overly complicated in its division of different supernatural types. There is a nine page glossary at the back. Before you even start the novel, you have to get through a double-page spread explaining the seven orders of clairvoyance. Then there’s a map. Half way through the novel, Shannon gives up on names and half the characters are simply numbered, making it almost impossible to keep track of who’s doing what.
However, there’s no denying Shannon has achieved a pretty incredible feat here. The novel is a compulsive read, most probably due to the tried and tested formula Shannon is following. This could go towards explaining why Bloomsbury was so quick to sign Shannon up for three more books. She’s also a British female trying to break the ranks of the American writers that are currently dominating this genre, and I wholeheartedly back that. If you liked The Hunger Games, Delirium, Divergent etc etc etc etc, you will probably enjoy The Bone Season, but be warned that you know exactly what you’re getting and how you’ll be getting it.
This is such a helpful review, Rachael. I know exactly what to expect. An exciting, but not unique, story.
Is the book Young Adult? It sounds like it, but it doesn’t seem to be marketed as such, at least not in the US on Amazon.
Thanks – would be great to hear what you think if you read it! It’s been marketed as adult (this will presumably reach a wider readership) but falls into the ‘crossover’ genre that so many of these formulaic dystopias seem to these days. You can understand why it would have such a broad appeal, but no ground breaking new concepts unfortunately. I read a great review that described the book as being written more with the head than the heart – a very fitting description, I felt.