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4.2 AVERAGE
4.2 AVERAGE
Original review from 2018:
Yet another great book to round out all of the books published in this series so far. This one was by far the most emotional and also the biggest.
One of the problems I tend to have with series (particularly fantasy, sci-fi or alternate history) is widening the scope. Some writers take on too much and blunder; others keep it too small and the story suffocates. Shannon expands the world of The Bone Season so organically and so in tune with our narrator's own struggle that it doesn't even feel like fiction at all.
And boy does Paige Mahoney struggle in this one. Her emotional depth expands as rapidly as the map. There's so much at stake and Shannon pushes that at every turn, making the reader wonder just how desperate Paige can possibly get. And it's a high stakes game.
Not to mention how genuine the dialogue and character interactions feel. If you haven't read this series, get on it. Book four is apparently imminent.
Yet another great book to round out all of the books published in this series so far. This one was by far the most emotional and also the biggest.
One of the problems I tend to have with series (particularly fantasy, sci-fi or alternate history) is widening the scope. Some writers take on too much and blunder; others keep it too small and the story suffocates. Shannon expands the world of The Bone Season so organically and so in tune with our narrator's own struggle that it doesn't even feel like fiction at all.
And boy does Paige Mahoney struggle in this one. Her emotional depth expands as rapidly as the map. There's so much at stake and Shannon pushes that at every turn, making the reader wonder just how desperate Paige can possibly get. And it's a high stakes game.
Not to mention how genuine the dialogue and character interactions feel. If you haven't read this series, get on it. Book four is apparently imminent.
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I can't convince myself to like the romance plot. But it's not the main focus of the book so I'm good. The rest is pretty great, I've really come to love the language Shannon used.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Setup: Once again, there are likely to be some spoilers in this setup since it's the third installment of The Bone Season series.
Paige Mahoney, now the Underqueen of London's clairvoyant underworld, must consolidate her leadership amid intense and escalating threats. Scion has unleashed a devastating new technology, Senshield, designed to expose and eliminate clairvoyants, forcing Paige to rally her allies and disrupt its implementation.
Not only is Paige grappling with continuing to be Scion's most wanted, a leader of a group not thrilled with her style, and honing her Dreamwalking skill, but she also deals with betrayals, fraught missions, and the overall weight of resistance.
What I Loved: To have an Underqueen of an underground criminal gang, for lack of a better term for it (sure, syndicate), be 19 years old is absolutely hilarious. But that aside, Paige's mantle as Underqueen was tested from all sides, and I was about it. She didn't have a clue what she was doing, and she allowed her kind heart to drive much of her behavior, finding out that kindness is rarely repaid in tyranny and resistance. I loved that. Living in that fractured resistance continued to be such a battle for Paige, and I enjoyed seeing her go through it (well, enjoyed isn't the best word, but Shannon wrote it well). The stakes in this novel were intensely amplified, and I especially liked the elaborate discussion on Senshield, which symbolized oppressive technologies in contemporary society.
While it did not take up the majority of the book this time around, I continued to enjoy the highly complex relationship between Jaxon and Paige. A lot is going on there, material that will be saved for future books, and I honestly can't wait to see what's in store. I have a running theory that I will keep to myself for now.
Lastly, I enjoyed the novel's exploration of Manchester and Edinburgh - away from the center of it all in London. The expansion geographically showcased the physical scope of the rebellion and how it mirrors the ideological spread of resistance.
Critiques! Why did this one jump back down by .25 star points? Well, for one, this was simply just trauma dumping galore. Paige got whammmmmmmed so many times it was just truly unbelievable. This was a shorter book, so I found the pacing to be a bit more elevated here, but it also meant Paige was doing something after something after something. I think this is a common challenge in high fantasy overall - there are many plot points, worldbuilding elaborations to share, and characters to develop or introduce, PLUS Shannon was trying to make it all action-forward. However, this led me to crave some more character development and nuance, which I don't think we got here, with the possible exception of Paige herself. I felt myself pulling a bit away from Paige near the end. It had a tint of Throne of Glass syndrome, where our main character was crafting her own plans behind the scenes, leaving the reader a bit perplexed.
With that said, overall, I thought this book in the series balanced political intrigue, emotional weight, and speculative worldcraft quite well. Even if she slightly annoyed me in this one, Paige emerged as a leader truly shaped with nuance - brutality, betrayal, and the tightness of revolution.
**
Paige Mahoney, now the Underqueen of London's clairvoyant underworld, must consolidate her leadership amid intense and escalating threats. Scion has unleashed a devastating new technology, Senshield, designed to expose and eliminate clairvoyants, forcing Paige to rally her allies and disrupt its implementation.
Not only is Paige grappling with continuing to be Scion's most wanted, a leader of a group not thrilled with her style, and honing her Dreamwalking skill, but she also deals with betrayals, fraught missions, and the overall weight of resistance.
What I Loved: To have an Underqueen of an underground criminal gang, for lack of a better term for it (sure, syndicate), be 19 years old is absolutely hilarious. But that aside, Paige's mantle as Underqueen was tested from all sides, and I was about it. She didn't have a clue what she was doing, and she allowed her kind heart to drive much of her behavior, finding out that kindness is rarely repaid in tyranny and resistance. I loved that. Living in that fractured resistance continued to be such a battle for Paige, and I enjoyed seeing her go through it (well, enjoyed isn't the best word, but Shannon wrote it well). The stakes in this novel were intensely amplified, and I especially liked the elaborate discussion on Senshield, which symbolized oppressive technologies in contemporary society.
While it did not take up the majority of the book this time around, I continued to enjoy the highly complex relationship between Jaxon and Paige. A lot is going on there, material that will be saved for future books, and I honestly can't wait to see what's in store. I have a running theory that I will keep to myself for now.
Lastly, I enjoyed the novel's exploration of Manchester and Edinburgh - away from the center of it all in London. The expansion geographically showcased the physical scope of the rebellion and how it mirrors the ideological spread of resistance.
Critiques! Why did this one jump back down by .25 star points? Well, for one, this was simply just trauma dumping galore. Paige got whammmmmmmed so many times it was just truly unbelievable. This was a shorter book, so I found the pacing to be a bit more elevated here, but it also meant Paige was doing something after something after something. I think this is a common challenge in high fantasy overall - there are many plot points, worldbuilding elaborations to share, and characters to develop or introduce, PLUS Shannon was trying to make it all action-forward. However, this led me to crave some more character development and nuance, which I don't think we got here, with the possible exception of Paige herself. I felt myself pulling a bit away from Paige near the end. It had a tint of Throne of Glass syndrome, where our main character was crafting her own plans behind the scenes, leaving the reader a bit perplexed.
With that said, overall, I thought this book in the series balanced political intrigue, emotional weight, and speculative worldcraft quite well. Even if she slightly annoyed me in this one, Paige emerged as a leader truly shaped with nuance - brutality, betrayal, and the tightness of revolution.
**
I wanted them to shake. I wanted to feel myself responding to my voyants' lives being pointlessly lost, but I had seen death on the screens since I was a child; it was drip-fed to us every week, breathed into our homes. Our lives had been steeped in it, until blood was as commonplace a thing as coffee - and after all I had seen in the last few months, it seemed I had stopped being able to react. I hated Scion for it.
Jaxon had been right about words. They could grant wings, or they could tear them away. Words were useless now. No matter what I said, how hard I tried to articulate it in a way a Reph could understand, I would never be able to express what it would do to me when I surrendered him to the war we had started, or how much I had wanted our stolen hours to continue. I had thought those hours would be my candles as our days grew darker. Points of light, of fleeting warmth.
Scion had always tried to create an impression of peace. They had relied on that impression for two centuries - to prove to their denizens that the system worked, that they were safer than anyone else in the world. It was a silent bargain they made. Let us remove the unnaturals around you, no questions asked. In return, you will be protected.
"...She was adamant that any organisation that labelled one group of people as evil would eventually do the same to others. That to treat any one person as less than human was to cheapen the very substance of humanity."
"Oh, you may think me the pawn on this particular board, but I am playing on many others. And mark my words, we are nowhere close to the endgame." Sun gilded his eyes. "Even so, it seems that, in my brief time as a pawn, I have taught you one very valuable lesson. O my lovely. Humans will always disappoint."
"Before I was blood-sovereign, I dwelled in a great observatory, allowing me to see your world. As centuries passed on Earth, I watched the human race," she said. "I learned that humans have a mechanism inside them - a mechanism called hatred, which can be activated with the lightest pull of a string. I saw war and cruelty. I saw slaughter and slavery. I learned how humans control one another. When we arrived in your realm, I used stores of knowledge I had saved from the observatory - including the knowledge of how intensely you can hate. It was painfully easy to turn the tide of lathing towards unnaturals. That was how Scion was born. An empire built on human hatred, meant to shape and control it....I have done nothing to you that you have not done to yourselves. I have only used humankind's own methods to bring it to heel. And I meant to continue."
"I take risks every day. Even if someone does question my whereabouts, every human can be bought in one way or another. Everyone accepts a currency. Money, mercy, the illusion of power - there are always ways to purchase loyalty. Trust me," she said. "I'll be fine."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Self harm, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Medical trauma
Minor: Vomit, Alcohol
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Here we go! This is the best of the three written so far. The story flows great, time is an actual thing in this book, and there's less "wait, who? What?" as you go.
This story is very enjoyable, and it's nice to see how the characters have grown. Now begins the horrible waiting between books. Hopefully Samantha Shannon writes faster than George R.R. Martin!
This story is very enjoyable, and it's nice to see how the characters have grown. Now begins the horrible waiting between books. Hopefully Samantha Shannon writes faster than George R.R. Martin!