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    The Bone Season: A Novel
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    The Bone Season: A Novel
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    The Bone Season: A Novel
    Ebook630 pages9 hours

    The Bone Season: A Novel

    By Samantha Shannon

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    From the author of The Priory of the Orange Tree, the New York Times bestselling first novel in the Bone Season series, an epic fantasy about a young woman fighting to use her powers and stay alive in an England entirely different from our own.

    In 2059, Scion has taken over most of the world's cities, promising safety for all the citizens it deems worthy and wiping out clairvoyants wherever it can find them.

    Paige Mahoney, though, is a clairvoyant--and a criminal just for existing. Paige is determined to fight Scion's power, and as part of the Seven Seals, Paige has found a use for her powers: she scouts for information by breaking into others' minds as they dream.

    But when Paige is captured and arrested, she encounters a power more sinister even than Scion. The voyant prison is a separate city, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. These creatures, the Rephaim, value the voyants highly-as soldiers in their army.

    Paige is assigned to a Rephaite keeper, Warden, who will be in charge of her care and training. He is her master. Her natural enemy. But if she wants to regain her freedom, Paige will have to learn something of his mind and his own mysterious motives.

    The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine-a young woman learning to harness her powers in a world where everything has been taken from her. It also introduces an extraordinary young writer, with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.

    Editor's Note

    Profoundly intricate dystopian…

    In 2059, a young dreamwalker named Paige gets sent to a prison camp to train for a fight with humanity’s mysterious enemy, the Emim. This profoundly intricate dystopian debut will linger in your dreams for days.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury USA
    Release dateAug 20, 2013
    ISBN9781620401408
    Unavailable
    The Bone Season: A Novel
    Author

    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

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    Reviews for The Bone Season

    4/5

    147 ratings71 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Looking forward to the next book.
    • 5/5
      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!
    • 4/5
      Not bad, enjoyable alternate history/fantasy.
    • 5/5
      Paige Mahoney is a 19 year-old girl, living in London. She is a clairvoyant, and being clairvoyant is illegal. Mahoney pretends to work in an oxygen bar, which is a bar with flavored air, but she has a real job. Paige works for Jaxon Hall, and she is a dreamwalker. For a time, no one suspects that she is a voyant, but soon enough.. Her luck runs dry. She is captured for killing two of the SciLo agents, and she is held in their jail. She is taken in by the blood-consort, of the blood-sovereign, and he is his apprentice. She calls him Warden. Warden is a Rephaite, and she finds him near death, a total of about 3 times. He teaches her how to effectively use her power, and soon, she learns to control other animals and people. Nashira is the blood-sovereign, and she plans to steal Paige's power. Both Warden and Paige clearly don't want that. Warden works behind Nashira's back, and develops a love for his own apprentice. Paige. Paige kills Nashira's brother, and so she is scheduled to die. Behind the stage, where she's going to be hanged, Warden kisses her, and then... Nashira catches them. They are both to die. They have a huge all-out fight and Paige and her friends there manage to escape.. Warden made the choice to stay. I liked this book a large lot, because it was intriguing. But the book had really confusing parts... Thank goodness for the glossary. In the book, also, there is a bunch of action parts. This book is different, also, things I've never read about. Rephaim, voyants, amaurotics, and dreamwalking. Paige is a dreamwalker, and she can control people's actions slightly. I think dreamwalking is quite fascinating. But every book has some faults.. This book was actually VERY confusing, at points. I honestly got lost really easily in the slang and species and... Anyhow, this book was good. I enjoyed it. I rated it a 4 and a half for this reason.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely brilliant novel by a new young Author! This is the first in the series and I am looking forward to reading more.
    • 4/5
      With her imaginative and well-written debut, The Bone Season (Bloomsbury, 2013), Samantha Shannon bursts onto the literary scene (and I suspect the bestseller lists as well). This book had me hooked right from the first pages and didn't let up even for a moment. Shannon's crafted a richly-detailed dystopian world where clairvoyance is real but those who exhibit it are treated as criminals, forced to eke out a meager existence or take up with London's criminal underclass. But when young, powerful voyant Paige Mahoney is captured by the authorities, it's no regular prison for her: she's removed to the secret city of Oxford, where she learns of a force much darker and more powerful than any human captors. The gripping and entirely enjoyable start to what promises to be a captivating series.
    • 4/5
      Halloween 2013#5I am not yet sure what made me pick this book up as one of my Halloween reads, maybe it was the genre listed as "Paranormal" and "Dystopian". I do admit to being curious to read this book in general, with the young author already being hailed as the next [[Rowling]]. The declaration being a bit premature, in hindsight, maybe.There is no denying the fact that [[Samantha Shannon]] has a lot potential as a writer, her imagination good, and the execution not too shabby. However, in her debut novel, I think she tried to do a bit too much, a bit too soon. In a novel of this size, she created a new Dystopian world, added a couple of alien races, not-so-ordinary human beings (and tonnes of categories of them, no less!) and strung along far too many ideas for a reader to keep track of, or make associations and connections with.Then there was the fact that the protagonist was not likeable, not one bit. Indeed, she was annoying for the most part, and mule-headed for the other. And she didn't even have the benefit of a traumatic past like Katniss Everdeen or Lisbeth Salander to explain her behaviour. The biggest shock she seemed to have undergone is the fact that her first crush is gay! Boo hoo! Cry me a river and see if I care!Having said all of the above, the effort for a debut novel was fantastic, I hope and believe she will only improve from here. The theme and ideas in the novel were quite original, the concepts and powers quite fresh and the writing satisfactory.I am reasonably certain that I will try the sequel as well - but will I continue to read the series (the series is intended to have 7 books from what I have read), is a question for another time.In this review, I have obviously dwelt more on the negative and done little to justify my 3.5 star rating. That however, was the intention, to highlight why this book didn't get a 4 or 4.5 from me, rather than the other way around.
    • 4/5
      In the not-too-distant future, London is controlled by a totalitarian force called Scion, whose sole purpose is to discover and destroy the "unnatural curse" of clairvoyance. When Paige Mahoney, a dreamwalker (a rare type of clairvoyant), is captured by Scion agents, she believes her life is about to end in torture and death. But when she awakens in Sheol I, a prison camp dedicated to teaching voyants to fight an enemy called the Emim, Paige discovers that the world she thought she knew is not at all what it seems. To escape and survive, Paige, who has been renamed XX-59-40, will find herself making unlikely allies as the line between enemies and friends has become blurred almost beyond recognition. Throw in some otherworldly creatures, some who are supposed protectors and others who just want to eat people, and you have the makings of an epic sf/fantasy series. LJ ReviewsSaw this on the Express shelf at my library and took a chance. Impressive debut novel by a 22 (!) year old author featuring an alternative history of the world--well, of the UK anyway--beginning in 1901, otherworld beings worthy of C.S. Lewis and--the now obligatory--creatures who feed on human blood. More fantasy than science fiction but on an epic scale, the novel includes a glossary of terms for the many castes of "voyants". More volumes to come and movie rights have been purchased. Should prove to be another enjoyable cash cow similar to the Potter series.7 out of 10. Recommended to fans of literary magic and to readers of fantasy and alternate reality fiction.
    • 4/5
      The narrator is a young woman named Paige Mahoney in 2059 London. For the past two hundred years aliens have lived in the area previously known as Oxford, sequestered from humans. Paige is a clairvoyant with a talent to see other people's dreams. She is living in London with a bunch of other young people with all different talents, in hiding. One day she is kidnapped by government agents and handed over to the aliens known as Rephaites. Shannon has created a detailed world with an established system, as dysfunctional and anti-abnormals as can be. Paige knows that she can't expect help from the outside and she is on her own. This story has an ending but a series is promised.
    • 4/5
      This was a super fun, fast read. Yeah, it's basically a rip off of Hunger Games and Divergent, but it's still an interesting story and if you liked them, you'll like this.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this story. I didn't have a problem with the language so I didn't need the dictionary the book provides. This is the story of a young girl with paranormal abilities working for a criminal organization with other paranormals. Sentenced for a crime and sent to a prison, she has to battle with aliens who live on the planet in secret. I didn't care for the bit of romance thrown in at the end. The story stands on its own without being a romance for teens. Let's hope the nonsense stops in the next book. This is a brilliant world Ms. Shannon has created. I fear she will cater to the teens and go heavy on the hijinx to win them over. Read and enjoy.
    • 4/5
      So impressive that Samantha Shannon was still at university in her early 20s when she wrote this, her debut novel. It has had an amazing amount of publicity, including an author interview on Librarything. I admire the world building, the use of Victorian slang that had me baffled, but impressed, and a bit angry when I found there was a glossary at the back of the book after I had finished!). I appreciate the work that's gone into it but I didn't really enjoy this book. I don't think I liked any of the characters. And that this book in essence is a teen romance, disguised as a paranormal psychic mystery, with some well-researched history and an obvious love of oxford and England. Over promised and under delivered.
    • 5/5
      I'm going to be completely honest here. It took me until I was about 40% into this novel before it really grabbed me. I typically give up before then if it isn't something I'm really loving, but I had numerous recommendations from other librarians that I trust. Once I hit 40% mark, I got hooked. Big time. People are giving up before the story gets going, and I don't blame them. BUT!! The book gets SO MUCH BETTER! Is it over-hyped? A bit, but it is still a fantastic work of fiction. The author has planned a 7-book series, so maybe she isn't trying to show her cards all at once in the first novel. Who knows? I definitely recommend to folks who enjoy urban fantasy.
    • 4/5
      Paige is a gifted clairvoyant living in a future London where clairvoyants are hunted down and executed. Seeking a way to protect herself she joined a criminal gang who become her teachers, co-conspirators, and de facto family. She is captured, surprised not to be killed but instead shipped off with many other prisoners to a secret, isolated detention center located in the old Oxford University buildings. She finds out that this penal colony is run by creatures from another world determined to train and use the clairvoyants as a defense against horrible, violent monsters making their way into the world through the same "rips" that allowed in her jailers. I really liked Paige - she is a strong, independent, self-confident young woman. There is a hint of Steampunk flavor, just a wave of the Steampunk brush, that may appeal to Steampunk fans. I felt this story is more action than substance, and there is plenty of action. It is a weird mix of historical elements and fantasy, though some of the historical background seemed a bit mixed up, especially regarding King Edward VII. Hopefully this will just encourage readers, like me, to research a little deeper into the historical characters and time periods referenced in this book (one of the reasons I am a big historical fiction fan). The Bone Season caught my attention enough that I wanted to find out what happens next, but I also felt that it was somewhat convoluted and tended to meander around, with an unduly complicated layout and threads left hanging or not fully followed or fleshed out. This novel is the first in a planned series of seven novels, so this may have been necessary in order to have a strong structure built even if it is not fully explored in this book. All in all, despite some of the inconsistencies, I did enjoy reading this and it kept me turning pages.
    • 5/5
      It's not often these days that I manage to concentrate enough to read a novel in one week, but The Bone Season was that compelling. The future setting immediately reminded me of The Hunger Games, but that's where the comparison ended. Set in England, clairvoyants of this future are criminals that are rounded up and never heard from again. Paige is a very strong clairvoyant working for an underground syndicate. When captured, Paige discovers that all manner of clairvoyants are delivered to the now secret city of Oxford, where they are trained as a slave army to fight an invader from a different reality. With the guidance of her master/mentor, Warden, she develops her powers further and yearns to return to her old life.Upon completing the book, I am very much looking forward to the continuation of the series, and also to see this story turned into a movie.
    • 3/5
      This book is hard to review, because I recognize that a big chunk of how I feel is based on my level of expectation going into it. It's one of the most hyped books of the year, the author has been compared to J.K. Rowling, and film rights have already been optioned. You can't really go into a book knowing that and expect it to win and impress you. So let me put that aside, and try to break it down a bit.

      This world takes place in a future society called Scion, where clairvoyant people known as "voyants" are condemned. Paige, our heroine, is a dreamwalker and has a very rare talent of being able to break into people's minds. She works in underground London in a secret "voyant" crew called the Seven Seals, but gets captured whisked off to Oxford, a hidden area controlled by another race call the Rephaim.

      This book's greatest "strength" is probably in its world building. You can argue that the world building is sophisticated and complex. However, it was a bit confusing for me. I often felt bored, and inundated by a bunch of words that "told" me more than "showed" me. The author used a ton of made-up words that I grasped to understand the meaning of, even in context. Thankfully, I found a glossary at the end of the book which I referenced very often. But I felt that everything was a bit overdone. When you strip it down to the basic elements of character and plot, the story is actually quite formulaic and unoriginal.

      One big aspect that was missing for me was characterization. When characters are flat, I tend to feel emotionally disconnected with them . Paige was probably the most developed, and I did appreciate Paige for her boldness and strength. Yet her care for a young boy she meets by the name of Seb felt very forced, as if he were there only to show you she has a soft side for a kid and to make you like her. I've seen this trick before! I need a little more than that to make me feel a character. Also, I couldn't see Warden as much more (at this point) than a very beautiful looking robotic being with compelling eyes. Of course there is mystery and much more to uncover as we progress through the series, since this is only book 1 out of 7. Sometimes books need to build, but I would definitely like to see more complexity, growth, and some depth in a variety of characters that I can know and love (versus a focus on only one or two mains.)

      I did find small douses of amazingness sprinkled in. I was interested enough to get through the very long book, in a very short amount of time. So it did keep my attention. I will continue reading the next in the series to see where it goes.
    • 1/5
      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%.
    • 3/5
      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?
    • 4/5
      In the London of the near future, those with psychic powers are either controlled by the government, or outlawed. Paige Mahoney is of the latter variety, and works for a gang run by Jaxon Hall... until she's caught. At that point, she's shipped off to an internment camp for clairvoyants, because, you know, when you're frightened of something, out of sight is out of mind, and at least you know someone else is taking care of it. Except this internment camp is really more slavery than rehabilitation. And there's more to this whole thing than meets even her critical eye.

      I listened to the audio book of The Bone Season, and I think my only critique of the reader is that she didn't really ever let her voice get 'excited' about anything.

      You know, it's strange. I hear that this book got a lot of hype -- and I read a lot of book review sites, and I poke my nose into an awful lot of places on reddit that you'd think I wouldn't, and I think the only place I really heard about this book was on the Tor.com upcoming books for the month post. I read the synopsis, stuck it on my to-read list, and didn't really return to it for a while, as happens when you have a to-read list as immense as I do. But in returning to it, I was richly rewarded.

      I have also heard that this book has been compared to J.K. Rowling. That -- that's so patently unfair it's hard for me to even address. If the publisher is responsible for it, they should be ashamed; if it's readers... I dunno what kind of books by J.K. Rowling you were reading, but it certainly was not Harry Potter. This story starts out dark, and there's nowhere to go but darker.

      The world building was rich and complex, and I really enjoyed Paige as a lead character. She was strong, intelligent and resourceful when approaching situations that I simply would wilt in the face of, and she recruits allies and friends from places you would not expect, even while wielding a gift that she would call anything but.

      In any case, I'm certainly looking forward to the next books.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      I had been wanting to read this book for a long time now. After I found it at the local library, I decided to just jump right into it, since I wasn't totally persuaded one way or another with other reviews. I loved it. Every minute of it. The story was thrilling. I'll read the next book for sure.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      The author has dreamed up a world where ghosts are a reality and people who see them - criminals. When I read a review where it said "The Bone Season is the new Harry Potter", I was extremely sceptical. But I do get the similarity now - the world of Scion is detailed, picturesque and thought through, and all the unimaginable things seem completely normal.The writing is exciting and... well, literary. The story is gripping, though I have no idea what could the other 6 books be about, but I am excited to read them.I think this book is a great and smart way of introducing the reader to this world of 2059 that might have been.
    • 4/5
      I liked and enjoyed this book a lot. Although when I got to the last page and saw the glossary there I wished I knew about that sooner. The world described and different orders of Clairvonats were difficult at start and I kept coming back to the first page and looked for the voyant in the diagrams.But it got better as I progressed.Characters mostly are well made and believable . Some times I didn't like page but over ally she was acceptable , maybe I expect too much from a 19 years old girl.And for sure I like Warden and some other minor characters.I think there is a lot left to say about Rephs and also Emims that 'm sure will be more revealed in next books.Given the fact that this book is a debut , it is really amazing and completely worth reading for those who are interested in Fantasy world.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      This story gripped me in a way I didn't expect, and that was due only partly to the lovely Irish accent of the audiobook narrator. In some ways the plots is similar to other dystopian series, where groups of people (or tributes or outcasts or whatever) are gathered together and classified according to some kind of system. But there's also something that felt pretty original to me about the characters, the world they inhabit, and the alternate world they discover (or rather, the beings they discover inhabiting their own world).

      If I had known when I started reading this that a second book was on the way but not yet published, I would've waited to read it. But as it is, I have the second book on my wish list!
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      Reminds me a lot of Stacia Kane's Downside Ghosts series but with a more English slant, didn't really catch my attention and make me want to read more. In England peope with psionic are hunted and, apparently, killed. Paige Mahoney has some psionic abilities, she can visit other peoples dreams, she has worked for the underground and now she's caught. She finds that what she knows is all lies and her life is going to be caught up with survival of her people.Why are people kept from knowing stuff that might keep them alive or be useful to keep the world they live in going. Secrecy just makes people dig, not help the world work. It just didn't work for me and it didn't make me want to follow it up.