The Bone Season series, by Samantha Shannon - Paige
This series is astonishingly good, especially considering Samantha Shannon wrote its first instalment and namesake, The Bone Season whilst still studying at university. Though she has since reworked every instalment, I’m still blown away with the original editions. It’s hard to imagine they could be any better! There has never been a story world that feel more complex, balanced, detailed, realistic, twisted— I digress. It’s simply phenomenal, and every time I think SS couldn’t build on her previous peak, she somehow does. To say I’ve been on the edge of my seat for four books is an understatement.
Paige is an Irish immigrant who escaped violence and destruction in the hands of Scion - the British government in 2059 - when her father was lucky enough to land a job in London in the nick of time. Since then, her clairvoyance has come to the surface and her safest bet became to exist as The Pale Dreamer in the underbelly of the city, hiding from the authorities and making money with her gang, under the ruthless rule of her leader, The White Binder. Her rare clairvoyance makes her valuable, and therefore at risk, in both the eyes of the law, and her competition on the streets.
But when Paige is eventually pursued and abducted by law enforcers, she doesn’t end up in the jail she expects, but in Oxford, in a prison camp run by otherworldly creatures called Rephait who look almost-human, but are anything but. This kickstarts an non-stop, gut-wrenching, mind-blowing, punchy, exhilarating, gritty, dark adventure that goes beyond anything Paige - or the reader - could ever expect. SS really ups the anti after the second book (The Mime Order) where Paige’s entire world is flipped, into The Song Rising, and leaves us on a painful cliff-hanger in the most recently published instalment The Mask Falling.
What really brings this story to life for me is the dynamics between the characters - new and recurring - and how each individual operates within the hellscape that is Scion. How the strain between these characters drags the story forward, making it all the more desperate and aching and turbulent. Not a single detail is overlooked, and even when all of the mystery and chaos comes into clear focus at the end, it’s still so rugged and dark and leaves so much more to the imagination.
The Bone Season series is a TRIUMPH in the fantasy genre, and one that I can’t wait to see get more and more popular through the years. SS herself told me, on a spur-of-the-moment browse in Westbourne Bookshop (I about lost my mind upon meeting her) that although The Priory of the Orange Tree - SS’s other series - boosted her career in a huge way, The Bone Season has always been her baby and her passion project, and she’s always so grateful to see people champion it just as hard. Frankly, it’s easy to do when the series is so. Darn. Good. It’s an absolute must-read for all fantasy-lovers, and the day BookTok realises this, no one will be able to stop talking about The Bone season.
Paige
