Samantha Channon’s ‘The Bone Season’: pas très bon

Samantha Channon’s ‘The Bone Season’: pas très bon

‘The Bone Season’ is a new science fiction book by Samantha Channon. Marie Claire’s books section editors labelled it as ‘The next J.K. Rowling’ (duh, one can always trust Marie Claire). So much buzz! So I’ve decided to give it a go.

FYI: it’s author’s debut novel and she’s planning 6 more books (oh, sweet Lord).

Let’s start with the plot - take future London, people with magical abilities and aliens, and voila, you have a story. Main heroine, Paige, is one of the clairvoyants (there’s a dictionary in the book, so I won’t bother explaining it or you could just learn French?). Some of them can predict the future, some - control the spirits. Our Paige has a rare gift of reaching minds, and she works as a mind reading spy for an underground lord. As the clairvoyants are treated as dangerous and are hunted by Scion (the Government), her illicit employment helps her to stay out of the radar. One unfortunate evening while going to visit her father, Paige’s magical aura was noticed by the agents and she has been captured. Paige meets alien-like creatures in a secret camp, where clairvoyants are trained to fight monsters. But something is about to change, and Paige will be at the center of the events. Well, of course, she will!

Sounds stupid, doesn’t it?

Some minor spoiler alerts below:

Characters:

The main character Paige aka The Pale Dreamer is a poorly written hot mess. After finishing the book I still have no idea who she is and I think the author herself is slightly confused. Maybe in the next six books she will shed some light on Paige, but in my mind she’ll always stay rebellious/submissive/lost/found/reckless/afraid/naive/strong/dependant little girl.

Warden aka the Alien (sorry, Rephaim) with eyes 'bright as lamps' (actual quote) is more developed character. He is few hundred years old, mysterious and freakishly tall. Warden is destined to be the husband of the alien queen and is constantly mocked by others about it: ‘Haha royal consort! Haha, only good to produce baby aliens!’. Tough life. But he’s a hero, nevertheless. I haven't decided yet, was the character based on Edward from unmentionable saga or Akkarin from The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan? The way the plot was twisted and Paige was claimed by Warden among other clairvoyants/taken by someone who never trains anyone - it reminded me a lot of situation in The Black Magician Trilogy. And then there were signs of Edward… Warden is 200 years old in this 'meatspace' aka 'Earth', he snuck out one day (when the Rephaims sleep. Hint, hint) to play the organ (not Claire de Lune, I hope...), and he drank Paige’s blood to heal. But Warden can do something that the other two can’t - an 'elaborate, braided coiffure' (actual quote again). After reading that scene I thought that it couldn't possibly get worse.

There were other interesting characters but they never got in to a spotlight and were scattered across the book. Who the hell was Cyril who had the honours to participate in the last scenes and where was Julian who was more present throughout the book???

Writing

First of all, author had some problems introducing her world to the readers. In this case, she took an easy way out and used a 'Clairvoyance 101' approach. It’s boring, but works every time when teaching a subject. First pages of the book are full of encyclopedia type details … But I have to say, I appreciated the map of all the types of clairvoyants. Secondly, there were just too many phrases that started by “I”. ‘I jumped.’ ‘I nodded.’ I… I… I… I…

Imaginary world

Not too bad, actually. But this is where I needed some ‘101’ material. There's no Scion's London in my mind, I could not piece it together. The most disturbing thing was the hipsters in the nightclub. Hipsters??? In the future??? They still exist??? Do they take pictures with their iPhones and upload them on Instagram??? I got lost in author's dream world at this point, but we shared some great moments on Instagram.

Other

I won't even talk about the love story which was boring, predictable and COME ON! If there has to be a hot making-out scene somewhere in the book (which, apparently, is a must), it’s bound to happen while the big escape plan is taking place, like in a bad action movie. Couldn't the author wait for at least three books to glue their lips together? I did mention ‘an escape plan’ but there wasn’t one! ‘I'll start something and then those who can will fight their way back to the train and I'll inform you its location... (wait for it) later’. Nice plan, guys! And they were getting ready for months...

Oh, and I wonder how they managed to fight at all, as the lower strata aka harlies were fed on basically nothing? Nevertheless, they had enough muscles to do acrobatics for the upper strata's entertainment purposes. 

Even fiction must have a hint of logic in it.

I put this one next to 'A Discovery of Witches' and 'The Mortal Instruments'; trilogies and other -ogies which I will never come back after painfully getting through the first book.

My verdict: save some trees! Should’ve gone straight to ebook…

L.