Every once in a while there is excitement for a new book akin to a much awaited blockbuster. It promises to change your life, or at least enrich it. There was no greater literary enthusiasm than before the release of the last few installments of Harry Potter’s adventures. To declare a new book the next Harry Potter, and its author parallel to the greatly loved J.K. Rowling, is promising the reader the moon, the stars, and all the heavens light years away.
When the to-be seven-volume series of The Bone Season was heralded as the filler of the void the end of Potter had left us with, the promise was so supernaturally great that, despite the plot’s supernatural thread, there was no way it could reach Potter-levels of acclaim. And with only book one available for consumption so far, it’s impossible to compare it to a completed series; it’s like calling a TV show the next Friends during the pilot episode. (Even Friends wasn’t Friends during its pilot episode. ) The Bone Season, as it stands now, is not the next Harry Potter.
It is though, an awesome book. Samantha Shannon has created a visceral alternative world in The Bone Season, one where clairvoyants of varying talents and skills live in the criminal underworld of Scion London. Full of rich, multilayered characters that are just begging for Benedict Cumberbatch to play at least one of them in the movie version, Shannon’s tale is told from the perspective of 19 year old Paige Mahoney. Paige is perhaps the most complex character of the bunch, as her past slowly unweaves for us to see. Yet it’s her future that both she and the reader are unsure of. It’s this tension that propels you from one page to the next.
Shannon is so comfortable with her world that at times the reader can get the details confused. There’s even a diagram at the beginning of the book to help the reader recall different classifications and skills. Unlike Harry being on the same footing as the reader when it came to his new reality, Paige grew up in a world where clairvoyants are outlaws. There’s no reason for another character to walk the main character/reader through the new world. In The Bone Season you start off running and don’t really stop. But it’s okay if the details blur a bit; the plot is focused enough that the reader won’t trip.
Ignore the promise of its hype and instead focus on the promise within its own pages – stay with me, see where I go, and even though it won’t be on the Hogwarts Express, it’s still going to be a hell of a trip. After all, if Paige Mahoney had been a student at Hogwarts, I’m pretty sure she would have been hanging out with Fred and George. And let’s face it, their story was just as awesome as Harry, Hermione and Ron’s.
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