The Song Rising

Samantha Shannon

Book 3 of The Bone Season series

The Pale Dreamer, aka Paige Mahoney, is now the Black Moth. She has defeated everyone (including her own mime-lord The White Binder) in the battle for control of the voyant syndicate of London. Her whole reason for wanting to lead the syndicate is to rally them to war against Scion and the Rephaim. But as you can guess, a crime based organization built on living in the shadows is not easy to convince. The big problem is that Scion is developing and deploying SenShield, a technology that can identify voyants (making them easy to arrest/disappear). So the prime thrust of this installment is to find and disable SenShield. Paige and her commanders travel to Manchester and then to Edinburgh, matching wits with Scion General Vance along the way. I like the new elements brought in here as we are traveling and learning about other voyant cultures, developing maturity of voyant gifts, and it seems like a whole new world for the Book 4. 

4 stars (out of 4)

The Mime Order

Samantha Shannon

Book 2 of The Bone Season series

The Pale Dreamer has been rescued from Sheol, and returned to the Seven Dials in London. But she is ready to start a revolution, to fight back against the Rephaim and their control of Scion and subjugation of clairvoyants. But she is basically alone in this. "Hey, you're back, you're safe now, don't rock the boat". But Nashira (blood-heir to the Rephaim throne) has different ideas as she hunts the Dreamer and sets in motion a coming out party. Meanwhile, Paige has her own coming out story to tell and has a love of London and life as her foundation. I love how this story is clearly about the Mime world where the previous was clearly about the Rephaim world. In many ways, the plot elements stand alone which is why, IMO, it is such a strong story. 

4 stars (out of 4)