The Bone Season

Critics Review

• Don’t just suspend your disbelief – send it to the pictures and sink into this fabulous, epic fantasy thriller … Lavish, ebullient, escapist

  The Times

• The Bone Season, set in 2059, stems from Shannon’s interest in works such as The Handmaid’s Tale and A Clockwork Orange, which have backdrops of repressive regimes, and in John Donne’s poetry

  Sunday Times

• Shannon writes so well that you stay interested, intrigued by the knife-edge motivation of character’s with “six-seater lips” whose “high-collard dresses always made her think of the gallows”. And although many of the paths walked by The Bone Season will already have been well travelled by fantasy readers, Shannon shows real skill in combining them so easily into an original and enjoyable escapist fictional world…. The ending certainly gripped me to the marrow

  Daily Telegraph

• The Bone Season plots out a criminal underworld in a future where clairvoyancy exists; part fantasy, part dystopia, all intrigue. It’s a world of impressive scope, accompanied by Tolkienesque appendices, glossaries, maps and all

  Vogue

• A Hunger Games vibe and a few Shades of Grey

  Vanity Fair

• Samantha Shannon’s The Bone Season is my perfect cup of tea

  Daily Mail

• Plenty for readers to get absorbed in

  Wall Street Journal

• Frightening and well-imagined … fascinating … The large talent on display here suggests just how good Shannon could get in the next six books of this promising series

  Washington Post

• A rapid-fire wonder of a book, where clairvoyants and humans battle it out against scary monsters and super-creeps

  Marie Claire

• The Bone Season is more like the novel that JK Rowling and William Gibson never teamed up to write

  Wired

• A complex and epic dystopia

  Bookseller

• The book invokes both the political tyranny of George Orwell and the bucolic mythmaking of J.R.R. Tolkein

  USA Today

• A dark, embattled, highly wrought fantasy … Whatever the future holds, there is no doubt that Samantha is the real thing, her own sternest critic and a born storyteller

  Observer

• A Hunger Games-esque debut

  Irish Daily Mail

• It has conviction in spades … The Bone Season has the kids vs dystopia kick of The Hunger Games, but while it’s better written … It’s also got the star-crossed romance of Twilight

  SFX Magazine

• A dazzlingly brainy, witty and bewitching tale of outrageous courage, heroic compassion, transcendent love and the quest for freedom … the first in a thoughtful fantasy series by a brilliant young writer

  Booklist

• Dynamic and direct … There is an exciting breadth to Shannon’s world

  Evening Standard

• Had me gripped as if in a vice

  Stylist

• There’s a great imagination at work here, and Shannon’s just getting started

  People

• Shannon’s world is meticulously detailed and has a strong internal logic … Plenty of entertaining action … The pace of The Bone Season seldom slacks off, and the strong and resourceful Paige is a memorable heroine. This is one buzz book that just might merit its hype

  BookPage

• On the quite wonderful style and craft of words Samantha displays I really cannot heap enough praise – it is remarkably self-assured writing, most especially for a debut … the most engrossing read I have had so far this year and frankly the most absorbing and compelling debut I’ve read since the superb Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Hugely recommended

  Forbidden Planet International Blog

• Marks the arrival of an extraordinarily talented British writer set to challenge the worldwide bestseller list domination of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games

  The British Fantasy Society

• With echoes of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games and Trudi Canavan’s Black Magician trilogy, this is an excellent debut that will keep the reader gripped all the way to the end – and leave them asking when book two will be released

  Irish Examiner

• The Bone Season is enough to transport even hardened sceptics of the fantasy genre into its imaginative realm

  Metro

• In this special edition of her critically acclaimed debut, Samantha Shannon performs the remarkable feat of improving upon the original beloved text. The story is impossibly richer and more insightful, assuringly accessible, more moving than ever, and glitters with exclusive content. The Bone Season is why fantasy exists. This is a hypnotic journey that crackles with dreamlike energy. Of all the Oxfords that literature has conjured, Shannon’s Sheol I intrigues and terrifies me the most. Her London is a fever dream. And I would linger in the aether forever if it meant spending longer with Paige Mahoney and Arcturus Mesarthim. Darkly thrilling, and dense with inventive detail, this lyrical dreamscape demands your presence. Come, dreamers – I dare you to lose yourselves in this one

  London Shah, award-winning author of the Light the Abyss series

• Truly extraordinary and thrilling

  Andy Serkis

• A richly dramatic and unadulterated pleasure, filled with horrors, wonders and charm

  Justina Robson, author of the Quantum Gravity series

• Epic, surprising, and impeccably imagined, The Bone Season seamlessly melds a near-future dystopian world, with high fantasy stakes, and a truly unique brand of magic. Perfect for those who enjoy intricate plots and eclectic casts of nuanced characters. Ten years on from its original release, Shannon’s debut remains one of the most accomplished and original SFF novels I’ve ever read

  Kate Dylan, author of Mindwalker

• A dark and exquisitely rendered fantasy unlike anything out there. The Bone Season is a must read

  Kami Garcia, No. 1 New York Times bestselling co-author of the Beautiful Creatures series

• Samantha Shannon has a hugely inventive talent and an imagination with seven league boots. She’s hit the ground running

  Susan Hill

• The original version of The Bone Season was brilliant – but the new ‘Author’s Preferred Text’ edition is incredible. Samantha Shannon is a master storyteller and wordsmith, and the care she has taken in the revision shines through on every page. It is a richly rewarding reading experience.

  Katherine Webber, bestselling author of Twin Crowns