The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon is the second in her dystopian fantasy series – it is the follow on to The Bone Season which I have read and reviewed. It follows straight on from the ending of The Bone Season and deals with the aftermath of the events of that novel. I will say straight off that I enjoyed The Mime Order much more than the series opener. Much of the heavy lifting in terms of worldbuilding has been done – although there is naturally much more to learn – so Shannon is able to concentrate on weaving a strong narrative. What I liked Very strong narrative. For me this worked very well in this book. Our protagonist has a clear, logical goal towards which she is working – the uniting of the clairvoyant underworld to provide a viable opposition to the Raphaim – and while there are lots of twists and turns in the way, it remains the backbone of the story. Personally, I was invested in this plotline and enjoyed watching it coming to fruition. I also felt Shannon kept the plot moving on briskly and had me wanting to keep turning the pages. Engaging protagonist. The…
The Bone Season is Samantha Shannon’s debut dystopian novel and tells the story of clairvoyant Paige and her experiences as a prisoner of the alien Rephaim. I actually found this review quite difficult to write. It has been rescheduled time and time again. This is because, although I have read The Bone Season I’m still not entirely certain how I feel about it. It probably didn’t help that the hype machine was in full flow for this novel claiming that Shannon was the next J.K. Rowling. That set an impossibly high bar for the novel. What I liked The unique world building. The world of The Bone Season feels fresh and unique. There are layers within layers. The novel starts in a dystopian future version of London in which clairvoyance is illegal. This society is nicely described, but then we get another layer of the world of the Rephaim and Emim. The relationship between Paige and Warden. It was pretty clear that Shannon was setting up a romantic relationship between Paige and her keeper, Warden. Initially I was very resistant to that; it seemed such an imbalanced relationship with Warden’s having the power of life and death over Paige. Shannon…