The Bone Season

Samantha Shannon’s debut novel, *The Bone Season*, is a dystopian fantasy that launched a planned seven-book series. Published in 2013 by Bloomsbury, it was also the first pick for NBC’s *Today* show monthly book club. For the series’ tenth anniversary in 2023, Shannon issued an Author’s Preferred Text with major revisions to style, plot, and characters; as of the cutoff date, *The Bone Season*, its sequel *The Mime Order*, and *The Song Rising* have all received such revisions.

Set in 2059, the story follows Paige Mahoney, a high-ranking criminal in London’s underworld. As a dreamwalker—a rare type of clairvoyant—she is considered a traitor under the oppressive Republic of Scion, which has persecuted the unnatural for two centuries. After being arrested for murder, Paige encounters the Rephaim, an otherworldly race who exploit her abilities. To survive and escape, she must rely on every skill she has and trust someone who should be her enemy.

Shannon began writing the novel in summer 2011 while interning for literary agent David Godwin, who had previously rejected her earlier work *Aurora*. Inspired by the Seven Dials area where Godwin’s office was, she imagined a clairvoyant girl having the same workday she did, and started plotting during lunch breaks. She wanted to explore a dystopia that incorporated the supernatural and a second Salem Witch Trials. While studying English at Oxford’s St Anne’s College, she used the walled-off city of Oxford (Sheol I) as a penal colony for persecuted clairvoyants, contrasting the squalor of a shanty town between colleges with the grand buildings where the Rephaim live.

Before release, the book drew comparisons to *Harry Potter*, partly because Shannon signed with Bloomsbury, the same publisher as J.K. Rowling, and because both series were planned for seven books. The media often called her “the next J.K. Rowling,” though Arit John of the *Atlantic Wire* noted the press had compared her to nearly every major female fantasy and sci-fi author. Critical reception was mostly positive. *USA Today* found the premise familiar to *Harry Potter* but praised “fresh ideas, excellent original concepts and … an impressive new voice.” NPR likened it more to *The Hunger Games*, while *The Telegraph* also noted similarities to that series but commended Shannon’s skill in blending familiar elements into an original, escapist