The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon is the third book in The Bone Season series. In this one we pick up right where we left off in The Mime Order. Following the bloody battle for dominion of the London Clairvoyant underground, Paige has risen to the position of Underqueen–high ruler of the most powerful criminals in Scion, London.
This is a position that comes with both power and extreme danger. Now Paige must unite her army of clairvoyants and overcome Scion and it’s supernatural backbone. But a terrible technology threatens them all. Senshield has become portable and with it Scion can hunt down almost all of the clairvoyants.
Now Paige and the Mime Order have literally been forced underground and the rebellion has all but been stopped in it’s tracks. The Mime Order is fractured and hostility within it’s ranks threatens to tear them apart.
Can Paige and her small group of devoted followers stop Senshield and get the rebellion back on track?
So far, this is probably my least favorite book of the series. It wasn’t a bad read but it felt like one of those middle of the series books that has to happen to build up the rest of the series. This is, I believe, going to be a 7 book series after all. The Bone Season and The Mime Order had these epic battle scenes and had really fast paced, gotta save the world moments. Whereas The Song Rising was a bit more political, dotted with mini battles that lead to this moment of separation at the end. Again, this all had to happen but I just wasn’t as captivated as I was with the first two books.
Ever since I’ve read Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, I’ve been sort of captivated by the idea of what’s below London and Shannon sort of gives us another glimpse of this with the Beneath. But I sort of felt like this was a missed opportunity. We don’t really get a big enough peak into what’s there or what could be there. Still it was neat to see the Mime Order be forced underground.
There are things I missed in this book: Warden and Paige, Nick and Zeek (I can’t remember how his name is spelled), more of the Emite, and the development of Paige’s powers. Paige felt like she really took a step back in this one, I missed her training to become more badass.
Okay, so this review feels really negative. This was by no means a bad read but it did feel a little like a filler. It does prepare you for more to come, that’s for sure. I can see all the little forks this book affords us and it’ll be interesting to see when and how all these little plot twists meet up again.
On a gut instinct I gave this one 3.5 stars and I am going to stick with it.
That’s all for now!
-M-
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