It feels like a relief to review a third book in a series and have it not be the final installment. Aren’t you sick of the number of trilogies on shelves lately? Thank goodness Samantha Shannon exists and decided to make a seven book series (to my knowledge). We’re almost halfway through and it ain’t even fully published yet, but here we go reviewing book three!
Clairvoyants are under threat as SCION rolls out technology to detect lower classes of clairvoyants, making them easier to kill on sight. And this is just the start. As the Clairvoyants of London go underground, Mime Queen Paige Mahoney steps up. She seeks out the locations they’re building these devices to work out the root of the problem and destroy it. All the while she meets a new enemy who knows everything about her, and she’s always one step ahead of Paige as she races against one of the coldest human minds in the world.
This had the strongest plot, and by far my most favourite, out of the series thus far. You know what you’re getting from the start, and it delivers like we wish delivery companies wish they would. The goals are clear, the consequences of failure are equally clear and it makes for a very tight plotline. It made for the best pacing in the series yet as each problem Scion’s technology created was solved to the best of the character’s ability.
It was good to see the world built out across the UK and Ireland. As I’ve mentioned again and again, worldbuilding is a strong point of Shannon’s work. And you can tell it with each city Paige and her Mime Order visits. Each had uniqueness and character to distinguish them from each other while still being under the same government and control systems. From the polluted streets of Manchester to the militant Edinburgh and the cultural influences both had. It really brings a lot more character to this dystopia that other novels fail to do or differentiate to a comedic degree. Shannon knows what she’s doing.
Character was starting to fall flat a little bit however. While I like how Paige’s main arc surrounds her newfound leadership position and the decisions she makes surrounding it at times of crisis, it felt underutilised. It disappeared after the first act. Combine that with some other weird decisions she makes to have conflict for the sake of it which winds up being redundant in the end, and you get Paige’s odd arc. Side characters blended together too and were more recognised for their roles than their personalities.
In spite of characters falling flat their relationships were very well grounded and explored. That was where Paige and the other characters shone – with each other. How they each helped with their arcs, betrayed each other, made decisions. That was really engaging. It wound up being very gripping in the climax for spoilery reasons.
All in all, three books in I’m glad I gave this series a chance. Here’s to reading book four in a couple of months!
The Song Rising gets a score of 4/5. We’re continuing very happily with this series.
Yours in writing
Amy