Started: 15/05/17
Finished: 01/06/17
Spoilers: No.
This is a strange one for me, for though I enjoyed this for the most part, I didn't connect with it at all. Even now I can't decide if it was great, strong storytelling, or an over-ambitious hot mess.
A little bit of both, I think.
Setting
Scion London - a futuristic city divided into sections and all heavily guarded. It was kind of odd. There were things mentioned that made the city feel really far in the future, like the oxygen bars selling flavoured oxygen, and then there were certain things that made it feel more historical, like sending criminals to the tower to be tortured. It was an interesting setting to be sure, and the history of it all is explained in a big info-dump in the first chapter.
Characters
There were so many characters in this book, but unfortunately I didn't really feel a connection to any of them. Paige was well developed enough, she had a family, a past, traumas that clearly shaped the person she'd become, but I didn't particularly feel any of it. I didn't really care enough about any of these characters to be effected by any character death.
I didn't dislike Paige, nor did I like her. I didn't find her weak or strong. She was just the generic YA chosen-one heroine destined for more.
Plot
This story and this world is so ambitious, it's almost too much. The first chapter is just one big info-dump, but unfortunately, very necessary. Without the massive info-dumps, we'd probably have no clue what the hell is going on.
So it's set in a future London in 2059. From what I can gather London, now Scion London had been colonised (seemingly by the government, but actually by a strange race of immortal beings called Rephaim) and now everything and everyone in the city is controlled and watched. It kind of reminded me of Orwell's 1984 at first.
In this world are clairvoyants, or voyants as they are simply referred to, and they are feared and despised and live in secret from the government.
Paige Mahoney is a Dreamwalker, one of the rarer, higher orders of voyants and she works for a crime syndicate in Scion London breaking into people's minds. So far so complicated, but not so beyond the reaches of comprehension.
Then the story does a full 180 on us and gets way more convoluted. Paige gets taken by the government, who are known for arresting voyants and disposing of them, and she wakes up in an unfamiliar place. Remember that strange race of immortal beings I mentioned earlier, the ones secretly running the city? Yeah, well, this is where things start getting weird.
Paige, and a few dozen other abducted voyants, are now the slaves of these Rephaim, but they are there to be trained as soldiers to combat the threat of Emin on the city. (The Emin are these inhuman beasts that like to eat human flesh btw) If the voyants fail their tests, they become the lowest of the low, slaves and mere entertainment for the others.
Surprise, surprise, Paige is picked to be trained by the most good looking and mysterious Reph there. He's called Warden and he never picks a human to train and he can't seem to stop looking at her. (Guess where this is going - go on! Guess!)
Writing Style
Now I have the overly-farfetched plot out my system, I'll discuss some points I enjoyed and some I didn't.
This is a very fast-paced novel and reads quite quickly. You almost don't notice that it's nearly 500 pages, a daunting task with any book. I admit I struggled to get into it after the whole Rephaim thing was introduced, it just seemed so random, but I eventually got into the swing of things and understood what was going on and started to enjoy it again.
The synopsis on the back of the book heavily indicates this is a book about the crime orders and that Paige breaks into people's minds. I thought it would be about psychic heists, stealing information from important brains, that kind of thing, but it really wasn't. It's like two different plot lines; both work, just not together. Clearly a lot of thought and effort has gone into this, but it's just too much.
Final Impression If I didn't already own the second book in the series, I probably wouldn't be too fussed about continuing, but as I do have it, I'll give it a go and see if the story settles down a bit. Be prepared to concentrate a lot in this book.
*edit from 2019 - I unhauled both books so won't be contonuing the series.
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